The UK Prevent Strategy’s ‘fundamental British values’: a qualitative systematic review of perspectives from the education sector

Mark Reed; Rebecca Rees; Mark Reed; Rebecca Rees

doi:10.14324/LRE.22.1.33

Introduction

The UK Prevent Strategy has undergone numerous implementation changes since its initial inception in 2003. Each of these changes has seen the focus of the policy shift and, in some instances, the change has resulted in a significant broadening of its scope. In 2011, the scope of Prevent significantly broadened, with a shift in focus from violent extremism to non-violent extremism, as well as the introduction of ‘fundamental British values’ (FBVs) (Miah, 2017). Four years later, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTSA) introduced the Prevent duty, which describes the need for education and other specified authorities to actively participate in the prevention of radicalisation (Home Office, 2014).

The qualitative evidence base surrounding the UK Prevent Strategy (hereafter, Prevent) has grown, with a majority of this evidence focusing on the implementation of Prevent from within a specific sector or institutional context (Jerome et al., 2019a). The education sector has been a particular point of focus for Prevent because educational institutions are regarded as key points of socialisation (Meyer, 1977), making them apt for the ideological focus that Prevent has adopted. This research aims to explore and explain the views and experiences that those in the education sector have of FBVs. It will do so through a qualitative systematic review that employs a meta-ethnographic approach.

This first section presents background information on the development and impact of Prevent, elaborates on the implementation of FBVs within the education sector, details the review’s rationale and presents the guiding research questions. The second and third sections describe the methods used to conduct the meta-ethnography and the results of the search strategy, quality appraisal and synthesis outputs. The final section discusses the synthesis outputs in relation to past reviews, the limitations of the review, policy implications and recommendations for future research.

Development of Prevent

Prevent is the first of four components of CONTEST, which is the name of the UK government’s counter-terrorism strategy (Hammersmith and Fulham Council, 2021). Prevent was originally implemented in 2003 by the then Labour government, with its primary focus being on anticipating and preventing international terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 incident in 2001 (Qurashi, 2018). However, the focus of Prevent shifted from international terrorist threats associated with Al-Qaeda to a new focus on domestic terrorism, which was spurred on by the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 (Dawson and Godec, 2017). Prevent was reviewed again in 2011 by the then Conservative government, leading to a policy document that outlined a renewed focus, scope and implementation of Prevent via three core objectives:

‘The ideological challenge’ – a recognition that extremist and terrorist ideology is the root of the problem, and a need to distinguish this from legitimate religious belief
‘Protecting vulnerable people’ – a need to protect people from being indoctrinated into terrorism and extremism, and to implement the necessary channels for providing advice and support
‘Supporting sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation’ – a direct engagement with education and healthcare providers, faith groups, charities, the wider criminal justice system, and all of the sectors and institutions that are at risk of radicalisation (Secretary of State for the Home Department, 2011).

The policy once again underwent change in 2015, when the CTSA received royal assent. The CTSA bestowed the UK government with greater legal powers to enforce the objectives set out in the Prevent policy document from 2011. One of the most significant powers introduced was that of the Prevent duty, which places a legally enforceable ‘general duty on a range of organisations to prevent people being drawn into terrorism’ (Home Office, 2014: n.p.). These three fundamental policy changes to Prevent illustrate an overarching shift from a focus on external acts of extremism, towards a focus on internal extremist ideology. Additionally, the ability of the UK government to legally enforce Prevent has been strengthened with each policy iteration. The list below presents a policy timeline of the development of Prevent, including influential events not yet mentioned:

2003: Prevent is introduced as part of CONTEST in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Its focus is on international terrorism (Qurashi, 2018).
2005: The focus of Prevent shifts from international to domestic terrorism after the 7/7 London bombings. Muslim communities, and specifically young Muslims, are targeted by the policy (Phillips et al., 2011).
2010: The House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee (2010) conclude their inquiry into Prevent and urge a review of Prevent and the role played by community cohesion-based programmes.
2011: A review of Prevent is conducted, resulting in a policy document that broadens its scope from violent extremism to non-violent extremism. The concept of FBVs is introduced. Funding for community cohesion-based programmes is ended (Miah, 2017).
2012: Six young Muslim men from Birmingham are convicted of planning to bomb an English Defence League rally (BBC News, 2013).
2013: Lee Rigby, a British Army soldier, is murdered by two Islamist militants (Dodd and Howden, 2013).
2014: The Trojan Horse Affair occurs. An anonymous letter is sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013 and is released by the press in 2014. The letter suggests local Islamists are planning to gain control of secular schools. The Department for Education (DfE) imposes lifetime teaching bans on 15 teachers alleged to be involved (Shackle, 2017).
2015: The CTSA receives royal assent, further bolstering the UK government’s ability to legally enforce Prevent. The Prevent duty is also introduced, which specifies the need for certain authorities to actively participate in the prevention of radicalisation (Home Office, 2014).

Introducing fundamental British values

FBVs were first introduced in the policy document presented during the review of Prevent in 2011. The values that constitute FBVs include ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’ (Secretary of State for the Home Department, 2011). While FBVs are presented as being universally applicable to everyone in the UK, the education sector has been a particular point of focus for the implementation of FBVs. Initially, educational practitioners were merely required not to undermine FBVs as part of their personal and professional conduct, with this requirement being enshrined in the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011). However, the Prevent duty set out by the CTSA meant that educational practitioners were to take an active role in promoting FBVs as part of students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (DfE, 2014a, 2014b). Furthermore, it was decided that the implementation of FBVs was to become an aspect of the inspection framework of Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills), and it would therefore be an influential factor in the appraisal of a school’s performance (DfE, 2014b).

