In 2014 an investigation into an alleged plot to ‘Islamify’ several state schools in Birmingham began. Known as the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, this caused a previously highly successful school to be vilified.
Holmwood, an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers, and O’Toole, who researches the government’s counter-extremism agenda, challenge the accepted narrative and draw on the potential parallel with the Hillsborough disaster to suggest a similar false narrative has taken hold of public debate.
This important book highlights the major injustice inflicted on the teachers and shows how this affair was used to criticise multiculturalism, and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter extremism agenda.
Innehållsförteckning
Introduction: A plot to Islamicise schools?
Part 1: Context
‘British values’ and community cohesion
Prevent: from hearts and minds to muscular liberalism
Community cohesion, schooling and Prevent
Religious education, collective worship and publicly funded education
Governance, school reform and change management
Part 2: The case
Introducing the case
Enter Ofsted
The Clarke and Kershaw Reports
The NCTL hearings and their collapse
Conclusion: Lessons from the Trojan Horse affair
Om författaren
Therese O’Toole is Reader in Sociology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. She led a major ESRC/AHRC study of Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance and an AHRC Connected Communities study of the local implementation of Prevent in Bristol.