Caryl Phillips has queried the absence, in British fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, of black and brown people from the British Commonwealth who had migrated to the UK in highly significant numbers in this period. His lament echoes earlier observations by Paul Gilroy critiquing similar 'strategic silences' in the work of the widely recognized major figures in British Cultural Studies - Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson. However, puzzlingly, Gilroy appears to exempt Stuart Hall from this critique, despite Hall's exceptionally close connections to the three others. This article argues that, rather than being a matter for recriminations against individuals, the 'strategic silences' are part of a long and deep tradition in the serious analysis of Anglo-British culture. It is further claimed that this tradition continued in a different way even after the entry of 'race' and ethnicity into British Cultural Studies, and even after its later anti-essentialist manifestation. It is suggested that, throughout, a marked reluctance to engage with ordinary black and brown Britons as agentive speaking subjects is discernible. There has been some progress in resolving these problems by aligning the rich theoretical legacy of Hall, Gilroy and others on 'race' and ethnicity, with careful empirical work centring black and brown people as thinking social actors. However, these developments have been limited and slow to appear.

Early appraisals of Harold Rosen's life commented on two related aspects: his socialist allegiances and his concerns for working-class young people and language within the English curriculum (Burgess and Green 2008; Richmond 2008). I did not know Harold Rosen personally, but like other young teachers teaching English language and literacy in London in the 1970s, I was aware of his presence and influence with respect to language and social class. I'll concentrate, here, on one of Rosen's enterprises, which I found enormously encouraging as an endorsement of the continuing importance of the relationship between language and social class as a legitimate area of interest and enquiry, at a time when such an interest was beginning to appear unfashionable. I refer to the book Languages and Dialects of London School Children (hereafter LDLS) which he published, with Tony Burgess, in 1980 (Rosen and Burgess 1980). This work highlighted important issues which, to this day, have only been very marginally addressed. LDLS addressed complex questions of language and social class in London and linked these with ethnicity in a way which is still relevant. I will first identify some of the key concerns pursued by LDLS. After that I'll sketch how some of these matters have been pursued by some other authors, and comment on their influence on my own work. Finally, I'll indicate why the questions LDLS raised about language and social class need to be reinserted into contemporary discourses about language and literacy.

This chapter treats class as a fundamental source and sign of inequality in the contemporary world and its historical precursors. Drawing upon sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research, which demonstrates that language use is a highly sensitive index of social inequality and the prejudices that flow therefrom, we examine the interaction between class, race, and language hierarchies in both the developed and developing world. We discuss as well the Janus face of education: the setting in which language diversity is interpretively encountered and the institution through which language hierarchy is legitimated. A paradox runs through this chapter. In the latter decades of the twentieth century, academic attention and public discourse shifted away from the role of class inequalities in society and schooling, focusing instead on important questions of racial and gender inequities. Evidence shows, however, that economic inequality greatly increased in those very same decades, feeding processes of social polarization and crises in education systems now experienced throughout the world. Our conclusion traces this history and polarization in terms of “continuing realities of stratification.” Adequate understanding of these realities will require nuanced research approaches to their interrelated social, linguistic, and educational dimensions.

Researching ethnicities and cultures using an ethnographic perspective is not an easy matter. In the first place, there is the question as to whether the researcher should investigate ethnic and cultural formations as an in-group or out-group member. In the former guise there is the well-known risk of missing what is strange about the familiar. The latter stance lays the researcher open to accusations of inauthenticity and of fundamentally misunderstanding, patronising or misrepresenting the group under study. This problem is particularly marked where the group concerned has historically suffered severe forms of domination, racism and stereotyping. Linked to these difficulties, are those concerning ways in which research data can be elicited in the least exploitative fashion and judging what degree of prominence should be given to the direct expression of the world view of the research informants. Despite these potential impediments, this chapter sets out (i) why it is nevertheless important to carry out such research in Britain (ii) some of the difficulties involved (iii) how my research addresses these problems.