Edinburgh University staff given 'accent bias' training to tackle Scottish discrimination
Edinburgh University staff given 'accent bias' training to tackle Scottish discrimination
news.stv.tv
Edinburgh University staff given 'accent bias' training to tackle Scottish discrimination
Good to see Edinburgh trying to change. I do suspect that unless it sees more Scottish accents in staff and intake that it won't change much. But it's a good move
Just don't mention the black hole
I've never really got this whole class thing, in the centre of Edinburgh generally but mainly the University. It seems bizarre to me that you get hammered for speaking like a Scot... in the capital city of the country.
It works both ways to a certain degree. The Edinburgh Uni folk were known (perhaps still are) as "the ya's" based on... you guessed it, the way they speak - in this instance, the way they articulate the word "yes" as opposed to the standard Scottish "yasssss" for expressing positive surprise at something good.
It's weird how the elitism is generally confined to the city centre though. It doesn't even register on the scale at Napier; isn't really prevalent at Heriot Watt (even with the ludicrous amount of petrodollars going in to the Uni); and both Edinburgh College and Queen Margaret Uni are seen as more grounded establishments anyway.
Even in other home nations, Cardiff Uni has a more prestigious reputation than UWIC or Cardiff Met or whatever it's called these days - but nothing that brings it into the national headlines every couple of months. Weird.
It is on a scale unlike other places I suspect in Edinburgh University. You only have to glance at the faculty to see that locals from Edinburgh are a very much a minority, and Scotland in general is pretty small. Which mean that biases do creep in. And as much as I love Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh, they have done a fair bit of harm to the appearance of the Scottish accent unlike a Welsh or Newcastle accent.