Iro Konstantinou
University of Warwick i.konstantinou@warwick.ac.uk
1 st year PhD student
‘Promoting British values in an English, white, middle class context’
Based on the guidelines given at the official government website on the teaching of Citizenship, the subject should foster awareness and understanding of democracy, government and law while promoting mutual respect and understanding for diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities.
However, the distinct lack of understanding what constitutes a British identity
(not to mention an English one), makes it difficult to challenge the stereotypes and strive for difference as an active citizen. The ambiguous nature of a British vs. English identity is not unique to the islands, especially not during the shift towards a globalised notion of hegemony.
The paper draws from the initial stages of an ethnographic project examining the idea of national identity and civic engagement among 16 to 18 year-old students attending a private school in West London. It aims to explore the theoretical background of how social class and cultural capital might affect constructions of identity. Seeing that the guidelines for teaching strongly encourage promoting
British values the questions that arise are:
1.
How can British values be promoted at a time when Britain is a nuanced concept in itself and when England tries to re-establish itself as a distinct entity from the rest of the Isles?
2.
How can social class allow for multiculturalism to be understood within educational boundaries when it is not a lived experience, knowing that a lot of the practices are imbued either from home and not necessarily taught?