Spring 2024 Special Edition (Vol. 58, Issue 1) Race, language and (in)equality

Abstract

Language has always played a central part in the crafting and maintenance of racial inequalities in English education. Building on long histories of anti-racist work and activism, scholars have highlighted the different ways in which racialised communities are perceived as displaying linguistic deficiencies and in need of corrective procedures if they are to succeed in school and broader society. For example, Black children are regularly instructed that they must learn to code-switch and modify their language so that it appropriates whiteness (e.g. Baker-Bell 2020); narratives of “word gaps” continue to frame the language practices of racialised children as limited and lacking (e.g. Cushing 2022); curricula rooted in white supremacist and colonial logics continue to dominate classrooms around the world (e.g. Tanner 2019); assessments work to miscategorise Black language and perpetuate anti-Blackness (e.g