British Values Research Articles

Linking research and practice: qualitative social science data collection at a UK comics convention

ABSTRACT The specific space of a comics convention has affected the design and methods of my qualitative social science research into readers’ readings of British comics. In this early-stage paper I first provide context to the comics convention (in this instance Thought Bubble in Leeds, UK) as a space not only for commerce and networking but also for research fieldwork. I then advance my comics-format questionnaire from my own intertwined identity as a researcher and practitioner, as an innovative data collection method that is well suited to the convention environment. Finally, in the context of the Prevent strategy’s reductive attempt to define Fundamental British Values I question whose voices are heard in defining ‘British comics’, a category for which there is no definitive list. Approaching the study of comics at the level of a medium goes beyond any single genre, format, or fandom affiliation, which have previously operated as constraints. Connecting the study of comics with sociocultural theories of language opens a connection between what readers read and how this influences their own understandings and constructions of national identity. As such I cautiously advance a critical social science approach to researching readers’ choices of what they read.

‘Proud to be British; and proud to be Jewish’: the holocaust and British values in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACTAs we approach the post-witness era this paper investigates the changing role of the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors in twenty-first century British politics and culture. In the first part, the article discusses the ways in which, through their role in educational initiatives and commemorative culture, survivors have acquired an increased visibility in British understandings of the Holocaust. For a significant period of time, this process was characterized by a tendency to abstract survivors from their Jewish identities to ensure that they could more easily act as mediators of a universalized, yet highly domesticated, Holocaust narrative with meanings for contemporary British society. However, in the second part the article will argue that, starting from the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is also possible to discern an increasing acknowledgement of British Holocaust survivors’ ‘difference.’ It will be suggested that British politicians have attempted to mobilize survivors, the Anglo-Jewish community they are seen to represent, and the Holocaust more in general, in Britain’s domestic battle against Islamic extremism and in the pursuit of the rather elusive concept of ‘British values.’

Educating Global Britain: Perils and Possibilities Promoting ‘National’ Values through Critical Global Citizenship Education

ABSTRACTGlobal citizenship education (GCE) within schools in England is increasingly being reoriented to address a statutory duty to promote fundamental British values (FBV). This multi-method study investigates the influence of critical GCE within initial teacher education in reshaping awareness, understanding and disposition towards FBV amongst beginning teachers. Findings highlight a tension between growing confidence and understanding of how to implement the FBV agenda and the development of autonomous dispositions of the kind demanded for the practice of critical GCE. Four teacher orientations towards FBV are developed and explored, demonstrating the role of practice-based learning for the cultivation of critical dispositions.

‘Who Is British Music?’ Placing Migrants in National Music History

In 2013, trucks and vans were driving across London, bearing the message ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.’ These mobile billboards declared the number of arrests that had taken place ‘in your area’ in the previous week and provided a number to which people could text the message ‘HOME’ to initiate voluntary repatriation. In 2016, Theresa May, who had organised this scheme as home secretary, became prime minister, following the upheaval caused by the country's plebiscite to leave the European Union. One of the main strands of argument of the successful ‘Brexit’ campaign centred on the ‘deep public anxiety . . . about uncontrolled immigration’ and promised to reduce numbers of immigrants to the country. This desire to control the nation's borders continued to dominate the official soundscape of Britain's government. At the 2016 annual Tory conference, May endeavoured to draw clear lines on issues of belonging, territory, citizenship, and the fuzzy notion of British values, discursively excluding not only migrants, but also anyone with an international(ist) outlook from the national debate: ‘If you believe you are a citizen of the world’, she posited, ‘you are a citizen of nowhere.’

Terrorism in the Nursery: considering the implications of the British Values discourse and the Prevent duty requirements in early years education

This article explores some of the implications of the British Values discourse within early years education and the consequences of the Prevent duty requirements. It highlights some of the ethical dilemmas imposed as a result of the potential securitisation of early years education, and also explores the very ethos of British Values within early years pedagogy.

