My work examines language and inequality in schools, with a particular focus on how policies concerned with language are shaped by standard language and raciolinguistic ideologies.

Grants in progress

BERA BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant. 2021. Sounding right, sounding white: language, race and curriculum in secondary education. 

EHU RIF. 2021. Transatlantic language policing: stigma and surveillance in UK and USA schools.

United Kingdom Literacy Association. 2021. “You’ll never be as good as the white kids in their language”: Using children’s literature to explore, challenge and resist intersectional language discrimination. 

Recent publications

Cushing, I & Snell, J. (in press). The (white) ears of Ofsted: a raciolinguistic perspective on the listening practices of the schools inspectorate. Language in Society.

Cushing, I & Carter, A. (2021). Using Young Adult fiction to interrogate raciolinguistic ideologies. Literacy. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lit.12277

Cushing, Georgiou, A & Karatsareas, P. (2021). Language policing in mainstream and complementary schools in the UK. Special issue of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2021.1933894

Cushing, I & Helks, M. (2021). Exploring primary and secondary students’ experiences of grammar teaching and testing in England. English in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2021.1898282

Cushing, I. (2021). Policy mechanisms of the standard language ideology in England’s education system. Journal of Language, Identity and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1877542

Cushing, I. (2021). Language, discipline and ‘teaching like a champion’. British Educational Research Journal 47(1): 23-41. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3696

Cushing, I. (2020). Grammar tests, de facto policy and pedagogical coercion in England’s primary schools. Language Policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-020-09571-z

Cushing, I. (2020). ‘Say it like the Queen’: the standard language ideology and language policy making in English primary schools. Language, Culture and Curriculum. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2020.1840578

Cushing, I. (2020). The policy and policing of language in schools. Language in Society 49(3): 425-450. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404519000848

Cushing, I. (2020). Power, politics and language education policy mechanisms: a response to Hudson. Language in Society 49(3): 461-475. https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740452000038X