The impact of Prevent and fundamental British values

Prevent has been a controversial policy since its inception. It has drawn criticism from elected politicians and non-governmental organisations alike, with these criticisms generally highlighting the negative impact of Prevent on human rights, such as its restriction on freedom of expression and its alienation of the UK’s Muslim community (Home Affairs Committee, 2015; Open Society Justice Initiative, 2016). A more specific criticism points to the role of Prevent as a legitimising force in the construction of a ‘suspect’ community who are stigmatised for their cultural practices and religious beliefs (Awan, 2012). This criticism is corroborated by other scholars, who suggest that Prevent has expedited the erosion of social relations between different ethnic and racial groups (Parker et al., 2019).

Further criticism of Prevent points to FBVs as producing an ‘us versus them’ narrative through a reductive portrayal of British identity (Lockley-Scott, 2019). Moreover, FBVs have been criticised for their restrictive effect on educational practitioners’ pedagogical practice. For some practitioners, the Prevent duty has meant that they refrain from critical discourse about British identity and culture for fear of undermining FBVs (Mansfield, 2018; Parker et al., 2019).

It has been argued that the Muslim community has been disproportionately impacted by the Prevent Strategy (Awan, 2012; Home Affairs Committee, 2015; Open Society Justice Initiative, 2016). This could be attributed to the surveillant nature of the Prevent duty combined with the anti-Muslim sentiment that pervades certain sections of British society (Awan, 2012; Field, 2013). Anti-Muslim sentiment was investigated by Field (2013), who conducted a meta-analysis from the findings of 64 opinion polls from 2007 to 2010, concluding that Islamophobia was the most prevalent kind of religious prejudice in the UK. Thus, these anti-Muslim sentiments may have been validated by Prevent and its ideological securitisation approach. The securitisation of social policy as a phenomenon in the broader sense, and how this relates to Prevent, is discussed below.

Prevent has been considered by scholars to epitomise the movement of security policy into the social policy space (Jerome et al., 2019b). As security policy, and more specifically counter-terrorism policy, has become increasingly entangled in community cohesion discourse, scholars have discussed the impacts of this on definitions of civic identity and belonging (Husband and Alam, 2011). For some scholars, the blurring of the lines between security and social policy has meant that social policy has been retooled as a means of producing a hierarchy of citizens through a racialised lens (Lewis, 2000). Those residing at the bottom of this hierarchy can be discerned through the most frequent ethno-religious focus of social policy, namely the Muslim community (Singh and Cowden, 2011), especially young Muslim men (Muncie, 2006) and, to a lesser extent, Muslim women (Archer, 2001). Ragazzi (2017) conceptualises the securitisation of social policy as occurring in two steps: (1) a future-oriented managerial conception of policing; and (2) a racialised conception of the social order. Prevent embodies this conceptualisation due to its ideologically preventative focus and its tasking of professionals (for example, teachers and nurses) with behavioural surveillance, as well as its preoccupation with targeting the Muslim community (Ratcliffe, 2012).

Review rationale

There is a knowledge gap in the evidence base surrounding Prevent which this review aims to address. Reviews exist which look at Prevent in the education sector, but these do not focus on FBVs, nor are they transparent in terms of search strategy and synthesis methods (Jerome et al., 2019b; Taylor and Soni, 2017). Given the lack of a systematic synthesis of the literature on the topic, our review aims to address this gap by conducting a meta-ethnography. We chose this synthesis method for its rigorous production of inductive concepts, as we sought to provide an explanation of the views and experiences that those in the education sector have of FBVs.

This review is an update and derivative of an unpublished two-stage systematic review conducted in 2021, where the first stage consisted of a systematic map and the second stage consisted of a meta-ethnography. The reason for updating this review was primarily to undertake an additional search to identify any studies that had been more recently published. Additionally, a second reviewer (Rebecca Rees) was added to the review team. They reran the search strategy, applied the inclusion criteria independently of the first reviewer and checked the quality appraisal and synthesis of included studies (see the ‘Qualitative synthesis: method’ section). Thus, a level of cross-reviewer reliability was added in the update, which has provided an element of robustness to this review. The systematic map featured in the 2021 review was not updated due to time and resource constraints.

Research question and purpose

We decided on a focused exploratory research question, which was: What views and experiences do people from within the education sector have of FBVs? Two research objectives accompany the research question, which are: (1) to identify relevant primary qualitative research that has explored the views and experiences of people from within the education sector on FBVs; and (2) to use the data to explore and explain people’s views and experiences of FBVs.

Qualitative synthesis: method

Methodology

We undertook a qualitative systematic review, as we deemed this to be the most fit-for-purpose analysis design in terms of addressing the knowledge gap in the evidence base of Prevent (see the ‘Review rationale’ section, above). A meta-ethnography was selected for this review due to its emphasis on innovation and comparative understanding (Barnett-Page and Thomas, 2009). It was originally devised by Noblit and Hare (1988) for the purposes of combining ethnographic findings from the education field, and it can result in three target syntheses:

Reciprocal synthesis – used when metaphors and concepts from studies are comparable and when results head towards the same direction
Refutational synthesis – used when concepts and metaphors from studies are contradictory and must be explored further
Line-of-argument synthesis – similar to grounded theory in that it aims to build an explanation of a phenomenon based on similarities and differences between studies (Rocque et al., 2017: 1014).

Meta-ethnography can allow for the development of concepts and theories (France et al., 2016), as well as the ability to go beyond descriptive accounts of a phenomenon by developing analytical findings (Daker-White et al., 2015). Moreover, it allows for the reinterpretation of primary study authors’ concepts while still remaining grounded within the views and experiences of primary study participants (Malpass et al., 2009). These qualities make meta-ethnography particularly suitable for addressing the aforementioned knowledge gap, as the development of inductive concepts enable this review to ‘explore’ and ‘explain’ the views and experiences that those in the education sector have of FBVs.

