https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4647-3834
Race and English Education was a high priority of respondents to our Delphi panel on English Education research (EIE 55:4 November 2021). In their Editorial to this special issue (overleaf), Furzeen Ahmed, April Baker-Bell, Dan Clayton and Ian Cushing introduce four articles that examine the present-day manifestations of a historical process in which English classrooms have crafted and maintained linguistic and racial inequality. As the editors state, the articles not only challenge the ways in which hierarchical language ideologies have often become normalised but also suggest how teachers might bring linguistic and racial equality to English classrooms and renew joy and hope in language learning.
The two articles presented in the second section of this issue complement the egalitarian and visionary stance of the first section with reference to the teaching of literature and writing. Elizabeth Rainey, Scott Storm and Gianina Morales argue that the dynamic field of literary studies in higher education can help teachers divest from teacher-directed, right-answer classroom activity and the privileging of canonical texts centring white, male, and western perspectives. Turning to recent studies of the teaching of writing in Australia that reveal the lack of real-world audiences for student writing in contemporary pedagogy, Lucinda McKnight and Susanne Gannon offer a manifesto for an audience-focused approach to writing that foregrounds resilience, agency and sociality.