Teaching (about) Britishness? An investigation into trainee teachers' understanding of Britishness in relation to citizenship and the discourse of civic nationalism

Abstract

This research was prompted by the developing political discourse proposing the teaching of Britishness and British values in the context of the United Kingdom. This discourse will be reviewed in the first part of the article, in the context of previous work which has sought to assess how Britishness and related concepts might be promoted through education. The second part will be based on questionnaire responses from a sample of students following post-graduate initial teacher training programmes in a number of higher education partnerships. It indicates that, while political discourse and educational policy have sensitised trainee teachers to the agenda, there remains a deep uncertainty and misgiving about this as an educational objective.

Political assumptions underlying pedagogies of national education: The case of student teachers teaching ‘British values’ in England

“…Two of our participants demonstrated, as others have done before (Jerome & Clemitshaw, ), a critical account of the notion of Britishness. Although these student teachers were willing to problematise other topics, giving pupils space to discuss their views, they explicitly rejected discussing British values.…”

“…Student teachers could also reject educating national identities (Hand & Pearce, ). They could take a ‘critical stance’ while ‘generally refusing to promote simple or simplistic messages on behalf of politicians’ (Jerome & Clemitshaw, , p. 39). Here, however, student teachers might simply be asserting ‘personal views rather than societal shared values’ (Peterson, , p. 29) and this will trigger other ethical considerations (Biesta, ).…”

The marginalisation of social justice as a form of knowledge in teacher education in England

“…For example, the 1993 competences issued under a Conservative government contain absolutely no guidance or reference for newly qualified teachers to be able to address any issues related to equality (Smith, 2013) While we would not wish to claim too much from the findings of the study by Jerome and Clemitshaw (2012), it is important to acknowledge, as Bowe, Ball and Gold (1992) suggest, that practitioners (including those being educated to be teachers) do not necessarily interpret policy texts naively. They have their own histories and values and they also work within their own particular institutional constraints.…”

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.…”