Faith-Based Education and Equality: Towards an Education of Prejudice? - The Example of Faith Schools in England

While education remains strictly speaking within the realm of the state’s duty, the analysis begins by challenging the assumption that autonomy is primarily perceived as personal autonomy. It then explains how normative pluralism may operate on the level of a functional normative system (creating self-governing institutions within education) in the case of Britain, increasingly combined with a background of religious normativity. Through the use of recent cases on segregation of boys and girls at faith schools, discrimination on admission criteria on the basis on faith to many of these schools as well as the growing discussion of British values taught at those same schools, the analysis will engage with the development of the debate in its broader socio-legal dimensions. Questioning the decline of religiosity in this field, the paper will set out the major challenges for the liberal state that this new ‘arrangement’ creates. Ultimately, it will also ‘re-read’ state-funded religious education as the next phase in the development of normative pluralism towards the protection of specific ethno-cultural groups in super-diverse contexts.

BELONGING, SOCIAL COHESION AND FUNDAMENTAL BRITISH VALUES

ABSTRACTMany of the often complex debates central to the topics of belonging and social cohesion have their origins in contrasting interpretations of the ideal relationship between citizens. Governments across much of the western world continue to struggle to reconceptualise what it is to ‘belong together’ at a time of growing diversity and migration.This article considers three conceptual difficulties involved in the directive for schools to actively promote Fundamental British Values to address this issue. First, the directive fails to refer to any relevant theories around the concept of belonging, one of the major strands of research in social cohesion. The concept of ‘perceived belonging’ is thus introduced to further explore what the bond between citizens ‘looks like’. Secondly, the lack of theory leads to a restriction of the values needed to support the bond. Thirdly, there is then a lack of sufficient clarity of action for how this might be translated into school practice. Finally, I suggest that the directive needs further theoretical engagement to be successful.

Implementing the ‘Prevent Duty’ in England: the semiotisation of discourse and practice in further education

ABSTRACT This paper examines the implementation of the Prevent Duty to actively promote fundamental British values in English Further Education (FE). After critically reviewing the history of Prevent and the 2015 Duty to identify evidence of radicalisation in FE, data from interviews of strategic decision-makers in two distinct cases is analysed. The identification, interpretation and recirculation of verbal, graphic and behavioural signs of radicalisation is highlighted. Pinpointing a ‘semiotisation’ of the Prevent agenda, practical and conceptual implications are discussed. First, we identify a practical preoccupation with signs, specific beliefs about how they work, and how decision-makers deal with them. Second, we divide these beliefs conceptually into univocal and polyvocal semiotisation, referring to the degree to which signs are understood as unequivocal indicators of meaning. We underline significant variations in practice in this context and implications which, we argue, link practice and research to inform the fields of (edu)semiotics and policy enactment.

The Psy-Security-Curriculum ensemble: British Values curriculum policy in English schools

ABSTRACTFramed as being in response to terrorist attacks and concerns about religious bias in some English schools, ‘British Values’ (BV) curriculum policy forms part of the British Government’s Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, 2015. This includes a Duty on teachers in England to actively promote British Values to deter students from radicalisation. This paper, first, traces the history of Britishness in the curriculum to reveal a prevalence of nationalistic, colonial values. Next, an ensemble of recent policies and speeches focusing on British Values is analysed, using a psycho-political approach informed by anti-colonial scholarship. Finally, we interrogate two key critiques of the British Values curriculum discourse: the universality of British Values globally, and concerns over the securitisation of education. Findings indicate that the constitution of white British supremacist subjectivities operate through curriculum as a defence mechanism against perceived threats to white privilege, by normalising a racialised state-controlled social order. The focus is on ‘British’ values, but the analytic framework and findings have wider global significance.

The subjective and objective violence of terrorism: analysing “British values” in newspaper coverage of the 2017 London Bridge attack

ABSTRACT This article examines how Žižek’s analysis of “subjective” violence can be used to explore the ways in which media coverage of a terrorist attack is contoured and shaped by less noticeable forms of “objective” (symbolic and systemic) violence. Drawing upon newspaper coverage of the 2017 London Bridge attack, it is noted how examples of “subjective” violence were grounded in the externalisation of a clearly identifiable “other”, which symbolically framed the terrorists and the attack as tied to and representative of the UK Muslim community. Examples of “systematic” violence were most notable in the ideological edifice that underpinned this framing but also in the ways in which newspaper reports served to draw upon British values in the aftermath of the attack. This directed attention away from the contradictions within the UK, towards narratives that sought to “fix” these contradictions through eradicating the problem of “the other” and/or by violently protecting the British values “they” seek to undermine. As a consequence, newspaper coverage worked to uphold the illusion that “peace” could be achieved by eradicating terrorism through further forms of objective violence, including, internment without trial; the “ripping up” of human rights; and closer surveillance of Muslim communities. Indeed, it was this unacknowledged violence that worked to maintain British values in the press' coverage.