Key concepts and scope

The PICo framework, a modified qualitative variant of the traditional PICO (Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) framework commonly used to develop clinical questions for systematic reviews, was applied to the research question of this review (Central Queensland University, 2024). The application of PICo allowed for the distinguishing and defining of the key concepts that would set the scope of the meta-ethnography, and also informed the inclusion criteria. Stern et al. (2014: 54) state that the core elements of PICo are ‘Population, phenomenon of Interest, [and] Context’. Regarding study population, the meta-ethnography was focused on individuals who constitute the education sector, including students and the teachers and educational administrators responsible for delivering Prevent within this space. The phenomenon of interest was views and experiences of FBVs, and the context was the implementation of Prevent in the education sector. The application of the PICo framework that led to the production of key concepts is illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1

Key concepts

P	I	Co
Population	Phenomenon of Interest	Context
Students, teachers and educational administrators	Views and experiences of FBVs	Implementation of Prevent in the education sector

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The inclusion and exclusion criteria used to screen studies for inclusion in the synthesis are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria
Criteria	Application
Date	2015–present
Phenomenon of interest	Views and experiences of FBVs
Geographic location of study	Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)
Language	English
Study participants	Students, (head)teachers and educational administrators
Data collection	Focus group, interview, questionnaire, reflective log
Study design and type	Primary qualitative research, mixed method research
Exclusion criteria
Criteria	Application
Language	Welsh

The rationale behind some of the eligibility criteria are as follows: Date – the CTSA received royal assent in 2015, introducing the Prevent duty, which applies to specific authorities such as schools, which in turn made the teaching of FBVs legally enforceable; Geographic location of study – the Prevent duty does not apply to Northern Ireland; and Data collection – these data collection methods allow for the direct reporting of participant views, which is necessary for the extraction of first-order constructs for use in the meta-ethnography.

Search strategy

The search strategy was two-fold. As a main searching approach, databases were searched using Boolean operators. Four databases were searched: Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA); British Education Index (BEI); Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC); and Scopus. These four databases were selected to cover a diverse range of journals and disciplines. Prevent is implemented in a number of institutions such as ‘schools, colleges, Further and Higher Education institutions, the National Health Service, local authority, social and children’s services and youth offending teams’ (Acik and Pilkington, 2018: 155). The qualitative evidence base surrounding Prevent might therefore be similarly diverse and interdisciplinary.

ASSIA was selected as it ‘spans the literature of health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education’ (ProQuest, 2021: n.p.). BEI was selected for two reasons: (1) Prevent is a UK-based policy; and (2) this database covers ‘curriculum’, ‘educational policy’, ‘multicultural education’ and ‘teacher education’, as well as UK-published journals not indexed by ERIC (EBSCO, 2021). ERIC (n.d.) was selected due to it being a database specific to ‘education research and information’. Scopus was selected as it ‘is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature … in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities’ (Elsevier, 2021: n.p.).

The database search terms were adapted from Taylor and Soni’s (2017) search strategy (see Table 3). The choice was made to omit these authors’ use of the terms ‘education’ and ‘school’ in this review’s searches to increase the sensitivity of the search. The search sought terms contained in a citation’s title or abstract. Search strings for each of the databases can be seen in Table 3. The same searches were undertaken for the original unpublished review and for this update. Together, these covered the period from 1 January 2015 to 31 August 2023.

In addition to the database searches, the reference lists of all identified systematic reviews were screened for includable studies.

Table 3

Search strings

Database	Search string
ASSIA	title(radicalisation) OR abstract(radicalisation) OR title(deradicalisation) OR abstract(deradicalisation) AND title(Prevent) OR abstract(Prevent)
BEI	TI radicalisation OR AB radicalisation OR TI deradicalisation OR AB deradicalisation AND TI Prevent OR AB Prevent
ERIC	title:radicalisation abstract:radicalisation title:deradicalisation abstract:deradicalisation title:Prevent abstract:Prevent
Scopus	(radicalisation OR deradicalisation) AND prevent

Double screening of the studies was done first at the title and abstract level, and then again for full text. A combination of EndNote and EPPI Reviewer were used to carry out the screening. Despite its resource-intensive nature, double screening was deemed necessary to ensure a consistent application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Waffenschmidt et al., 2019). The search strategy and double screening process are captured in a diagram created with the PRISMA flow chart application (Haddaway et al., 2022; see the ‘Overview of the studies’ section below and Figure 1).

Figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram

Quality appraisal

The Critical Appraisal Skill Programme’s Qualitative Checklist (CASP, 2018) was used to assess the methodological quality of the studies. The checklist assesses aspects such as research aim(s), method suitability, recruitment process, data collection process, researcher and participant relations, ethics, clarity of findings and research value. This quality appraisal tool was chosen for two reasons: (1) it is designed specifically for appraising qualitative research; and (2) it accounts for both internal and external validity. Checks for internal validity ask whether the use of a qualitative methodology was appropriate for a study’s research aims, while checks for external validity ask whether a study meaningfully contributes to its field of research. Undertaking these checks helped ensure that included studies possessed a clear focus in their methodology and research aims, which in turn contributes to the robustness of this review’s synthesis output.

There exists a revised version of the checklist by Long et al. (2020), who describe two limitations of the original checklist: (1) the fixed responses did not sufficiently account for complex answers; and (2) there was a lack of clarity in terms of whether a study’s quality was impacted by its methodology or reporting. However, Long et al.’s (2020) revision increases the complexity of the quality appraisal process by abolishing tick-box responses in favour of full-text responses. Due to time and resource constraints, it was decided that although the original version of the checklist was less nuanced in its approach, the convenience of its tick-box responses made it an acceptable compromise.

For the review update, the second reviewer independently appraised a subset: the five from the complete study set that had been scored the lowest by the first reviewer. There was a good level of agreement between the reviewers and no further appraisal was conducted.

Data extraction

EPPI Reviewer was used to conduct data extraction. The EPPI Reviewer tool allows for researchers to choose from various ‘prebuilt … data extraction tools or create their own templates for data extraction’ (Park and Thomas, 2018: 140–1; Thomas et al., 2023). The latter option was chosen to make the data extraction codes more specific to Prevent. Initially the data extraction codes were informed by Noyes et al.’s (2019) suggested data extraction fields (context and participants; study design and methods used). However, these fields proved to be too broad, and the decision was made to break these broad data extraction fields down further. The following were settled on: geographic location; education stage; data collection and analysis methods; and theoretical lens.

