Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education

“Today, fear of extremism is a major and distorting issue. Though ‘extremism’
seems a neutral term, Muslims are disproportionately targeted and recognise
this. Government policies such as PREVENT – and especially the 2015 legislation
expanding its reach and academic responsibilities under it – raise fears of public
complicity in religious intolerance32. That the repression is not aimed at religion as
such but at political violence and ‘extremism’ doesn’t eliminate the difficulty. The
religious and the secular are not neatly separate.”

I had to do Prevent training at a methodist school I used to teach at, and let’s be honest there is almost no redeeming feature of this wild idea. It was intensely problematic and so clearly directed at vilifying certain belief systems and schools of thought. I looked around me and nobody else seemed to taking exception to it?! I also had to teach ‘British values’ another abhorrent idea that breeds nothing but divides rather than building an inclusive environment. I saw first hand in staff meetings and in the staffroom the racism and inequality that played out in the classroom every day. Needless to say it wasn’t an environment that I could stay in and I ultimately left. There it was explicit- almost everywhere you looked. And in a county that failed every count on child protection so not entirely surprising but very very sad.

But this report has made me think about the times where it is maybe less explicit, but as problematic, and my part in that.

I also think it brings up something interesting and perplexing things that I’ve been struggling with in my teaching, and that is when you try to create an inclusive environment for one students or group of students you often inadvertently do the opposite to another, or raise questions from another perspective. So for example in the report it speaks about LSE creating segregated wash spaces for Muslims to wash before prayer, which seems contrary to moves for equality in terms of non binary and trans students and the move to gender neutral bathrooms. I think this probably needs a whole other post to be honest- because there are so many examples, lots of which don’t necessarily come under faith.