The Contribution of Scots to the Building of British Film and Television Institutions

The relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom has become increasingly uncertain, due in part to growing levels of self-identified cultural difference on the part of Scots. However, this is a relatively new phenomenon and it is instructive to consider the role played by Scots in the founding or development of institutions that in turn have helped propagate discourses of British culture and values. That contribution has been particularly significant in the sphere of film and television. Indeed, Scotland's contribution to British film and television has been arguably far greater than basic demographics would have predicted. Has there been a discernible ‘Scottish’ influence in the history and character of these institutions, and what might this mean for understanding British cultural identity and its more common alignment with Englishness?

School Britannia? Rhetorical and educational uses of 'British values'

Schools in England are now required by law to 'actively promote British values' (DfE, 2014). This paper seeks to set this requirement within the context of a somewhat longer history of debates about values in Britain. It discusses the views of certain neoconservatives who claim that multiculturalism has eroded or even abolished British values. It then discusses the refocusing of the debate in relation to the rise of Islamist terrorism and examines some of the key rhetorical responses of leading UK politicians. The view that 'promoting British values' will strengthen identities and promote social cohesion is challenged. The concluding section of the paper develops an argument focused on liberal values, and stresses the importance in a pluralistic society of prioritizing certain values over others – notably rationality and autonomy – especially in education. Aspects of the work of Amartya Sen, John Rawls, Bernard Crick and Charles Bailey are discussed in this regard.

British Women Education Officers and progressive education for an independent Nigeria

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the work of three British Women Education Officers (WEOs) in Nigeria as the colony was preparing for independence. Well-qualified and progressive women teachers, Kathleen Player, Evelyn Clark (née Hyde), and Mary Hargrave (née Robinson), were appointed as WEOs in 1945, 1949, and 1950 respectively. I argue that the three WEOs endeavoured to reconcile their British cultural values, progressive education, English language instruction, and the intricacies of Nigerian cultures in order to prepare students for life and work in an independent Nigeria. Their roles were diverse, encompassing administration and teaching, teacher education, and leadership of girls’ boarding schools and residential training colleges where English was the language of instruction. Following an outline of the WEOs’ prior experiences, I compare and contrast their approaches to progressive education, beginning with Clark’s endeavours to make girls’ education “a graft that would grow onto and into their own way of life” at the Women’s Training College, Sokoto, in far Northern Nigeria. Then I discuss Robinson’s work in a men’s elementary training college at Bauchi where she dispensed a “down-to-earth practical” progressive education to prospective primary school teachers. Finally, Player gave girls “as complete an education as possible for life as a worker, wife and mother” at Queen Elizabeth School, the first government secondary school for girls in Northern Nigeria. Each situation illustrates the complex social relations involved in realising WEOs’ commitments to progressive education as an emancipatory project.

Gross National Happiness, British Values, and non-cognitive skills: the role and perspective of teachers in Bhutan and England

One of the fundamental debates in education is on what schools should teach, and in the balance between academic content and the role of the school to teach non-cognitive skills and traits. This article explores how teachers think about, and experience, their roles and responsibilities beyond merely deliverers of curricular academic content. We conducted focus groups and classroom observations of teachers in England and teachers in Bhutan. In each case, we discuss the policy and curricular context surrounding the role of schools to society, and in how this translates to the teachers themselves. In this comparison we found some convergence in the expression of stress to deliver an “over-subscribed” curriculum and in the shared nationalistic goals of some sort of values education being offered, but we also found divergence in how teachers thought about their role and relationship to students, school culture, and if educational trends related to non-cognitive skills should be measured and assessed.

'You Should Love Your Country and Should Ever Strive to be Worthy of Your Fatherland': Identity, British Values and St David's Day in Elementary Schools in Wales, c.1885–1920

'You Should Love Your Country and Should Ever Strive to be Worthy of Your Fatherland': Identity, British Values and St David's Day in Elementary Schools in Wales, <i>c</i>.1885–1920

Civic virtue and values teaching in a ‘post-secular’ world

Drawing on empirical data, this article makes a contribution to knowledge through bringing together the apparently disparate elements of contemporary education policy, religion, civic virtue and values teaching, in particular, the teaching of ‘fundamental British values’. I illustrate, through a discussion of the linkages between these elements, how religion remains a strong influence on contemporary education policy, both explicitly with regard to the integration of Muslim ‘others’ and implicitly through the growing popularity of values education in schools. In order to develop this argument, I first outline the extent to which Christianity, often de-theologised, shapes normative Western European values and permeates apparently secular spaces. Second, I identify some school responses to the British values policy and note the importance of the political and social context informed, I argue, by acute anxiety around Islam and extremism. Third, through the discussion of one particular school site, I identify the trend towards emphasising values education in secular schools, and the implicit religious undertones within this. I suggest that we can understand this trend as an instance of the post-secular where religious influences remain strong in apparently secular places, but argue that there are limitations to such an approach to values education in terms of increasing pupil voice and agency.

