Still whitewashing Britain: race, class and the UK citizenship test

Abstract

This article argues that the UK citizenship test promotes an exclusionary vision of Britishness which is both classed and racialized. Reflecting on a longer trajectory of British nationality and citizenship policy-making since 1948, I argue that the citizenship test must be situated within a broader ideological project that equates Britishness with whiteness. Drawing on ethnographic research at training centres which assist migrants in learning and memorizing the Life in the UK Handbook, I show that candidates must regurgitate this exclusionary version of Britishness in order to pass the test. However, the Handbook’s contents are not cleanly imparted but rather messily refracted as migrants’ and teachers’ own worldviews bleed into this idealized version of Britain and challenge its hegemony.