Countering Extremism in British Schools?: The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair
John Holmwood and Therese O'Toole
Abstract
In 2014 the UK government launched an investigation into the “Trojan Horse” affair: an alleged plot to “Islamify” several state schools in Birmingham. Twenty-one schools in Birmingham were subjected to snap Ofsted inspections and included in the various inquiries into the affair. The book's authors — one who was an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers in the school, and the other, who researches the government's counter-extremism agenda — challenge the accepted narrative, arguing that a major injustice was inflicted on the teachers, and they go on to ... More
In 2014 the UK government launched an investigation into the “Trojan Horse” affair: an alleged plot to “Islamify” several state schools in Birmingham. Twenty-one schools in Birmingham were subjected to snap Ofsted inspections and included in the various inquiries into the affair. The book's authors — one who was an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers in the school, and the other, who researches the government's counter-extremism agenda — challenge the accepted narrative, arguing that a major injustice was inflicted on the teachers, and they go on to show how the affair was used to criticize multiculturalism and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter-extremism agenda. The government cites the 'plot' in its argument about the need to develop a new counter-extremism strategy that confronts extremist ideology and not just threats of violence. However, the Kershaw Report and some other commentators argue that there was, in fact, no evidence of extremism.
Keywords:
Trojan Horse affair,
counter-extremism,
multiculturalism,
Islam
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781447344131 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: May 2018 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781447344131.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
John Holmwood, author
University of Nottingham
Therese O'Toole, author
University of Bristol
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