Britishness as racist nativism: a case of the unnamed ‘other’

Abstract

The construct of Britishness, as with nationalism elsewhere in the world, although amorphous and permeable over time, continues to be used by politicians and the media as a powerful exclusionary force. Moreover in England, fundamental British values (FBV), its most recent and official incarnation, now hold particular currency in education policy and regulatory mechanisms. This paper employs the concept of racist nativism, developed to explain the dialectic relationship between nativism and racism in America, to analyse both political constructions of Britishness with media portrayals of this and student-teachers' comprehension of FBV as an aspect of the Teacher standards in England. The underlying premise here is that understanding student-teachers' perceptions requires an understanding of the social context in which they are learning to teach. The paper explores relations between these; distinct differences between the manifestations of racist nativism in the sociopolitical context, compared to student-teachers' perceptions in a professional context highlight perturbing issues for critical teacher-educators. Furthermore, the two analyses support articulation of the operationalisation of racist nativism in a context outside of the specific racial context of America. As this is manifested in subtly but importantly different ways than previously considered, the analysis also offers elaboration on the concept of racist nativism itself.

Keywords:

• Britishness
• fundamental British values
• racist nativism
• media
• whiteness