An academic at a teacher training college has claimed efforts to improve vocabulary in schools are ‘racist, classist and ableist’.
Ian Cushing, lecturer in English and Education at Edge Hill University, believes tackling the ‘word gap’ – the difference between the language range of typical middle class and working class or disabled youngsters – has ‘colonial’ roots.
In a study funded by his employers, he argues that helping children to learn standard English ‘perpetuates racial and class hierarchies’.
