Fundamental(ly) British Values

Join UCL Laws, the UCL Institute of Education and UCL Grand Challenges for a set of presentations and discussions examining the discourse of 'Fundamental British Values'.
Thursday 16 November, 2:00pm-6:00pm

The "Fundamental British Values" discourse has been highly controversial and is of significant importance in a wide range of areas.

The UCL Faculty of Laws, together with the Institute of Education will bring together a range of experts in the areas of EU constitutional law, law and religion, discrimination law, philosophy, citizenship education and sociology of education to discuss the significance and consequences of this discourse from a wide range of perspectives.

This event - aimed at academics, teachers, lawyers as well as the wider public - will allow participants to understand the Fundamental British Values discourse from a number of perspectives, specifically:

• How the emphasis on "values" has changed education and affected the complex inter-relationships between faith, values and civic virtues at school
• How the fundamental British values discourse fits into the overall approach of the English legal order to the relationship between religion, law and state.
• The interaction between the duty to promote British values at school and duties to promote social cohesion and avoid discrimination on grounds of religion and belief.
• How the security agenda underlying the Fundamental British Values discourse has reshaped the relationships between religion, education and extremism
• The significance of British fundamental values in the English constitutional legal order
• The impact of the fundamental British Value discourse on human rights and legal reasoning
• The interactions between the Fundamental British Value discourse, democracy and the political legal order.

Speakers

• Prof Douglas Bourne (Prof. of Development Education, UCL, Institute of Education)
• Prof Piet Eeckhout (Dean, UCL, Faculty of Laws and Academic Director of the UCL European Institute)
• Prof Becky Francis (Dean, UCL Institute of Edcuation)
• Dr Oliver Gerstenberg (Reader in EU Law, UCL Faculty of Laws)
• Dr Myriam Hunter-Henin (Reader in Law and Religion, UCL Faculty of Laws)
• Dr Germ Janmaat (Reader in Comparative Social Science, UCL Institute of Education)
• Dr Ronan McCrea (Senior Lecturer in EU Law and Law and Religion, UCL Faculty of Laws)
• Prof Colm O'Cinneide (Professor of Human Rights Law, UCL Faculty of Laws)
• Dr Farid Panjwani (Director, UCL, Institute of Education)
• Prof Julian Rivers (Professor of Jurisprudence, Bristol University, Law School)
• Prof. Carol Vincent (Professor of the Sociology of Education, UCL Institute of Education).

Output

The academic coordinators - Dr Myriam Hunter-Henin and Prof. Carol Vincent - will publish a joint article in The Conversation, drawing out the common themes from the papers and discussions of the event. The piece will focus on what the mandatory promotion of British values in schools means for practice in schools, and for wider debates around democracy and citizenship, with particular reference to the social and political context of Brexit and anti-extremism policies.

See the full programme of the event here and register here.