Challenging anti-Black linguistic racism in schools amidst the ‘what works’ agenda

ABSTRACT Education policy in England’s schools is driven by the ‘what works’ agenda, characterised by interventions claiming to be scientifically objective and evidence-led. In this article I show how what works interventions reproduce anti-Black linguistic racism because to be perceived as someone who is ‘working’, racialised children must assimilate their language practices towards idealised whiteness. I present case studies of two teachers working in low-income, majority Black schools who rejected what works interventions concerning a commercially produced curriculum package and the so-called word gap, both of which framed racialised children as displaying linguistic deficiencies in need of correcting. I describe various institutional oppositions the teachers faced, including having their own language, expertise and evidence questioned by white management. I argue that the what works agenda is crafted by the state to delegitimise anti-racist efforts, and that for the state, what counts as ‘working’ is simply the reproduction of idealised linguistic whiteness.