We recently commissioned a piece of research into how schools and educational institutions have responded to the 2015 legal requirement to show ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ – popularly referred to as the ‘Prevent duty’. The full report ‘What the Prevent duty means for schools and colleges in England: An analysis of educationalists’ experiences‘ is now available to the public. It aims to address four questions:
1. How has the new Prevent duty been interpreted by staff in schools and colleges in England?
2. How confident do school/college staff feel with regards to implementing the Prevent duty?
3. What impacts, if any, do school/college staff think the Prevent duty has had on their school or college, and on their interactions with students and parents?
4. To what extent, if at all, have school/college staff opposed or questioned the legitimacy of the Prevent duty?
As the authors write in their Executive Summary ‘while this report provides the first detailed examination at this scale of how the Prevent duty has played out in England’s schools and colleges from the perspective of educational professionals, a more complete understanding of the impact of the duty requires research that examines the experiences and attitudes of students, parents and local communities.’ We welcome further discussion and research on the reception and impact of the Prevent duty.
The research was undertaken by Joel Busher (Coventry University), Tufyal Choudhury (Durham University), Paul Thomas (University of Huddersfield) and Gareth Harris (Coventry University).
The research was funded by the Aziz Foundation, with support from the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University, and additional support from Durham University and the University of Huddersfield.