To promote, or not to promote Fundamental British values? Teachers' standards, diversity and teacher education

In this article we seek to problematize the presence of the requirement within the Teachers' Standards (DfE 2012), that they “should not undermine fundamental British values” in the context of initial teacher education in England. The inclusion of this statement within the Teachers’ code of conduct has made its way from the counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent and raises questions about Britishness, values and the re-lationship between the State and the profession more generally. We argue that the in-clusion of the phrase within a statutory document that regulates the profession is de facto a politicization of the profession by the State thereby instilling the expectation that teachers are State instruments of surveillance. The absence of any wider debate around the inclusion of the statement is also problematic as is the lack of training for pre-service and inservice teachers since it means this concept of fundamental British values is unchallenged and its insidious racialising implications are unrecognized by most teachers.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Elton‐Chalcraft, S., Lander, V., Revell, L., Warner, D. and Whitworth, L. (2017), To promote, or not to promote fundamental British values? Teachers’ standards, diversity and teacher education. Br Educ Res J, 43: 29-48. doi:10.1002/berj.3253, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3253. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.