Prevent/Ing critical thinking? The pedagogical impacts of Prevent in UK higher education

Abstract

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Listening to Muslim Students’ Voices on the Prevent Duty in British Universities: A Qualitative Study

“…This entails that universities as spaces of 'open' critical debate is undermined by Prevent. Danvers (2021) argues that the fact that 'surveillance' has entered into pedagogic relations prevents critical thinking and limits freedom of expression, especially for Muslim students on the basis that they are seen as vulnerable to radicalisation. To this end, Prevent creates a pedagogic context whereby Muslim students and their ideas are seen as either 'suspicious' or 'guilty' (Danvers, 2021).…”

“…Danvers (2021) argues that the fact that 'surveillance' has entered into pedagogic relations prevents critical thinking and limits freedom of expression, especially for Muslim students on the basis that they are seen as vulnerable to radicalisation. To this end, Prevent creates a pedagogic context whereby Muslim students and their ideas are seen as either 'suspicious' or 'guilty' (Danvers, 2021). Durodie (2016: 21) highlights 'the overt and covert linkages between security and education', in light of growing concerns over radicalisation and extremism, especially amongst Muslim youth.…”

Working with critical reflective pedagogies at a moment of post-truth populist authoritarianism

“…Universities have been shaped through histories of colonial, racialised, gendered, classed and other forms of oppression and epistemic violences (Bhambra, Gebrial, and Nisancioglu 2018;Reay, Crozier, and Clayton 2010;Spivak 1988). They continue to be sites of reproduction of white supremacy and multiple forms of oppression, manifest through the enactment of the Prevent agenda (Phipps 2017;Danvers 2021), prevalence of racist incidents (EHRC 2019), gender-race pay gap (Bhopal 2019), discrimination against Black and minority ethnic students (UUK / NUS 2019) and provision of platforms to known misogynistic, white supremacist and eugenicist speakers 2 despite resistance. Nevertheless, universities are targets of media and political vitriol (Read 2018) due to a perceived emphases on social justice issues.…”

“…Continued validation, support and perpetuation at the highest levels for misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic and racist hate speech and actions has created a volatile, unpredictable climate (Giroux 2021). Concurrently, the Prevent agenda has meant university staff are required to report signs that students are in danger of being drawn into extremism; however, this was introduced against a backdrop of anti-Islam rhetoric (as opposed to explicitly tackling far-right extremism) (Phipps 2017;Danvers 2021) and set against a 'hostile environment' policy climate.…”

“…This moment prompts reconsiderations of curricula and pedagogical approaches (Alexander 2019;Burke and Carolissen 2018;Elwell and Buchanan 2019) with decolonial, feminist and critical frameworks offering ways forward (Bhambra, Gebrial, and Nisancioglu 2018;Giroux 2021). While critical thinking has been usefully problematised (Danvers 2018(Danvers , 2021 and the value of reflection as a teaching tool previously explicated (Bolton and Delderfield 2018), there has been limited attention paid to critical reflection specifically as a response to current reactionary discourses (Read 2018), and so this paper aims to address this, offering contextualised practice examples attending to student/ teacher positionalities. This case study presents critical reflection utilised within social justice-orientated teaching on year-long social sciences foundation course in the South of England, aimed at supporting widening participation through preparing students for undergraduate study.…”