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Following the 7/7 London Transport Bombings, the UK Government embarked upon a policy trajectory that led to the education system being used to counter terrorism. Teachers were required to identify and report children and young people in their care if they considered them at risk of becoming radicalised and committing future terrorist attacks. This research investigates the role of UK secondary school teachers as both Government "Policy Actors" and "Counter-Terrorism Operatives", classifying them as Counter-Terrorism "Policy Actors". The study utilised Scheurich's Policy Archaeology Methodology (Scheurich, 1994) and Hyatt's Critical Policy Discourse Analysis Framework (Hyatt, 2013) to understand how this role was socially constructed within political and social contexts. This research is significant because it adds to a small but growing volume of work utilising Scheurich's policy archaeology. Furthermore, interviews with teachers were undertaken during a global pandemic where teachers were required to undertake activities far beyond their remit. At the same time, classroom spaces had been infiltrated by geopolitics and a rise in both the far-right and Black Lives Matter movements. It questions the response of teachers in this study who believe that identifying children and young people at risk of radicalisation is an important part of their role as educators. This thesis argues that the prevailing discourse uses power, seduction, suspicion, and diversion to persuade teachers that it is within their role. The study concludes that countering terrorism is a significant undertaking and should be led by people with expertise in this field and that secondary school teachers should be allowed to focus on the subject-specific education for which they are trained.

This thesis is a response to the sociobiological paradigm which sees all aspects of life as fundamentally 'selfish'. This view is built upon two concepts, firstly, that the evolutionary process of natural selection leads to a world characterised by 'selfish' genes and 'selfish' individual organisms. Secondly, that all aspects of human nature, including benevolence, are defined by natural selection and are consequently selfish in motivation also. In Chapter 2, the first of these ideas is shown as inappropriate, not least, because selection favours genes that 'cooperate' and individuals that 'sacrificially' expend themselves in producing offspring. In Chapter 3, the second concept is discounted as only some aspects of human behaviour and culture can be explained in terms of natural selection. These points are central to the discussions on 'altruism' in Chapters 4-6. While sociobiologists have rightly noted that kin and reciprocal forms of 'altruism' occur in nature and in human society, their rendering of them in terms of genetic and individual 'selfishness' is again entirely misleading. The arguments of some sociobiologists for group selected forms of 'altruism' in nature and human culture are shown as unconvincing. Further, the sociobiological contention that human benevolence is constrained to the aiding of kin, reciprocal partners and group members is also countered. Humans exhibit the capacity to care for those outside of these sociobiological categories. Moreover, rather than being primarily selfish in motivation, humans are both more altruistic and more egoistic than the sociobiological view can accommodate. Chapter 7 considers the sociobiological interpretation of the New Testament (NT) teachings on love as selfishly concerned only with the care of kin, reciprocators and group members. This view is largely acceded to by the theologian, Stephen Pope, while another, Patrfcia Williams, has argued that the NT directly strives to counter such innate forms of behaviour. Chapters 8-10 investigate some of the NT teachings on love and argue for a more profound and complex altruism than any of these views. Chapter 8 contends that NT love is a deeply humble and sacrificial altruism where the needs of the other are placed before those of the self; one that is patterned after the example of Christ. It is a radical altruism, which as Chapter 9 argues, encompasses kin but also goes beyond this category in the requirement to love the new family of believers. This love of the group, the church, is itself transcended in a love for all others. Chapter 10 argues that this NT altruism is not bound by reciprocity for it prioritises the care of the weak, those who cannot reciprocate; and extends love to enemies, those who will not reciprocate. The view that such a love is ultimately reciprocal on the grounds of its heavenly reward is countered, as the NT reward of love is the promise that the believer's capacity for self-giving love will be perfected.