Teaching about terrorism in the United Kingdom: how it is done and what problems it causes

Abstract

This article presents some of the findings of research on issues surrounding teaching terrorism and political violence at UK higher education institutions. It reports the results of a survey of UK institutions of higher education on their responses to government and other pressures in relation to terrorism. The data show a minority of universities have developed systems, policies or procedures for ‘preventing violent extremism’, while a significant number have developed close cooperation and collaboration with state counterterrorism policies raising potential issues of academic freedom. This article then examines three high-profile cases – incidents where universities, lecturers and students have come under political and legal pressures over the content of terrorism courses or accusations of ‘radicalisation’ on campus. It suggests that these pressures can be and sometimes are resisted, but that they have on occasion effectively narrowed the scope of academic freedom in practise with the danger that a further chilling effect follows in their wake.

Keywords:

• terrorism
• counterterrorism
• higher education
• academic freedom

Acknowledgements

We thank C-SAP for funding the research on which this article is based. We also thank the members of the Teaching about Terrorism group for their various contributions.

Notes

1. For reasons of space, we have not provided full reference details of each response. We have, however, posted all of the data from the survey online. It is accessible from the Teaching About Terrorism page on Powerbase: http://powerbase.info/index.php/Teaching_About_Terrorism.

2. Details of the search terms used are as follows: (BYLINE(melanie phillips) and Islam or Muslim*) and DATE(>=1990-01-01 and <=2009-12-31) [All English Language News] and (BYLINE(melanie phillips) and education) and DATE(>=1990-01-01 and <=2009-12-31) [All English Language News].