SCOTTISH universities are failing to properly address accent discrimination and need to do more to recognise the barriers faced by students from working-class and regional backgrounds, according to a leading sociolinguist.
Dr Christian Ilbury, a senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh, said prejudice based on the way people speak remains a significant issue and can have a damaging impact on students' confidence, participation and future opportunities.
Speaking to editor Laura Webster on The National Podcast, Ilbury argued that universities have become increasingly aware of issues surrounding race, gender and disability, but have not given the same attention to language-based discrimination.
It comes after former scholarship student Sophie Rose Jenkins’s account of being excluded from tutorials because peers said they “couldn’t understand her accent” resonated with many this week.
Scores of Scots have gone on to share their own accounts of facing similar experiences in universities, with TV presenter Lorraine Kelly saying she felt "sad and angry" to read Jenkins's story.
Ilbury said accent bias is not confined to universities, but reflects wider attitudes in society.
"When we hear someone speak, we make inferences about that person," he said.
While some assumptions may relate to factors such as age or social background, he warned that people often make judgments about qualities they cannot know from speech alone.
"People also try and infer stuff that they can't know about somebody on the basis of the way that they speak, so like their intelligence, their competence and so on."
According to Ilbury, these attitudes can have real consequences for students in higher education.
He said students from working-class backgrounds can become reluctant to contribute in seminars if attention is drawn to their accent rather than what they are saying.
"What we see is students start, basically, removing themselves from classroom debate – and that's a huge problem for things like social mobility."
He added: "It's a huge problem for widening participation, and we want those voices in the room, otherwise we only ever hear one voice, which we already hear quite a lot."
Ilbury shared that his research has found that accent prejudice can continue to affect people long after graduation.
"We in our research have argued that accent could act and does act now, as a barrier to social mobility," he said.
He suggested some people may avoid pursuing certain careers because they feel their accent does not fit expectations associated with particular professions.
"If I have a regional accent, if I speak like Shetland, maybe I won't go for that job because I'm aware that someone is going to call me out or say that I sound different or inappropriate for that role."
Asked which groups are most affected, Ilbury said the issue disproportionately impacts accents associated with working-class and ethnic minority communities.
"Broadly speaking, it is accents that are associated with working class communities and also accents that are associated with ethnic minority communities."
The academic said widening participation schemes have helped bring greater diversity to university campuses, but argued institutions have failed to keep pace in supporting students who encounter prejudice.
"I don't think anybody's properly set up for this," he said.
"I think that's the issue, is you look at EDI plans across the UK in terms of university governance, none of them have language, none of them have accent.
"They don't recognise it as a problem. So if we can't recognize it's a problem, how can we deal with it?"
Ilbury has been involved in developing anti-accent-bias training at the University of Edinburgh and said the work should be adopted more widely.
The initiative, developed alongside student groups, includes awareness campaigns, conferences and professional development training designed to help staff and students recognise linguistic discrimination.
He argued that prejudices about the way people speak are often dismissed despite decades of academic research.
"People are not putting on a voice," he said, discussing the phenomenon of people adapting their speech to different social situations.
"It is just something we do."
Ilbury also pointed to testimony collected from students who reported being stereotyped because of their accents.
Examples included a student being assumed to live in a council house, another being asked whether their parents worked in coal mines, a Glasgow student having her accent mimicked by a lecturer, and a Liverpool student being called a "dirty Scouser".
He said universities should treat linguistic discrimination with the same seriousness as other forms of prejudice.
"We wouldn't let racism go unchecked in our universities, hopefully, right? And we should not do the same for linguistic discrimination or classism."
Ilbury also backed calls for class to receive greater legal recognition.
Asked whether class should be a protected characteristic, he replied: "Absolutely."
However, he acknowledged there is currently little political appetite for reforming equality legislation.
"As far as I understand, there's no appetite, that's literally what I was told, to reopen the Equality Act."
Despite that, he argued Scotland has an opportunity to take a leading role in addressing the issue through its distinct linguistic landscape and ongoing debates around language policy.
