An anti-racist English education

Cushing, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1752-1411 and Govender, Navan (2024) An anti-racist English education. English in Education, 58 (3). pp. 240-257. ISSN 0425-0494

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Abstract

In this conceptual article we offer a vision and a manifesto for an anti-racist English education, focusing particularly on language. Locating our work with anti-racist efforts in the UK, we conduct a brief historical reflection of these efforts, before turning our attention to the current politico-economic context and making a case for the urgent need for English teachers and teacher educators to commit to anti-racism within their work. We then outline what contemporary anti-racist efforts in English education might look, sound, and feel like. We argue for a greater attention to intersectional positionalities and activism in English education. We argue for anti-racist language policies which work in dialogue with other broader anti-racist efforts. We argue for the need to pay attention to specific contexts and racialised dynamics of institutions and local communities. We argue for anti-racist pedagogical stances which seek to sustain the language practices of marginalised children. Finally, we end with some clarifications and warn against seeing our manifesto as a reductive, tick-box exercise.