British values and British identity: Muddles, mixtures, and ways ahead

Abstract

In the final eleven months of its five-year term, the Coalition Government placed much emphasis in the education system on what it called fundamental British values (FBV). The phrase had its origins in counter-terrorism strategies that were of dubious validity both conceptually and operationally, and the trigger for its introduction into the education system (the so-called Trojan Horse letter in Birmingham) was a malicious forgery. Nevertheless the active promotion of FBV became a legal or quasi-legal requirement, was zealously inspected by Ofsted under instructions from the secretary of state, and was complemented and reinforced by new requirements under counter-terrorism and security legislation. Much damage appears to have been done already in schools and universities and more damage is likely. Much critical, corrective, and restorative work therefore needs now to be done. For restorative work to be effective a range of measures is needed: substantial discussion and clarification through dialogue; greater respect for the professional experience and insights of teachers and subject communities, particularly in the fields of citizenship education, history teaching, religious education, and spiritual, moral, social, and cultural (SMSC) development; greater trust and cooperation, both nationally and at local levels, between Muslim and nonMuslim organizations and communities; greater attention to Islamic values, wisdom, and pedagogy in the field of education; renewed emphasis on the role of Her Majesty's Inspectorate as a critical friend who identifies, commends, and promotes good practice; and much higher levels of due regard for the values enshrined in equalities legislation.

Fundamental British Values and citizenship education: tensions between national and global perspectives

“…Significantly, the Department for Education insisted that fundamental British values were to be promoted not through Citizenship, where they could be discussed and debated, but rather through a whole school ethos. From 2014, inspectors judge schools on the extent to which they promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of their students, and they particularly evaluate the extent to which schools 9 specifically promote and teach Fundamental British Values (Department for Education, 2014; Richardson, 2015).…”

“…However, the close relationship between international or universal standards and national legislation and the culture of national public life has rarely been invoked by political leaders in the UK. Instead, there has been a series of rhetorical interventions promoting a nationalised conception of citizenship that tends to promote an essentialised national identity, sometimes referred to as Britishness (Osler, 2008;Richardson, 2015). This may be part of a more general trend towards individualism and nostalgic national patriotism that has become a powerful political discourse in many national contexts in the 21 st century and risks spreading to schools and education systems (Mitchell 2003).…”

Disrupting colonial discourses in the geography curriculum during the introduction of British Values policy in schools

“…Revival of 'civic nationalism' (Jerome & Clemitshaw, 2012) and the exacerbation of racial and cultural tensions and alienation and stigmatization of Muslims as a result of the BV policy (Struthers, 2017;Richardson, 2015;Tomlinson, 2015) arouse suspicion of benevolent BV policy language. Both Gillborn's (2005) demonstration of the normalization of white supremacy through education policy in England and the author's (Winter and Mills, under review) research that evidences the embeddedness of racism in BV policy, raise questions around the comforting myths of BV policy language of 'mutual respect' , 'tolerance' , 'appreciation of' , 'harmony' and 'respect for their own and other cultures' (DfE, 2014a(DfE, , 2014b.…”

“…Awareness of 'homegrown' British terrorists, such as the London 7/7 bombers, the Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi, together with the recruitment of three young Muslim women by ISIS led to fears about English schools becoming sites of extremism and radicalization. In the 2014 Trojan Horse affair, claims were made that Muslim fundamentalists influenced school governance (Clarke, 2014;Richardson, 2015). In response, the Department for Education published the new BV curriculum policy where British Values consist of 'democracy' , the 'rule of law' , 'liberty' , 'mutual respect' and 'tolerance of different faiths and beliefs' .…”

The counter-terrorist campus: Securitisation theory and university securitisation – Three Models

“…In other words, the negative reaction is not so much political, still less party political, than negative as to the very processes of security intrusion itself. Thus, because the Prevent Agenda aims to prevent radicalisation and counter extremism, its critics will say -again universallythat far from providing security for British life, it undermines it by alienating Muslim majorities, the emphasis on 'fundamental British values', which the Prevent programme also espouses simply further distancing people from them, often to the point of scorn and derision as to the notion of British values themselves (see Richardson 2015). Among the few senior UK academics who challenge this scepticism is Glees (2015) for which exercise of academic free expression he has been subject to criticism (Durodie 2016).…”