The codes contained within ‘geographic location’ were informed by the fact that Prevent is a UK-wide strategy, and thus studies may have been situated within a specific regional context. Codes within ‘educational stage’ were informed by the UK Government (n.d.) document on the education system. The codes contained within ‘data collection and analysis methods’ and ‘theoretical lens’ were all developed iteratively as the studies were coded.

Line-by-line coding was used to extract the first- and second-order constructs from the studies. These first- and second-order constructs were then tabulated using Microsoft Word, forming the basis of the meta-ethnographic process which is elaborated on in the following section. To participate in the synthesis, the second reviewer read each included study and then checked to see that their reading matched with the tabulated constructs, discussing any uncertainty with the first reviewer. The coding report for the 2021 version of the review can be accessed here: https://osf.io/uwgbd. The coding report for the 2023 review update can be accessed here: https://osf.io/e4cdh. Once downloaded, the coding reports will display correctly in any modern web browser. One source, Vincent (2019b), could not be obtained as a standard PDF file, and it is therefore not represented in either coding report.

Determining the studies’ conceptual relationship

To determine how the studies were related conceptually, two steps were undertaken. First, the studies’ findings, extracted in the form of first- and second-order constructs, were used to generate a list of concepts and themes. These concepts and themes were then condensed into descriptive thematic categories which served to group studies together. The descriptive thematic categories can be accessed here: https://osf.io/byg9h. Second, the studies were translated into each other. The study translation can be accessed here: https://osf.io/kpjbu. It was decided that studies would be translated according to the quality appraisal totals assigned to them (see Table 4; Scott and Grant, 2018). If studies possessed the same quality appraisal total, their translation was chronologically ordered. Starting the translation with studies that yielded a good quality appraisal result ensured the concepts that arose were of a methodologically sound origin, as studies that are translated earlier will have a greater impact on the development of third-order constructs (Campbell et al., 2003). Beginning with the first study, the findings were summarised. This summary was then compared with the subsequent study’s summary, from which conceptual similarities and differences were noted. This process of constant comparison continued until all of the studies’ summaries had been compared and contrasted (Cahill et al., 2018).

From the translation, it was evident that the studies had significant conceptual similarity and overlap. This meant that a reciprocal synthesis could be performed. To conduct the reciprocal synthesis, the first- and second-order constructs, descriptive thematic categories and study translation were juxtaposed against each other. Similarities from this juxtaposition were then used to form the third-order constructs. The third-order constructs were presented narratively using supportive quotes.

Finally, a line-of-argument synthesis was developed following the results of the reciprocal synthesis. The third-order constructs presented factors that influence how FBVs are implemented by educational practitioners. These factors were arranged to form an overarching narrative, which is depicted in Figure 2, and explained in the ‘Line-of-argument synthesis’ section, below.

Qualitative synthesis: results

Overview of the studies

A total of 26 studies were included in the meta-ethnography. These were contained within 32 separate research reports. The process of searching and screening which led to the inclusion of the 26 studies is captured in a PRISMA flow diagram in Figure 1.

The results of the quality appraisal and study characteristics can be seen in Table 4 and Table 5 respectively. Only the responses of the first nine questions are presented, as the tenth question could only be answered by a full-text response.

Table 4

Quality appraisal results

Studies	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Total
Anderson (2020)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	8
Bamber et al. (2018)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	7
Barnard (2022)	Y	Y	Y	CT	Y	CT	CT	Y	Y	6
Beighton and Revell (2020)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Bryan (2017)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	CT	Y	Y	8
Busher et al. (2019)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
da Silva et al. (2022)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	CT	Y	Y	Y	8
Elton-Chalcraft et al. (2017)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Farrell (2016)	Y	Y	Y	CT	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	8
Green (2017)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	7
Jerome and Elwick (2019)¹	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Kyriacou et al. (2017)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	CT	CT	Y	Y	7
Lockley-Scott (2020)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Lundie (2019)²	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Moffat and Gerard (2020)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	8
Moncrieffe and Moncrieffe (2019)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	7
Panjwani (2016)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N	Y	6
Revell and Bryan (2016)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	CT	Y	8
Robson (2019)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Sant and Hanley (2018)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	8
Szczepek Reed et al. (2020a)³	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Smith (2016)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Vincent (2018)⁴	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N	N	CT	Y	6
Winter et al. (2022)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9
Zempi and Tripli (2023)	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	9

Notes: Y = Yes, N = No, CT = Can’t tell. The CASP Qualitative Checklist’s questions can be found here: https://casp-uk.net/checklists/casp-qualitative-studies-checklist-fillable.pdf.
1. Draws on the same data as Jerome and Elwick (2020) and Elwick and Jerome (2019). Treated as the same study for quality appraisal purposes, and during the reciprocal synthesis process to moderate the influence on the third-order constructs.
2. Draws on the same data as Lundie (2017). Treated as for Jerome and Elwick (2019).
3. Draws on the same data as Szczepek Reed (2020b). Treated as for Jerome and Elwick (2019).
4. Draws on the same data as Vincent (2019a, 2019b). Treated as for Jerome and Elwick (2019).

As seen in Table 4, no study yielded a quality appraisal result of fewer than six total Y-responses. Although the CASP Qualitative Checklist does not assign a quality classification to studies after their appraisal, the results in Table 4 indicate that all the studies identified for inclusion were of reasonable methodological and reporting quality. It should be noted that the a priori decision was made to not exclude studies from the meta-ethnography based on their quality appraisal results. This is because studies that are deemed ‘low quality’ could still contribute to the depth or thickness of the meta-ethnography.

