The enactment of the counter-terrorism “Prevent duty” in British schools and colleges: beyond reluctant accommodation or straightforward policy acceptance

ABSTRACT

When Britain imposed the “Prevent duty”, a legal duty on education, health and social welfare organisations to report concerns about individuals identified as at-risk of radicalisation, critics argued it would accentuate the stigmatisation of Muslim communities, “chill” free speech, and exacerbate societal securitisation. Based on 70 interviews with educational professionals and a national online survey (n = 225), this article examines their perceptions of how the duty has played out in practice. It then provides an explanation for why, contrary to expectations, not only has overt professional opposition been limited, but there has been some evidence of positive acceptance. It is argued that these findings neither simply reflect reluctant policy accommodation nor do they simply reflect straightforward policy acceptance, but rather they comprise the outcome of multi-level processes of policy narration, enactment and adaptation. Three processes are identified as being of particular importance in shaping education professionals’ engagement with the duty: the construction of radicalisation as a significant societal, institutional and personal risk; the construction of continuity between the Prevent duty and existing professional practices; and the responsibilisation of first-line professionals. The conclusion reflects on the wider public and policy implications of these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Prevent
• counter-terrorism
• schools
• education
• prevent duty
• enactment

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge all of the respondents and gatekeepers who made this research possible. They would also like to acknowledge the support of the Aziz Foundation; Gareth Harris’s work in the initial structuring and analysis of the quantitative data; the transcription services provided by Tam Sanger, Victoria Butkova and Will Jessop, and the insightful comments of three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Further education colleges in the UK are distinct from universities. They provide a range of usually post-16 academic, technical and professional training and education courses that enable progress into higher education or to begin a specific career path.

2. Minor adjustments were made to the survey prior to the booster. We removed 4 questions relating to school/college profiles that, due to sample size and distribution, were superfluous. We also inserted a question about perceptions of possible stigmatisation of “white working class” students. We do not believe these adjustments are likely to have impacted on the responses to other questions in the survey.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Aziz Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Joel Busher

Joel Busher is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University. His primary research interests are in the social ecology of political violence and anti-minority politics, and the implementation of counter-terrorism policy and its societal impacts. His book, The making of anti-Muslim protest (Routledge), was awarded the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. He tweets @joel_busher.

Tufyal Choudhury

Tufyal Choudhury is an Associate Professor at the School of Law, Durham University. He is also a Senior Research Affiliate  with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society. His research focuses on the societal experiences and impacts of counter-terrorism legislation and policy.

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas is Professor of Youth and Policy at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Paul’s research focusses on how policies such as ‘Prevent’ have been enacted by ground-level practitioners and experienced by communities. It has led to the book Responding to the Threat of Violent Extremism – Failing to Prevent (2012), as well as articles in leading journals. Recent UK research has focussed on barriers to community members reporting concerns about an ‘intimate’ (a friend or family member) becoming involved in violent extremism, with this study to be replicated and further developed in the USA and Canada from 2019 onwards.