Dr Ian Cushing: Designing futures of linguistic justice

The Centre for Identities and Social Justice at Goldsmiths, University of London is delighted to invite you to Dr Ian Cushing's talk: Designing futures of linguistic justice: teachers dismantling deficit thinking

Event Location: This is a hybrid event. In-person: Goldsmiths Deptford Town Hall, Room 102 and online. A zoom link will be send to all registered attendees on Thursday 21 May.

Dr Ian Cushing is Senior Lecturer in Critical Applied Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research focuses on documenting and dismantling deficit thinking in schools, especially in relation to language and its intersections with race and class. This work takes place in close collaboration with teachers. His 2022 monograph, Standards, Stigma, Surveillance: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and England’s Schools won the British Association of Applied Linguistics book prize, and he was the recipient of the 2023 Outstanding Contribution to Research award from the National Association for the Teaching of English.

Dr Cushing writes: 'Deficit thinking is a person-centred, victim-blaming ideology which deflects attention away from structural injustices and frames marginalised communities as deficient and requiring remediation – especially about language, and especially in schools. Whilst such ideologies are long-standing and pervasive, recent work has exposed a resurgence of deficit thinking about language in England’s education policy architecture. This talk examines efforts by teachers to dismantle deficit thinking in the pursuit of linguistic justice. It draws on data from a longitudinal project where I collaborated closely with a group of teachers in coordinated attempts to dismantle deficit thinking at individual, departmental, and institutional levels. As part of this collaboration, we designed a flexible, proactive framework for anti-deficit struggles about language. This included rejecting dominant language ideologies; teachers as activists; cross movement solidarity and collective struggles; institutional support; building on historical efforts, and abolitionist visions for transformative change. I talk through aspects of this framework and how it offered teachers spaces for engaging in linguistic justice efforts.'