Table 5

Study characteristics

Studies	Geographic location	Education stage	Theoretical lens	Data collection and analysis
Anderson (2020)	England	Early years	N/A	Focus group; Interview; Thematic analysis
Bamber et al. (2018)	England	Primary; Higher education	N/A	Document analysis; Interview; Observation; Reflective log
Barnard (2022)	England	Secondary; Further education	Bourdieu’s Sociology	Ethnography; Interviews
Beighton and Revell (2020)	England	Further education	Semiotics	Interview
Bryan (2017)	England	Primary; Secondary	N/A	Interview
Busher et al. (2019)	England	Primary; Secondary; Further education	N/A	Interview; Survey
da Silva et al. (2022)	England	Primary	N/A	Survey; Interview
Elton-Chalcraft et al. (2017)	England	Primary; Secondary	N/A	Interview; Questionnaire
Farrell (2016)	N/A	Secondary	N/A	Interview
Green (2017)	England	Further education	Jenkins’s Social Identity	Focus group; Thematic analysis
Jerome and Elwick (2019)	England	Secondary	N/A	Focus group; Observation
Kyriacou et al. (2017)	England	Higher education	N/A	Questionnaire
Lockley-Scott (2020)	England	Secondary	Grounded Theory	Document analysis; Questionnaire; Focus group; Interview; Thematic analysis
Lundie (2019)	England	Primary; Secondary; Further and Higher education	Buzan’s Securitisation Theory; Historical Institutionalism	Interview
Moffat and Gerard (2020)	England	Further education	N/A	Interview; Thematic analysis
Moncrieffe and Moncrieffe (2019)	England	Primary	N/A	Document analysis; Interview
Panjwani (2016)	England; Wales	N/A	N/A	Questionnaire
Revell and Bryan (2016)	England	Primary; Secondary	Bauman’s Liquid Modernity	Interview
Robson (2019)	England	Early years	N/A	Document analysis; Interview; Thematic analysis
Sant and Hanley (2018)	England	Higher Education	N/A	Content analysis; Interview; Observation
Szczepek Reed et al. (2020a)	England	N/A (supplementary education; children were of secondary school age)	N/A	Interview: Focus group; Observation
Smith (2016)	England	Higher education	Racist Nativism	Document analysis; Questionnaire; Thematic analysis
Vincent (2018)	England	Primary; Secondary	N/A	Interview; Observation
Winter et al. (2022)	England	Secondary	N/A	Interview; Thematic analysis
Zempi and Tripli (2023)	England	Higher education	N/A	Interview; Thematic analysis

Notes: N/A means not applicable. For studies that do not have an analytical method in the ‘Data collection and analysis’ column, this was because the analytical method was unreported or unclear.

As can be seen in Table 5, there is a diversity of educational contexts represented in the included studies. This contextual diversity helps ensure that the meta-ethnography’s findings are grounded in a polyvocal voice.

Reciprocal synthesis findings

A total of five third-order constructs arose from the reciprocal synthesis. Where participant quotations are used, those from educational practitioners (that is, administrators and teachers) are indicated with ‘EP –’, and those from students are indicated with ‘ST –’. Quotations from primary study authors are indicated with ‘AU –’. For the purposes of this synthesis, student teachers were categorised under the educational practitioner umbrella, as their experience of pedagogical practice under the purview of mandatory FBV promotion made a valuable contribution to the synthesis findings.

Cultural imperialism

Teachers critiqued FBVs on the basis that their existence was superfluous, as they felt that values which are uniquely British do not exist. Some teachers also perceived a contradiction within FBVs, in which both security and liberalism were being championed concurrently:

EP – Possibly they [FBVs] might include: a neo-colonial outlook; the belief that we are somehow superior to the rest of the world purely based on being born in a particular geographic location; and a strangely oxymoronic obsession with security and liberalism.

(Smith, 2016: 308)

A perception of FBVs as othering was exemplified by the online learning resources that were provided to early years practitioners to aid their promotion of British values:

EP – A lot of the resources we saw online were posters that had a British flag on it. Our children are not from a British background and we did not want to display something that did not belong to them. We did not want to display the flag. The posters had the Queen’s face and how did that relate to the children?

(Robson, 2019: 101)

Confusion around the British characterisation in FBVs was echoed by Muslim teachers. Some remarked that while the contents of FBVs were compatible with their Islamic values, the lack of explanation as to what these values were in practice, and how they were uniquely British, made them difficult to enforce in the classroom:

EP – As there are no clear charter or register defining ‘fundamental British values’ then how one can know when they are being undermined.

(Panjwani, 2016: 337)

Other early years practitioners discussed how promoting FBVs had caused a rift in their relationship with the parents of children (from ethnic minority backgrounds) who attended their institutions. They attempted to justify their FBV promotion to these parents in terms of forced compliance, and also sought to reconceptualise FBVs as universal:

EP – We tried to explain we had to do it for Ofsted and we had to show people what it meant. Underneath it I put that everyone’s values were human.

(Anderson, 2020: 438)

Some ethnic minority teachers did not identify as British, and they reported a feeling of cognitive dissonance between their sense of self and the values they were being forced to promote. For those ethnic minority teachers who did identify as British, they felt as though others did not perceive them as such due to their physical appearance, which made promoting FBVs difficult to navigate for them:

EP – You would always say you’re British but you’d always get asked ‘oh, what country are you from?’ … it’s the first thing that you get asked … and I’m like born here!

(Farrell, 2016: 290)

This need to justify one’s Britishness was also expressed by Muslim students, who saw themselves as British and felt that formal education policy was not required to instil a British identity within them. Some Muslim students felt that they were perceived in terms of their religion or physical characteristics, with them being made to feel as though these traits were incompatible with a British identity:

ST – We have to constantly prove that we do have British values, and then be good Muslims to please ourselves, I think that’s what really … confuses me sometimes.

(Green, 2017: 28–9)

The findings presented in these studies suggest that FBVs are seen as confusing, with the confusion primarily coming from the characterisation of the values as uniquely British. The issue of the construction of British identity in FBVs will be explored in the following third-order construct.

