Countering Extremism in British Schools?: The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair

John Holmwood · Therese O'Toole

Nov 2017 · Policy Press

About this ebook

In 2014 an investigation into an alleged plot to ‘Islamify’ several state schools in Birmingham began. Known as the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, this caused a previously highly successful school to be vilified. Holmwood, an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers, and O’Toole, who researches the government’s counter-extremism agenda, challenge the accepted narrative and draw on the potential parallel with the Hillsborough disaster to suggest a similar false narrative has taken hold of public debate. This important book highlights the major injustice inflicted on the teachers and shows how this affair was used to criticise multiculturalism, and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter extremism agenda.

About the author

John Holmwood is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham. From 2012 to 2014, he was President of the British Sociological Association and in 2014/15, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA. He acted as an Expert Witness to the Court in one of the National College for Teaching and Leadership hearings against teachers arising from the Trojan Horse affair. Therese O’Toole is Reader in Sociology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. She led a major ESRC/AHRC study of Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance and an AHRC Connected Communities study of the local implementation of Prevent in Bristol. .