How Far Can Nations be Built through Education? Evidence from the Fundamental British Values Initiative

In 2014, the United Kingdom’s Department for Education, as part of the government's counterterrorism Prevent strategy, introduced a program requiring schools to teach "Fundamental British Values". The aim was to foster a shared sense of "Britishness" through instilling core values. This initiative has been highly controversial. Yet, no research has systematically assessed its long-term, large-scale impacts. Here we conduct the first such assessment. By analyzing multiple censuses, cross-referencing with high quality survey data, and utilizing three different causal identification methods based on difference-in-differences, we find that overall, the initiative has significantly increased the probability of identifying as British. Yet the effect is heterogeneous. The initiative backfires for Muslims, for whom it reduces identifying as British. We find no effect of the policy on the targeted values. Our study contributes to the debates on education and nationalism, and calls for a more inclusive civic education approach for bridging social divisions and fostering positive and inclusive identities.