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This article situates the debate on the United Kingdom's Prevent policy in the broader framework of the global paradigm for countering violent extremism (CVE), which appeared at the end of 2015. It argues that omission of a nuanced focus on the social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics of radicalised people has led to a tendency to introduce blanket measures which, inadvertently and indirectly, have had harmful results. Moreover, although Prevent has been the fundamental element of the British government's counterterrorist strategy since 2006, it confuses legitimate political resistance of young British Muslims with signs of violent extremism, thus giving credence to the argument that Prevent is a form of social engineering which, in the last instance, pacifies resistance by reaffirming the status quo in the country's domestic and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the city of Birmingham (UK) became embroiled in a high-profile scandal that would bring it and the wider education system under disrepute. The ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, as it become known, began with an anonymised letter that claimed hard-line ‘Islamists’ were plotting and planning to take over a number of schools in Birmingham. Amongst the allegations were that some of the schools had been promoting gender segregation and that children were not safeguarded against the risks of extremism. This article examines some of those issues in relation to the Trojan Horse scandal and uses a qualitative study focused on participants from the area of Birmingham. As the tribunal hearings against the teachers have now found no wrongdoing, the findings reported in this article suggest that Muslim communities feel unfairly categorised as extremists and that such issues have impacted upon their sense of identity and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has two aims. First, it is concerned with a discourse in British media and politics of ‘Muslim education’, a concept that often appears alongside words such as ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ and contributes to the undue ‘religification’ of people of Muslim backgrounds. I offer a preliminary analysis of this discourse arguing that the description of an educational setting as ‘Muslim’ opens up a social and political space in which certain types of action can occur, including fundamentally undermining the educational integrity of the setting in question. Second, the article considers original ethnographic data from two Iranian ‘supplementary’ schools in London as a way to push beyond a mere critique of Islamophobia towards a new theoretical framework. Drawing in particular on the concept of diaspora, the framework accounts for the highly creative, and potentially innovative, modalities of citizenship and education practice that exist in diasporic communities from Muslim backgrounds. With reference to Thomas’ work on the strength of case studies to develop ‘exemplary knowledge’ (rather than abstract theory), I sketch out some ideas for a theory of ‘diasporic education’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article will provide a critique of the PVE initiative and its implementation within the context of primary education following the events of 9/11, the 2001 riots and 7/7. Drawing upon empirical data I will argue that the monitoring of young Muslims and ‘extremism’ is problematic and reinforces the logics of Islamophobia through practices of governmentality. Moreover I will examine how whilst the monitoring of extremism is prioritized in many schools, training for teachers on race equality, tolerance and accepting difference is weak if not absent. This, I suggest, demonstrates a clear manifestation of contemporary hegemonic post-racial politics which increasingly silences the critique of institutional racism. Additionally this article will explore how Muslims in the sphere of education have been implicated and problematised against the backdrop of a ‘muscular liberalism’ intent on the return of assimilationist discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were a major event shaping the relationship between Muslims and non- Muslims in Britain. In this paper we introduce the idea of 'securitized citizens' to analyse the changing relationship between British Muslims and wider British society in response to this and similar events. Through an analysis of qualitative interviews with Muslims and non- Muslims of a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the areas where the London bombers lived in West Yorkshire we examine the popular perceptions of non- Muslims and Muslims' experiences. We show how processes of securitization and racialization have interacted with Islamophobic discourses and identifications, as well as the experiences of Muslims in West Yorkshire after the attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]