This article suggests following the inductive discovery of educational processes affiliated with language and its correct usage ("verbal hygiene ") that take place in lessons in a low socio-economic class high school (and do not take place in lessons in a high socio-economic class high school) in Israel, which operate as a practice of microaggression.

This broad objective encompasses three specific research questions:

1)      What characterizes the “incorrect language” (what is also called by the teachers, “They have their own language”) of the students from the low socio-economic class?

2)      How does the intense preoccupation of the teachers in correcting the language of the students act as a unique practice of microaggression (and everyday racism)?

3)      How do the language corrections create a specific educational experience among the students from the low socio-economic class that in turn reproduces the ethno-class social stratification?

 Theoretical Framework

The main theoretical framework of this article is the study of microaggressions. Microaggressions have been defined as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group” (Sue et al. 2007, 273). Prominent examples of microaggression are sentences such as, “I don’t see color,” and “You’re different from the others.” Other examples are the mispronouncing of the first and last names of Hispanic and African American students (Kohli and Solórzano 2012), being ignored or being given slow service (Sue et al. 2007).

Since microaggression is an expression of everyday racism, this article also utilizes anthropological and sociological studies of education that report the manner in which schools across the globe relate to issues of ethnicity, race, and racism. One of the comprehensive findings in this regard illustrates the preference of teachers and principals to dissociate themselves from open preoccupation with the matter (Pollock 2004). This dissociation is portrayed as being accompanied by practices of silence and silencing or other practices that highlight the school’s neutrality with regard to racism.

Since this article deals in language and education, I will also use the widespread findings in this field. Many findings cite how the language of students from “marked” groups (in terms of ethnicity, race, and poverty) is chronicled as "lacking" and "deficit", whereas the language of students from the high socio-economic class is described as “standard” (Labov 1972), and thus privileged (Bernstein 1974). 

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