Walking a tight rope: anti terrorism policy, anti racism and RE- implications for ITE?

Elton-Chalcraft, Sally ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3064-7249 (2023) Walking a tight rope: anti terrorism policy, anti racism and RE- implications for ITE? In: Association of University Lecturers in Religious Education (AULRE), 18-19 May 2023, Birmingham, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

How do RE, anti terrorism policy, and conceptions of race and ethnicity intersect? With particular reference to Muslim communities this presentation considers how the RE teacher and teacher educator can balance requirements of governmental policy with their own beliefs about the aims of RE as a vehicle for Anti racism. However the the emerging RE discipline moving away from RE now not It could be argued that Muslim children, students and their families are recognised as the first target of the UK Prevent Policy and there is an emerging consensus that there has been the creation of Muslims as a ‘suspect community’. A collaborative project between three female professors drills down into the how and why Muslims have come to be viewed as ‘at risk or risky’ and we propose a ‘Muslims as a Suspect Community typology’, drawing on existing research and our own theorisation, to illustrate the complex continuum from ‘potential terrorist’ to ‘good’ Muslim and why some Muslims choose to adopt a ‘least Muslim role’. We contextualise the concept of ‘Muslims’ which highlights the diverse ways in which some Muslims speak about Islam and racism (Abbas 2019; Khan 2016) and  whether Muslim youth feel they are viewed as a risk to society and at risk of catching the terrorist disease (Thomas 2020), or if they are vulnerable to radicalisation (O’Donell, 2017) and whether different societal perspectives hinder or support anti-terrorist policy enactment. There are moves to decolonise the ITE curriculum with Lander and Smith’s anti racist framework but many feel there is a long way to go (Revell and Bryan 2018; Elton-Chalcraft, Revell and Lander 2022; Warner and Elton-Chalcraft 2022).

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Departments:	Institute of Education > Initial Teacher Education
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	22 May 2023 12:41
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2024 15:01
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7118

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