Venue: Online
Date: Thursday, 25th February 2020
Time: 17:30-19:00

Speakers

• Dr. Richard Race, Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at the University of Roehampton London (Chair)
• Prof Hazel Bryan, Dean of the School of Education and Professional Development at the University of Huddersfield
• Prof Paul Thomas, Professor of Youth and Policy in the Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society (HudCRES) at the University of Huddersfield
• Adam Lang, Former secondary headteacher and PhD research scholar at University College London, University of London

This event is free and open to the public (no registration required). You can watch the live stream and join the conversation on our YouTube channel.

Abstract

What is Britain in February 2021, two months after Britain has left the European Union? Was the creation of the national curriculum a Brexit policy, 30 years before Brexit? When researching or teaching Fundamental British Values (FBV), do we need to go beyond The Queen, Tea, Fish and Chips, and the Union Jack to recognise the cultural diversity within four different nations, let alone one city or nation? What will the revised Prevent Duty policy look like? Are enough teachers teaching Prevent and using the opportunity to discuss radicalisation and terrorism, as well as drugs, gangs, neglect, and sexual exploitation in classrooms and lecture theatres? Today’s event brings together three specialists who have all carried out research into FBV and Prevent. They bring empirical evidence and applied ideas to the questions above, as well as the ongoing and evolving dialogues that continue to affect us politically, culturally, socially, and educationally.

About Richard Race

Dr Richard Race is Senior Lecturer in Education at Roehampton and Visiting Professor in Education at Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. He is the editor of the collection, Advancing Multicultural Dialogues in Education (2018, Palgrave Macmillan) and author of the monograph, Multiculturalism and Education (2015, 2nd Ed., Bloomsbury). His current research interests are Integration and Education Policy-Making (contracted monograph with Palgrave Macmillan) and he is co-editing with Dr Marlon Moncrieffe, a British Education Research Association (BERA) Newsletter on Decolonizing the Curriculum (forthcoming in 2020).

Presentations

‘Shadow-Boxing’- The Prevent duty and its impact on English secondary schools and school leaders by Adam Lang

Abstract

In July 2015, a legal duty came into force requiring that ‘specified authorities’ in England, which included schools, show ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. This is popularly referred to as the ‘Prevent Duty’. Prevent, developed by the Home Office in 2003 out of full public scrutiny, and only fully operationalised following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, has consistently been the most contentious element of the UK Government counter terrorist strategy CONTEST. This duty, which had not existed in previous periods such as the Troubles, created new challenges and demands for school leaders in carrying out their work (Riley in Earley and Greany 2017). My presentation will share some of the key findings from my research in different English secondary schools in a variety of geographical regions with different school populations and serving different communities. How is Prevent impacting on schools, on the professionalism of school leaders, and on concepts such as ‘free speech’ in schools (Durodie 2016) and ‘securitisation’? I interviewed a range of school leaders of differing experience working in LEA schools, academies, mixed and single sex, Faith schools, and schools with post-16 provision. My work illuminates how the ‘Prevent Duty’ has been enacted by school and college leaders in secondary schools and colleges in England; and finds a mixed and messy response to policy and challenges some scholars findings that school leaders have largely accepted the need for Prevent (Busher et al 2017;2019). I utilise the work of Stephen. J. Ball on policy enactment (Ball 1993, 2017, 2018) exploring different policy actor positions (Ball et al 2011). I draw on the recent work of scholars Vincent (2018; 2020) on ‘Fundamental British Values’.

Biography

Adam Peter Lang is a former secondary head teacher. He was for over thirty years a London secondary teacher and for twenty of those a secondary school leader working in a range of diverse London schools. He now is at UCL working as a PhD research scholar and teaching on Citizenship programmes. He is actively involved with a number of organisations including BERA and the Dialogue Society. He is also an education leadership consultant engaged with a number of national and international projects. He writes and comments in the media on education.

The Prevent Effect and Fundamental British Values: Radicalisation, National Identity and Britishness by Prof Hazel Bryan

Abstract

With its genesis in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, the Prevent duty is the responsibility placed upon certain members of society to prevent radicalisation and extremism. In terms of education, this duty should be understood in concert with the statutory requirement to promote (fundamental) British values enshrined in the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2012). Both the Prevent duty and the concept of fundamental British values have generated significant questions: has there been chilling effect on freedom of speech? is there an Islamophobic undertone to these initiatives? in what ways are Ofsted inspections, school resources, the curriculum, and approaches to diversity affected? This presentation draws on two research projects (the first study to research the impact of FBVs and Prevent on Initial Teacher Education and the first study to research how Head Teachers are navigating these statutory requirements), Bryan and Revell’s book titled ‘Fundamental British Values in Education: Radicalisation, National Identity and Britishness’ and their forthcoming book (with Elton-Chalcraft) on the ‘Prevent Effect’ to interrogate these issues.

Biography

Professor Hazel Bryan is Dean of the School of Education and Professional Development at the University of Huddersfield. Hazel is Chair of the International Professional Development Association (IPDA) and Chair of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) Research and International Forum. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Education Studies (SES), sits on the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Educational Studies, and is co-editor of the journal ‘Practice: contemporary issues in practitioner education’. Her research interests are situated at the interface between education policy and values and since 2011 she has researched extremism, radicalisation, and education. Hazel is co-convener of the World Education Research Association (WERA) International Research Network ‘Education and Extremism’.

The Prevent Strategy and anti-extremism education in English schools by Prof Paul Thomas

Abstract

This presentation will analyse the key findings from the first national study on how educators in English schools and colleges are understanding and implementing the counter-terrorism Prevent Duty (Busher et al, 2017;2019). Carried out by the author and colleagues, this study found educators largely accepting of the need for Prevent, and particularly of its framing of Prevent as a form of safeguarding, with these findings confirmed by subsequent empirical studies (Busher and Jerome, 2020). Findings on the Government’s other key pillar of the Prevent Duty, upholding ‘Fundamental British Values’ through the curriculum, were more complex, and the presentation will reflect on this in the context of the Prevent Strategy’s changes and developments. Here, the presentation will draw on research around previous iterations of Prevent (Thomas, 2012; 2016) to analyse the Strategy’s continued limitations around the development of effective anti-extremism education (Davies, 2008), and with equipping and supporting educators to develop educational dialogue that encourages engagement with complexity of both ideas and identifications in the face of extremist threats offering simplistic and binary understandings of the world to young people.

Biography

Paul Thomas is Professor of Youth and Policy in the Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society (HudCRES) at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Paul’s research focuses on how the Prevent Strategy and broader multiculturalist policies such as Community Cohesion have been enacted by ground-level educational practitioners and experienced by communities. A qualified youth and community worker, Paul previously worked for the Commission for Racial Equality. His latest book (with Miah and Sanderson) is ‘Race’, Space and Place in Northern England: The M62 Corridor of Uncertainty (Palgrave, 2020), and he also contributed chapters to ‘The Prevent Duty in Education’ (Palgrave, 2020, free to download).