The Legal Face of Populism: From the Classroom to the Courtroom

This article examines the normative-conceptual contrast between populism and radical democracy against the specific backdrop of two case-studies – the Fundamental British Values discourse in the UK and the French burqa ban. The goals of the article are twofold. First, to enrich the understanding of populism by analysing the interactions between populism, democracy and legal reasoning. Secondly, to offer ways of resisting a populist turn in legal reasoning. I will argue that law’s response to populism should embrace the ideals of radical democracy, namely deliberation and inclusiveness. In order to enhance deliberation and ensure its inclusiveness, I will submit that law should both retreat (from the classroom) and actively riposte against populism (in the courtroom).

Counter-Extremism, Fundamental Values and the Betrayal of Liberal Democratic Constitutionalism

Over the course of the last three years, British Government counter-terrorism policy has shifted significantly to embrace “counter-extremism.” This is justified not only in terms of addressing the underlying causes of terrorism, but also in its own right as addressing the “harm” of extremism. These proposals raise fundamental questions about the limits of religious and other civil liberties. However, the problem of extremism is not new. The German public intellectual and constitutional lawyer Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde reflected extensively on the same problem in the context of German responses to left-wing radicalism in the mid-1970s. His work touched on both concrete legal problems as well as fundamental philosophical assumptions about the nature, characteristics, and limits of the liberal democratic constitutional state. In this article, I seek to retrieve his ideas and arguments for the current British context. I argue that the current discourse of extremism and fundamental British values risks being used as a vehicle for promoting a “progressive” public ideology of individual self-creation. This fails to take moral and religious diversity seriously, and its implementation betrays the foundations of the liberal democratic constitution. It provides striking confirmation of Böckenförde's thesis that the liberal state is perennially prone to a totalitarian tendency to seek to generate its own distinctive ethical community. As Böckenförde recognized, what is needed instead is the recovery of a thin common morality of civic loyalty as shown pre-eminently in obedience to law.

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

Teacher education in England now requires that student teachers follow practices that do not undermine “fundamental British values” where these practices are assessed against a set of ethics and behaviour standards. This paper examines the political assumptions underlying pedagogical interpretations about the education of national identities through documenting how a group of student teachers uphold the institutional demand of promoting fundamental British Values in relation to their discursive constructions of Britishness. Empirical data exemplifies potential political understandings guiding educational practices. Analysis suggests that pedagogies of national education are mediated by (i) educators’ understandings of the nation as an essential entity or a social construct and (ii) their understanding of national identities as being open or closed to competing interpretations. The paper concludes by examining implications of different political and pedagogical positions for practice and research.

Representations of Syrian refugees in the British tabloid press: An illustration of Aylan Kurdi’s tragic event

Abstract Ever since the Syrian crisis broke out, the media representation of the Syrian refugees fleeing political persecution, war and malnourishment has become a central focus of political debates and academic inquiry. Since 2011, the British press reporting of refugees has been mostly problematic, although occasionally it does reflect a diminutive evidence of sympathy. This article aims to analyse the representations of Syrian refugees in the British tabloid press particularity in the wake of Aylan Kurdi’s tragic death. The Framing Analysis approach has been applied on a corpus of 40 articles including features, news reports, editorials and comments pieces from The Sun and Daily Mirror that are of dissimilar political orientation. Initial findings show that the concept of ‘humanity’ is the most distinguished British value supported and endorsed by The Sun and Daily Mirror. At the same time, both tabloids ignored the notorious role of the British government in escalating the Syrian conflict, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the destruction of a country. Given the circumstances of the little boy’s death, this article supports the contention that news is a ‘constructed reality’ that is a product of various social, political and cultural factors including deviant circumstances. This study argues that certain events often receive more media attention than others, whilst many events of a similar nature are mostly ignored.