Beth Beddall had never given her Black Country accent much thought before she attended college.
However, she started feeling self-conscious and avoided standing up in front of the other students when she started going to seminars during her undergraduate studies at Durham University in 2022.
Beth, who lives in Sandwell, West Midlands, remembers being told by a student who received private education: “You don’t sound like you’re from a private school.”
When she said that she attended a public school, he remarked, “You must be intimidated by us and how we speak.”
The Sutton Trust’s 2022 report on accents and social mobility found that many university students, like Beth, suffer from high levels of accent-based anxiety.
