Using the programme for creating the controversial School Academies, local governments have attempted to force an integration of schools with majority white and ethnic minority pupil cohorts via new mergers. This has largely been as a response to analysts' fears about self-segregation and insufficient community cohesion, following riots in northern towns in 2001, and the spectre of radicalisation amongst young Muslims following 9/11 and 7/7. An examination of school mergers in Burnley, Blackburn, Leeds and Oldham reveals how they have amplified racial attacks on Muslim pupils and their feelings of insecurity whilst also fuelling a backlash against what is perceived by some members of the white working class as a form of social engineering which endangers white privilege.

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Muslims are folk-devils that mark the ubiquitous moral panic. For some the idea of the Muslim problematic signifies a long and worrying trend of creeping 'Islamification' of state schools. For others, the discourse of the Muslim problematic reflects the ongoing racial patholigisation of Britain's minoritised communities. One thing is for certain, the current debate marks a significant moment in the nature and function of the neo-liberal state as it re-frames race relation policy in Britain in light of the security agenda. The Trojan Horse affair, surrounding claims of infiltration of radical Islam in state run schools, marks a significant moment in the embedding of the security agenda in Britain's inner city schools through the medium of the Prevent agenda. It argues that one of the best ways of understanding the security agenda is by locating it within a broader sociological and historical context of the functioning of the racial state.

To promote early intervention strategies, Countering/Preventing Violent Extremism (C/PVE) policies internationally seek to encourage community reporting by "intimates" about someone close to them engaging in terrorist planning. Yet historically, we have scant evidence around what either helps or hinders "intimates" to share concerns with authorities. We address that deficit here through a "state of the art" assessment of what we currently know about effective related C/PVE approaches to community reporting, based on key findings from a groundbreaking Australian study and its UK replication. The consistency of qualitative findings from nearly 100 respondents offers new paradigms for policy and practice.