Freshers' week at university is a big enough deal for students leaving home for the first time without having to feel self-conscious about their accent.
And it didn't take Ben Jones from Stockport long to realise how it influenced people’s first impressions of him, as he told a new report examining the impact someone’s accent has on their journey through education and into the workplace.
He said: “I was hyper-aware of my accent at university. It is certainly something that people judge you on, they assume that it means you are not well-educated or cultured. The minute you open your mouth – literally – you have a disadvantage.
Read more: Greater Manchester accents: How you think you're perceived by the way you speak
“Someone I had just met once asked me whether my home town was one of those desolate wastelands where the factories used to be. All this ultimately led me to modify the way I spoke at university to fit in.”
Mr Jones, 28, now a senior leader at a school in Bolton, was one of the contributors to the Sutton Trust’s Speaking Up report.
The research said public attitudes to different accents have remained largely unchanged over time, with the standard received pronunciation accent, French-accented English, and “national” standard varieties (Scottish, American, Southern Irish) all ranked highly.
It said accents associated with industrial cities of England, such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham – commonly stereotyped as “working class accents” – and ethnic minority accents (Afro-Caribbean, Indian) are the lowest ranked.
But while a person’s region of origin – particularly the North and Midlands – plays an important part in accent anxiety in earlier life stages, later, in the mid-life stage of professional employment, social class differences are more prominent.
On The Northern Agenda podcast: Why many people in England are prejudiced against people with Northern accents
For both university applicants and university students, those originally from the North were the most likely to be concerned their accent could affect their ability to succeed in the future – 29% of university applicants and 41% at university from the North versus 10% and 19% respectively for those in the south, excluding London.
In its recommendations for employers, the report said: “It is normal for humans to have stereotypical associations with accents. However, if left unchecked, these biases and stereotypes can be used to judge independent skills and abilities, leading to discriminatory behaviour."
For the research, 511 university applicants (largely 17-18 year olds) were surveyed, as well as 1,029 university students, 1,014 early-career professionals and 1,002 later career professionals.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of the Sutton Trust and chairman of the Education Endowment Foundation, said the research provides new evidence on the major role that accents play in social mobility.
“It is disgraceful that people are mocked, criticised or singled out for their accents throughout their education, work and social lives.
“A hierarchy of accent prestige is entrenched in British society with BBC English being the dominant accent of those in positions of authority. This is despite the fact that less than 10% of the population have this accent. Self-consciousness and anxiety about accent bias are present at all stages of life.
“For instance of those in senior managerial roles, 22% from lower socio-economic backgrounds were worried that their accent could affect their ability to succeed, in comparison to 12% from better-off families.
“In order to address accent bias, today’s report recommends that action should be taken to diversify the workplace so that there is a range of accents within the organisation,” he said.
One Newcastle student told researchers: “A lot of times people mock my accent, but that doesn’t particularly bother me. At interviews, I remember one boy from London asking a large group of people if they could “actually understand [my] accent”, which was pretty awful and not a nice first impression of university.”
Katie Zacharczuk, 26, a solicitor born and raised in Liverpool, said it was quite a “culture shock” when she went to university as she had never really been around people who did not talk like her.
She said she was worried about being judged as being “less intelligent” or “not as valuable to an organisation”, but she has never changed her accent and has never felt like she needed to, adding that she feels accepted for the way she speaks.
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