Education Policy and British Values

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the promotion of British values in education policy, focusing in particular on: (i) the emergence of the British values debates within education policy following the 7/7 bombings in 2005 and Tony Blair’s subsequent speech which argued that integration into British culture was necessary to counter radicalisation; (ii) The Casey Review, commissioned by David Cameron in 2015, which argued that schools should “attach more weight to British values, laws and history” in order to improve integration and create a shared set of values; (iii) the British values identified by the Casey Review and the legal commitment for schools to promote these in education since 2015.

About the lecturer

Dr Shaun Best is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at the University of Winchester. He researches and teaches on social theory, particularly the work of Zygmunt Bauman, and the sociology of education. His recent publications include The Emerald Guide to Zygmunt Bauman (2020), Zygmunt Bauman on Education in Liquid Modernity (2019), and Talcott Parsons: Despair and Modernity (2016).