ABSTRACT. The introduction of the ‘Fundamental British Values’ agenda has shaped ideas of ‘Britishness’ in UK schools, making teachers and schools responsible in their duty to promote a unitary label of national identity against the backdrop of the introduction of counter-terrorist and national security laws. The paper theoretically threads identity-based implications for the young people through an analysis of ‘Fundamental British Values’ as a racialising assemblage dissecting, classifying, normalising and unifying discourses of national identity. The paper contributes to understanding how power is operationalised through emergent identity discourses in educational policy that sustain Whiteness as synonymous with ‘Britishness.’ Within the contexts of school and social media and by presenting ethnographic data collected with four young people, the paper explores how the young people navigate the in-betweening dynamics of digital and non-digital spaces, calibrating their civic and political expressions, which I refer to as becoming-citizen. The paper uses nomadic thinking to understand the identity-making movements and fluctuations that interconnect and enrol different elements at school and on social media, signalling how the young people negotiate difference in school relations that seek sameness.

Keywords: fundamental British values; racialising assemblage; nomadic thinking; becoming-citizen; young people

How to cite: Bustillos Morales, J. A. (2025). Becoming-citizens and nomadic thinking: Young people’s experiences of fundamental British values in a UK school. Knowledge Cultures, 13(2), 68–83. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc13220254

Received January 31, 2025 • Received in revised form July 16, 2025
Accepted August 1, 2025 • Available online September 1, 2025