Description
British teachers are mandated to implement the Prevent Duty Guidance, by identifying and referring those deemed to be ‘at risk of’ ’extremism and radicalisation (HM Government,2023). Since Prevent statistics commenced, schools have consistently made approximately one third of all the referrals; the majority out of all the designated authorities, including the police (Home Office, 2023).
The framing of the duty in formal policy and professional directives as an unexceptional extension of established safeguarding responsibilities, has eased its accommodation into institutions, including the educational sector (Heath-Kelly and Strausz, 2018). Teachers’ compliance with the duty, is therefore, interpreted by some academics as indicative of the broad ‘acceptance’ of the absorption of counter terrorism into routine safeguarding practices (Thomas, 2024), however, this overlooks the power of the mandatory status of the policy, as articulated in professional directives (DfE, 2021; Ofsted, 2019).
Notwithstanding revisions and reviews of the policy, a number of tenacious criticisms of it endure, some of which are especially pertinent for practitioners’ working in the education sector; the reinforcement of Islamophobia and the chilling effect of the policy on human rights (Amnesty International, 2023; Scott-Bauman, 2020). Rather than alleviating the problem of the disproportionate number of Muslim pupils referred to Prevent, which culminate in ‘no further action’ or the increasing number of referrals of children who display solidarity with Palestine (Amnesty International, 2023, p.3; NEU, 2024), the IRP ushered in repressive recommendations which intensify anti-Muslim sentiment and silence critical speech (Shawcross, 2023, p.6-9)
Informed by empirical data generated by qualitative interviews with frontline practitioners, this paper argues that teachers resist and rework Prevent including by supporting pupil ‘self-surveillance’ practices (Mythen, Walklate and Khan, 2012). This paper argues therefore that practitioners’ enactments of the mandatory policy, are sensitive forms of anti-colonial resistance which safeguard racialised communities from primary harms and iatrogenic harms.
