ABSTRACT

The Prevent counter terrorism strategy (‘Prevent’) – specifically the duty to report those deemed vulnerable to, or causing suspicions of, radicalisation – has been intensely criticised within UK higher education for its racialised and colonial agenda; its potential to curb academic freedom; and its reframing of the pedagogical dynamic as one of surveillance. A specific concern is that Prevent limits possibilities for critical teaching and learning which is predicated on notions of openness and mutual exchange. This paper responds to the claim that Prevent and the statuary duty it implies, prevents critical thinking using empirical data collection with 14 academic faculty teaching Politics across 4 English universities. These data reveal how Prevent’s effects are neither uniform nor straightforward but that its bureaucratic and legalistic framing produces significant and detrimental ‘critical closures’ with an urgent need for higher education institutions to approach future guises of Prevent both critically and pedagogically.

摘要

预防反恐战略（“预防”）——特别是报告那些被认为容易受到激进化或引起激进化怀疑的人的义务——因其种族化和殖民化议程而在英国高等教育内部受到强烈批评；其限制学术自由的潜力；并将教学动态重新定义为一种监视。一个具体的担忧是，预防限制了基于开放和相互交流理念的批判性教学和学习的可能性。本文回应了“预防”及其隐含的法定义务“预防”的主张。使用 4 所英国大学教授政治学的 14 名学术教师收集的实证数据进行批判性思维。这些数据揭示了预防的效果既不统一也不直接，但其官僚和法律框架产生了重大且有害的“关键封闭”，高等教育机构迫切需要批判性和教学性地对待未来的预防形式。