All of this suggests that, when considering the clash of linguistic forms in the school context, there are a number of important elements to bear in mind. These centre upon the fact that a group's speech patterns may be at once generally non-prestigious and essential for identity (see also Day, 1982). Here, we should recall some of the findings of Giles and his colleagues (Giles and Powesland, 1975). Drawing upon Lambert's (1967) distinction among the personality dimensions of competence, personal integrity and social attractiveness, it was found that although non-standard dialects and accents typically are evaluated less favourably on scales reflecting the competence dimension, they often evoke higher ratings in terms of the latter two factors. This may be related to the notion of ingroup solidarity, in as much as speakers of non-standard forms may be judged as trustworthy, friendly, warm, etc., without necessarily being seen as competent. While this pro- vides some comfort for non-standard speakers, it cannot be denied that the scales relating to competence (e.g. intelligence, industriousness, ambition and confidence) are of some particular importance, especially within educa- tional and other institutional settings (see Kalin, 1982).