Bifurcated Britishness: the ‘White’ and the ‘other’

Two dimensions of Britishness emerged through the reciprocal synthesis. The first emerging dimension was that of a positioning of Britishness from a ‘White-centric’ perspective. The second emerging dimension was that of a hierarchical framing of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ Britishness. There was a reoccurring reference among some White teachers to Britain’s loss of cultural integrity and a dilution of the British identity due to growing multiculturalism. These White teachers framed FBVs as a way in which they could reaffirm Britishness:

EP – Britain has become so culturally diverse there is a worry that it is losing its original identity and people are concerned about this loss.

(Elton-Chalcraft et al., 2017: 39)

When asked to elaborate on what British identity entailed, there was use of possessive pronouns (for example, ‘our’) to signal ownership of Britishness, which suggested the existence of people who were external to Britishness, or the ‘other’. This exclusionary take on Britishness was emphasised by some White teachers’ description of Britishness as being bestowed by birthright, which brought into being a hierarchical understanding of Britishness. The superior form was ‘traditional Britishness’, which consisted of ethnic and cultural aspects, while ‘non-traditional Britishness’, consisting of compliance to civic aspects of living in Britain, was the inferior form:

EP – Becky described Britishness as ‘being born here’, ‘speaking English and having the same morals’ and as a ‘community working together. Tea. Monarchy’.

(Sant and Hanley, 2018: 326–7)

In contrast to the above, some teachers expressed that Prevent and FBVs portrayed British identity in an ethnically nationalist way through the use of historical and archetypal displays that were not necessarily reflective of modern Britain. Furthermore, they felt that the policy presented a monocultural representation of ‘Whiteness’, alluding to FBVs’ conceptualisation of Britishness as being synonymous with, and centred on, a White experience of Britain:

EP – Cricket as a sport is played in countries who were part of the British Empire, the crown there as well, this display board, it almost to a certain extent reminds me of a UKIP [UK Independence Party] statement, things that they want to be maintained … but has nothing to do with these words and British values … more to do with a statement of power, what is seen as culture and history.

(Moncrieffe and Moncrieffe, 2019: 61)

The findings from this third-order construct seem to suggest that while Prevent and FBVs are not explicitly discriminatory towards ethnic minority individuals, the concept of Britishness that manifests appears to be White-centric, and could be seen as marginalising. The issue of articulating who and what constitutes British culture will be looked at further in the next third-order construct.

Assimilation versus pluralism

A dichotomous set of views arose from the reciprocal synthesis, which pitted an assimilationist view of culture against a pluralistic view of culture. A commonality among those who expressed a pluralistic view was a denouncement of the existence of a singular British identity:

EP – I don’t personally believe it is possible to identify British people as having specific values, as ‘British’ is an umbrella term for many different classes, communities and sub-cultures that preside within Britain.

(Elton-Chalcraft et al., 2017: 38)

In contrast, some White teachers expressed the need for ethnic minority students to conform to Britishness:

EP – So I think some schools say we should celebrate other cultures, but this statement means children of other cultures should learn to adapt to the British culture.

(Smith, 2016: 309)

Under an assimilationist view, it seems that some white teachers perceived FBVs as a necessary tool for instilling civic unity via the creation of a homogeneous British identity. However, other teachers have contested the ability for FBVs to promote civic unity by highlighting the way Prevent and FBVs construct non-British identities as a security threat:

EP – People are wary because when you talk about Prevent, actually to people’s mind-set, what that is about is making sure you don’t have Muslim extremism.

(Vincent 2019a: 23)

This contradiction between the intended effect of Prevent and its impact in practice has also been noted by primary study authors:

AU – While shared values may be an important element of the British identity, the Government maintains it is the only important element, such that: ‘to belong here is to believe in these values’ (Cameron, 2011). Consequently, by ignoring the external half of identity, the Government’s approach addresses only half the problem, and by ignoring it, risks making things worse …

(Green, 2017: 39–40)

The findings from this third-order construct reinforce the findings from the first third-order construct (see ‘Cultural imperialism’, above). It also illuminates the notion that, in the eyes of some educational practitioners, those from non-British cultures must assimilate in order to ‘acquire’ the values espoused by FBVs. How pedagogical practice has been impacted by FBVs will be covered in the next third-order construct.

Educator agency

Many studies explored how the legal duty to promote FBVs has affected the pedagogical practice of schools in different ways. Approaches to implementing FBVs in schools fell into two broad categories: (1) an education approach; and (2) a securitisation approach. Schools that adopted an education approach tended to take a more liberal view of FBVs and their implementation; educational practitioners did not view FBVs as infallible, and instead viewed them as an opportunity for students to engage in critical discourse about British identity and culture. In contrast, schools that adopted a securitisation approach seemed to take a more conservative view of FBVs and their implementation. Educational administrators who championed a securitisation approach perceived FBVs as ‘black letter law’ and regarded any criticism of them as unprofessional:

EP – If, in appraisal, a colleague said that they believe that the measures introduced by Prevent and the requirement to promote FBVs were Islamophobic and compromised free speech and academic freedom, Gill was clear that ‘this wouldn’t be acceptable’.

(Beighton and Revell, 2020: 522)

Fear was a reoccurring motif in educational practitioners’ discussions of promoting FBVs, which is at odds with some of the values the FBVs encompass. ‘Democracy’ and ‘individual liberty’ are part of FBVs, but implementation of FBVs has possibly rendered some educational practitioners as incapable of freely engaging in critical discourse with their students, for fear of being perceived as undermining FBVs:

AU – School leaders, especially primary leaders, were fearful of the consequences of teachers in their schools being politically active or of voicing opinions in class that were radical in tone but which do not challenge any of the definitions of FBVs provided in the Standards.

(Revell and Bryan, 2016: 351)

In contrast, authors reported that schools which adopted an education approach to implementing FBVs used them in a way that did not limit pedagogical practice but enhanced it. Educational administrators who championed this approach did not perceive FBVs as immune to criticism, and they welcomed critical discourse on FBVs among their teachers. Furthermore, they tended to decouple criticism of FBVs from professional conduct. They were also likely to resituate the values espoused by FBVs into a more locally relevant context:

EP – As regards British values, Tony welcomed the college’s choice to promote ‘Redville values’ rather than ‘British values’ per se.

