Teachers Challenging Language Discrimination in England’s Schools: A Typology of Resistance

Abstract

Recent media coverage and academic scholarship has repeatedly demonstrated that language discrimination is embedded and normalised in England’s schools. We consider language discrimination as a structural phenomenon underpinned by language ideologies which frame the language practices of racialised and working-class communities as deficient. In this article we report on project where we worked closely with a group of teachers who identified as critical, activist educators who were seeking to challenge language discrimination in their classrooms and wider institutions. Our data stems from in-depth interviews and case studies with teachers, where we explored their anti-language discrimination efforts at individual, departmental, and institutional levels. We present a typology for anti-language discrimination efforts, capturing the importance of teacher positionality and stance; research informed practice; community organising; locating local issues of language stigma within broader geopolitical patterns of inequality; individual classroom efforts, and institutional support for critical language work.