Aini
Teaching children fundamental British values is an act of ‘cultural supremacism’ (Espinoza, 2016) and a ‘pedagogical injustice for students and teachers’ (O’Donnell, 2017:177)
‘Values lie at the heart of education and schooling’ (Peterson, 2013:73). Schools and teachers play an important part in the child’s moral and social development and ‘education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform‘ (Dewey, 1897: 9). Dewey (1897) emphasises the school’s role in deepening and extending the values from home into the social life at school; however, limiting values education to transmission of knowledge from teacher to student without recognition of home values is a disservice to children and their families with far-reaching consequences (Haydon, 2007). Britain’s response to multiculturalism and the supposed ‘values deficit’ (Crawford, 2017:197) stemming from a culturally and religiously diverse communities have resulted in the government’s counter-terrorism initiative Prevent and the enforcement of ‘fundamental British values’ (FBV) (Lander, 2016). The term FBV has been met with heavy criticism and called ‘vacuous nonsense’ by Daley (2014); and ‘parochial, patronising and arrogant’ (Rosen, 2014).