(Beighton and Revell, 2020: 525)

In terms of how teachers engaged in pedagogical practice under an educational approach to the promotion of FBVs, there was an emphasis on learning as being a two-way dialogic encounter between teacher and student, the purpose of which was to encourage students to engage in critical thinking. This pedagogical approach thus places value on encouraging students’ ideological agency by allowing them to come to their own conclusions about British identity, how they relate to Britishness, and their place in wider British society:

EP – I might be able to say, ‘Who thinks this is moral?’ ‘Who thinks this is legal?’ Well actually it’s legal, and if they come up with anything themselves that’s entirely up to them.

(Sant and Hanley, 2018: 331)

A factor which emerged as being pivotal in whether a school took an education or securitisation approach to the promotion of FBVs was whether the school itself was a Muslim state school, or if the school had a sizeable Muslim student population. Educational administrators of Muslim state schools felt that Ofsted inspections were especially stringent and hyper-focused on Muslim state schools’ promotion of FBVs. One educational administrator of a Muslim state school expressed anxiety at the thought of an Ofsted inspection:

EP – Even though our school is the best performing school in [the area], however the fears that I have, none of the head teachers [in the partnership] share that. … [The teaching of British values] is not a focus [for Ofsted] when it comes to non-Muslim schools.

(Vincent, 2018: 231)

This is in contrast with the relatively lax and nonchalant attitude expressed by educational administrators of schools with a predominantly White student population:

EP – Our children are very tolerant of all different, you know, faiths and cultures. We’re a predominantly white British school and we just don’t have any issues.

(Bamber et al., 2018: 442)

These contrasting accounts showcase that a securitisation approach to FBVs might not be due to an authentic belief in what FBVs represent. Instead, adoption of a securitisation approach might be spurred on by a fear of Ofsted inspection that is heightened by an awareness of institutional discrimination. The preoccupation that both FBVs and Ofsted seem to have with a Muslim identity has been perceived by teachers at schools with a sizeable Muslim student population:

EP – I think labelling it ‘British’ creates this kind of division between the British and the non-British … Essentially what it is really doing is targeting British Muslims and I think it ostracises them and it makes them feel that they are not part of society.

(Vincent 2019a: 24)

The findings from this third-order construct suggest that the rationale behind a school’s choice of a securitisation approach as opposed to an education approach to the promotion of FBVs was not always straightforward. Some schools opted for a securitisation approach due to an educational administrator’s genuine belief in FBVs as a value-based pedagogical tool. Other schools chose a securitisation approach due to the possibility of an Ofsted inspection. Schools that either had a sizeable Muslim student population, or were Muslim state schools, seemed to adopt a securitisation approach due to an awareness of institutional discrimination, which they felt caused Ofsted to regard such schools with a kind of hyper-vigilance.

The final third-order construct will navigate the process through which Prevent was implemented into the education space.

Depoliticising Prevent: from a matter of national security to safeguarding

Some authors, all of more recent studies, suggested that Prevent’s embedding into the education sector can be attributed to a ‘depoliticising’ of the policy from a national security matter for which the government is responsible, to a safeguarding policy that is the remit of professionals (for example, teachers). This is evidenced by a number of teachers who remarked that Prevent seemed like a continuation of existing safeguarding programmes:

EP – I have just done child protection training with a group of staff here this morning and obviously we talked about Prevent. I think it is just another part of safeguarding …

(da Silva et al., 2022: 266)

Within this narrative of Prevent reimagined as safeguarding, some educational practitioners expressed difficulties in navigating discussions of radicalisation and, more specifically, how to include Muslim students in these discussions. Authors reflected that some teachers did not share the government’s imagined identity of the student as susceptible to radicalisation and extremism, but instead imagined students (especially Muslim students) as susceptible to discrimination and Islamophobia. Thus, authors suggested that these teachers were not receptive to the securitising effect of Prevent and were instead prioritising other safeguarding avenues over the radicalisation element. Furthermore, the sensitive nature of these discussions meant that teachers were in a difficult position of moderating conversation, toeing a difficult line between encouraging provocative discourse about radicalisation and FBVs, and preventing students from saying something that could warrant them being reported:

AU – They argued that certain topics were ‘off-limits’ for Muslim students in case they were seen to be supporting terrorism … Consequently, participants felt that they had to self-censor their beliefs and opinions out of fear of being reported under Prevent.

(Zempi and Tripli, 2023: 235–6)

In terms of the role that FBVs play in the depoliticisation process, some authors suggested that FBVs act as a normative framework that defines what an acceptable national identity is. However, the use of FBVs as a normative framework has been disputed by some educational practitioners as further complicating the implementation of Prevent, as the distinction between critical discourse and extremist views is, in their opinion, unclear:

EP – … because under Prevent what is an extremist view? And is that an extremist view and goes against British values … So, it’s always very difficult and because Prevent is so vague in the sense that it’s very hard for us to determine what is an extreme value ...

(Lockley-Scott, 2020: 166)

The findings from this third-order construct provide an additional explanation for the implementation of Prevent in the education sector. Rather than it only being a matter of legal and professional compliance, the findings above suggest that it is also a case of ‘translating’ Prevent from a national to a local policy. According to some authors, this has meant that Prevent is presented in a way that is ‘familiar’ to educational practitioners, thus reducing the potential for it to appear as something that is encroaching on the education space.

Line-of-argument synthesis

From the reciprocal synthesis, it was apparent that Britishness was regarded as a contentious and divisive term, which appeared to correspond with variations in the implementation of FBVs and their promotion within schools. This variation and the factors influencing it are depicted in Figure 2. A narrative explanation of the line-of-argument synthesis follows the figure.

