Building a terrorist house on sand: a critical incident analysis of interprofessionality and the Prevent duty in schools in England

ABSTRACT

In 2015, a duty came into effect requiring all public bodies, including schools, to engage with the UK Government’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. This article presents two case studies from mid-size English cities, exploring the moral prototypes and institutional identities of professional mediators who made schools aware of their duties under Prevent. Mediators in each case included serving and former police, teachers and policy advisers, the majority of whom are now private consultants or operating small 3rd sector agencies. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 14 professionals, the article details the ways in which participants constructed their relationship to normative, deliberative and legal obligations. The article focuses on the recurrence of a high profile critical media incident in which a young child was allegedly subject to a referral for writing about living in a ‘terrorist’ (rather than ‘terraced’) house. Reaction to this incident was archetypal of the fear of media moral panic in reconstituting mediators’ identities as Prevent professionals, illustrating how the enframing of events shifts professional moral codes, policy interpretation and implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• Prevent
• counter-extremism
• moral panic
• professional identity

Acknowledgments

The research findings discussed in this article are the result of British Academy/Leverhulme grant SG151930: The influence of securitisation on Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development in England’s schools.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Although this is made problematic in the case of the Prevent duty, as security is a reserved power, while education is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

2. A pseudonym.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Academy [SG151930].

Notes on contributors

David C Lundie

David C Lundie is Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, UK. His research interests are around religion, values and community cohesion in education. His PhD from the University of Glasgow was part of a UK-wide study into religion, community cohesion and schooling. He has published on approaches to teaching for dialogue and tolerance in intercultural education, and is the recipient of a British Academy/Leverhulme grant for an investigation into the influence of securitisation on schools in England. He is the Associate Editor of the British Journal of Religious Education.