Jonathan S James was awarded 2017 BERA Masters Dissertation Award for his dissertation: Civil disorder, domestic terrorism, and education policy

The abstract for his dissertation is below:

“This dissertation seeks to identify the ways in which occurrences of Islamic terrorism and outbreaks of civil disorder have impacted on approaches to migrant incorporation and education policy in England and France. Since 2001, England and France have experienced outbreaks of rioting in which young people of immigrant origin have been implicated. Both have also been the target of Islamic terrorist attacks committed by their own citizens. The two countries have had similar experiences of immigration since the Second World War, but are considered to have taken divergent approaches to migrant incorporation. Whilst Britain has tended towards a ‘multicultural race relations’ model, France has tended towards an assimilationist Republican model. Through the analysis of policy discourse, policy documents, and secondary sources, this dissertation seeks to establish whether, given the common challenges faced by the two countries, these distinct approaches to migrant incorporation have been maintained. It finds that the policy traditions continue to frame political discourse and feed into the policy response. At the same time, commonalities in the challenges faced, as well as processes at super-national level appear to have led to convergence in some areas.”