Educational administrators who adopted an assimilationist view of British culture and believed that there existed a core set of values that could be described as British tended to adopt a securitisation approach. This approach constructed students as being at risk of ideological radicalisation, which correlated with a restriction of teachers’ pedagogical freedom, and with FBVs being regarded as dogma. In such cases, educational administrators were inclined to link contradiction and criticism of FBVs with unprofessionalism. Conversely, educational administrators who adopted a pluralist view of British culture tended to adopt an education approach that emphasised the ideological agency of students and the pedagogical freedom of teachers. FBVs in these instances seemed to be reconceived as a heuristic tool through which teachers could encourage students to engage in critical discourse about British identity, values and culture.

Figure 2

Line-of-argument synthesis

However, the adoption of a securitisation approach was not necessarily due to an authentic belief in the existence of FBVs, nor in the idea that the integrity of British culture was threatened by multiculturalism. Two factors emerged from the synthesis which appeared to increase the likelihood of an educational practitioner prescribing to a securitisation approach: (1) a fear of the professional ramifications that would ensue from non-compliance to the policy; and (2) a perceived and experienced hyper-vigilance with which Ofsted regarded Muslim state schools, or those schools with a sizeable Muslim student population. Therefore, while an education approach to FBV promotion could be described as more socially liberal and progressive than its securitisation counterpart, it also served as a sign of the privilege that the practitioners who adopted an education approach possessed. Practitioners who adopted an education approach to the promotion of FBVs tended to be White themselves, or their pedagogical practice was situated in a school with a predominantly White population. This meant that they were free from the racialised scrutiny experienced by schools with a sizeable Muslim student population. In the later literature, an additional explanation emerged, as some teachers had appeared to come to terms with FBVs by reconceiving them as a way of having safeguarding at the local level.

In summary, while the oppressive force of surveillance affected the pedagogical practices of both White and Muslim educational practitioners, the self-governing effects of surveillance seemed to be felt more acutely by Muslim educational practitioners, with this resulting in a greater level of forced compliance with the promotion of FBVs.

Discussion and conclusion

Comparison with themes from previous systematic reviews

There are two prior systematic reviews on the UK Prevent Strategy’s implementation in the education sector. Taylor and Soni’s (2017) review produced themes of ‘Academic freedom’, ‘Flawed FBVs’, ‘Surveillance and securitisation’ and a ‘Focus on individual vulnerability’. Jerome et al.’s (2019b) review produced themes of ‘Islamophobia’, ‘Britishness’, ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘Teacher agency’. This review’s third-order constructs corroborate the themes of these preceding reviews, suggesting that the issues explored are chronic in nature. What this review adds to the discourse is a potential explanation, via the line-of-argument synthesis, of how these themes and issues are interrelated and what this interrelation means for pedagogical practice.

Limitations of the review

Due to time and resource constraints, only electronic database searches and the screening of references from identified systematic reviews were used to find studies for inclusion in the meta-ethnography. Studies that could have been eligible for inclusion might not have been indexed in these databases, and they might have been found through hand-searching sources such as journals and conference proceedings (The Cochrane Collaboration, 2021).

The England-centric focus of the included literature has also impacted the contextual diversity of the meta-ethnography, as most studies included in the meta-ethnography were situated in an England-specific context. This limits the external validity of the meta-ethnography findings.

A potential limitation of this review is the use of the original CASP Qualitative Checklist instead of Long et al.’s (2020) revised version. It is important to note that there is an ongoing debate on the role of quality appraisal in qualitative synthesis, with Carroll et al. (2012: 1425) finding ‘a correlation between quality of reporting of a study and its value as a source for the final synthesis’. However, others, such as Dixon-Woods et al. (2007), have questioned whether quality appraisal of qualitative studies is even possible due to the inherently subjective and interpretative nature of both the data and analysis methods.

Policy implications

The findings of the meta-ethnography suggest that the emphasis on Britishness in FBVs serves to hinder the implementation of FBVs in educational institutions. The findings revealed that in some cases, the pedagogical freedom of teachers was limited by the mandatory promotion of FBVs, which is counterproductive, as teachers are particularly adept at adapting and implementing policy in a way that is most effective for their students (Flew, 1995).

From these findings, it could be deduced that the DfE’s construction and implementation of FBVs is done in a ‘top-down’ manner, which is an approach that emphasises ‘the perspective of (central) decision-makers and thus [tends] to neglect other actors’ (Sabatier, 1986: 30). This lack of involvement from educational practitioners in both the formulation and implementation of FBVs was expressed within the evidence base: ‘If only they had asked us what we thought. They took no notice of what we know works’ (Anderson, 2020: 435). These sentiments are indicative of a policy and practice gap, wherein the practical expertise of educational practitioners was not used to inform the construction and implementation of FBVs (McKee, 2019). To remedy this, the DfE could conduct participatory action research (PAR) into values-based education implementation. PAR emphasises the grounding of policy research in the personal experiences of those that would be affected by the policy, by bestowing them with the same epistemic authority that is possessed by traditional researchers (Brown, 1985). This would allow educational practitioners to leverage their pedagogical expertise in the development of values-based education.

Future research

While the findings of the meta-ethnography have served an enlightening function, our searches suggest that research into the Prevent FBVs is heavily focused on England at the expense of the other countries in the UK. This could potentially be explained by the devolution of powers, which means that the Scottish and Welsh governments possess autonomy in deciding how Prevent is implemented (Secretary of State for the Home Department, 2011). However, differences in implementation of Prevent should not preclude these geographical contexts from being represented in the evidence base. On the contrary, research into the differing implementations of Prevent in these geographical contexts, and the results of these implementations, could prove valuable. Comparisons could be drawn between both the effectiveness of Prevent implementation in these locales and any mechanism differences, which could serve to elucidate which methods of Prevent implementation yield the most favourable results. It is therefore suggested that more primary research be done into the implementation of the Prevent duty and FBVs in other countries within the UK.

Declarations and conflicts of interest

Research ethics statement

Not applicable to this article.

Consent for publication statement

Not applicable to this article.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest with this work. All efforts to sufficiently anonymise the authors during peer review of this article have been made. The authors declare no further conflicts with this article.

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