Tolerance and mutual respect: what do they mean and why does it matter?

Ackroyd, Rebekah ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7557-9985 (2024) Tolerance and mutual respect: what do they mean and why does it matter? BERA Blog . (Unpublished)

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Abstract

A large body of research has been inspired by a line on page 14 of the Teachers’ Standards in England, which requires teachers not to ‘undermin[e] fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’. The statement was later reformulated as a request to ‘promote’ fundamental British values in the Department for Education’s 2014 guidance to schools. The political and securitising implications of this requirement, which originate in the UK government’s counter-terrorism policy Prevent, have been widely examined, including in this BERA Blog post (see also Busher et al., 2017; Vincent, 2019). My PhD research built on this literature through a close examination of two concepts: tolerance and mutual respect. I have a religious education (RE) teaching background, and in all my years promoting mutual respect and tolerance I have never had a discussion with a colleague about what these terms mean. However, my experiences suggest tolerance and mutual respect are not clear-cut and uncertainty exists about what should be tolerated and what should be condemned. In my research study, I used a multiple case study approach to examine how seven in-service RE teachers in three schools across England constructed and promoted mutual respect and tolerance. The data, which comprised semi-structured interviews and document analysis of schemes of work, were collected in 2020–2021 and analysed using critical discursive psychology (Wiggins, 2017), a form of discourse analysis. This facilitated a close analysis of teachers’ constructions of the concepts.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	BERA Blog
Publisher:	British Educational Research Association (BERA)
Departments:	Institute of Education > MA Programmes (Education)
Additional Information:	Blog post. Part of special issue: 'The Early Career Researchers' Journey: From Inspiration to Impact'. Rebekah Ackroyd, Lecturer in Education at University of Cumbria, UK.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	29 May 2024 19:03
Last Modified:	29 May 2024 19:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7703

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