Values for Cohesion Podcast

Aslı: Hello and welcome to Values for Cohesion podcast series!

This is Dr Aslı Kandemir and I am with my co-hosts, Doctoral researcher in Education, Duygu Doğuş Tandırcı, and Digital Media and Communications analyst, Lara Tsentides.

I am the lead of this University of Birmingham project titled ‘Values for Cohesion: In the Shadow of Karagöz and Hacivat’. This important project is funded by Birmingham City Council with Community Recovery Fund of the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government // and it is in partnership with NASUWT Teachers’ Union and West Midlands Turkish Association.

This project seeks ways in which schools and communities can work together to rebuild resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion in the local Birmingham community and beyond. To achieve it, the project asks questions about 'what misinformation and disinformation means for school managers, teachers, and community leaders', and 'how they can be challenged to safeguard young people and communities'.

In so doing, it incorporates cultural heritage traditions such as Turkish Shadow Play called Karagöz [meaning the Black-eyed] and Hacivat [meaning The Wise].

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND GIVEN

To answer the questions we posed in this project, in May and June 2025, we held creative workshops, chaired roundtable discussions, and interviewed teachers and community leaders, who had been working within the education ecosystem. We wanted to gain a comprehensive understanding and insight into how misinformation and disinformation operate within this ecosystem.

Today, in this episode, we’re going to discuss the importance of curriculum development in challenging misinformation and disinformation.

Before we begin, we should remind you, our dear listeners, of our resources we’ve shared with you on the project website. Please feel free to have a look at those resources should you feel distressed with the topics discussed in this podcast series.

Lara, Duygu, I have a question for you. How do you think curriculum development can help us tackle mis/disinformation in schools and how can communities support this process?

Content:

Lara: Thanks Asli. Well, that’s a difficult question but not too difficult to respond to. Our participant teachers came up with important points that can answer this question rather well. But perhaps before, I should point at a number of curriculum subjects that can be helpful in tackling misinformation and disinformation in schools.

In our Values for Cohesion project roundtables, three course subjects stood out. They included:

1. Media Literacy
2. Classics
3. Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and Citizenship Education (CE)

Media Literacy: Although we might not say that there is a curriculum subject designated to media or media literacy, it is important to bear in mind that it needs to be covered as a subject as an effective way to identify and challenge myths and misinformation in media. During the workshops with school managers, teachers, and community leaders, we kindly asked them to conduct an internet search to find available sources out there so that we could inform our research outputs. Our participants came up with an interesting work undertaken by researchers from the University of Kent, which is called Conspiracy Kitchen. This online tool shows us, media users, how easy it is to come up with a conspiracy theory and how fast it can spread. As the lead of this Kent project, Professor Karen Douglas, defines conspiracy theory as [quote] ‘a belief that two or more actors have coordinated in secret to achieve an outcome and that their conspiracy is of public interest but not public knowledge’. [unquote] She says: [quote] ‘[As demonstrated in the Conspiracy Kitchen] As long as you have the right ingredients you can come up with a conspiracy theory that could very easily spread.’ [unquote] All you need is three ingredients:

1. 1. Protagonists – Who did it?
2. 2. An action – What did they do?
3. 3. A motive – Why did they do it?

If you use this online tool, you can create as many conspiracy theories as you’d like and you could post them on social media outlets. Prof Douglas and her team created some of them – such as:

- ‘Pharmaceutical companies are using genetically modified organisms to give children bigger brains’

- ‘British politicians are putting secret messages in movies to deceive the public’

Duygu: Very interesting Lara because in our Values for Cohesion Project, our participants also voiced some of the conspiracy theories that they heard in their schools or community organisations.

I’ll give you an example. Although it may not be an exact illustration of a conspiracy theory, it would still be a good example of a myth. A British-Pakistani woman teacher told us that // she intervenes in the conversation if she hears young people or colleagues talk about misconceptions such as [quote unquote] ‘refugees are living in posh hotels’. The teacher said: [quote] ‘[I would] Just bring to light that refugees are forced migrants. They’re not living in fancy hotels, they’re living in quite constricted and difficult circumstances. Talking about people that I know who are refugees. Talking about my parents came to this country and they worked hard. We’ve not depended on the state, we’ve not had benefits. Actually, the refugees don’t have access to benefits [unquote].

Lara: Yes, very interesting. Going back to participants’ emphasis on the importance of digital literacy or media literacy, I can quote back to what a participant said in our roundtable discussions highlighting young people’s vulnerability to misinformation or distorted images as genuine images.

They said: [quote] ‘They use media to control the way people think. And then you add to that AI, I can tell when it’s an AI-generated figure because of the way they pronounce certain words, but a lot of the kids will sit down and watch it and not even realise they’re actually watching AI’ [unquote].

Then another participant stressed the important role that teachers play at schools to equip pupils to detect misinformation or conspiracies and challenge them before they stick with them. They said: [quote] ‘And I think us, as educators, it’s about giving pupils those tools for them to be able to do some of these steps to identify and challenge misinformation and conspiracies, to look for themselves. We might give them the tips to guide them, but then helping them to get rid of all the fake stuff and look at the real stuff, without it going down a rabbit hole, because that’s the temptation of it’ [unquote].

Duygu: This is quite powerful, Lara, thanks! All these points made by our participants underline that digital literacy or media literacy needs to be incorporated into the curriculum and delivery. In fact, the Labour government has taken this into consideration and reflected on media literacy in the Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report that Aslı contributed to, as a policy consultant, during the roundtable discussions organised by Runnymede Trust. We should remind for our listeners that Runnymede Trust is UK’s leading race equality think tank.

Aslı: That’s right, Duygu. Last year, my colleague Prof Karl Kitching and I, had eye-opening and illuminating discussions on the Government’s revision of the National Curriculum along with our colleagues from Runnymede Trust. And Runnymede Trust with Dr Shabna Begum’s leadership summarised the key takeaways of these discussions. And one of the most striking ones is ‘embedding Statutory Entitlement to a Diverse Curriculum’ by ‘making diversity and inclusion a statutory entitlement across all subjects’ and ‘supporting curriculum coherence and depth with subject-specific guidance and resources, that affirms diverse histories, cultures, and contributions’. And Runnymede suggests; a good way of achieving it is diversifying Initial Teacher Education to include culturally responsive pedagogies and historical thinking skills.

Lara: Thank you for sharing this information with us, Aslı. I personally will have a look at the Runnymede Trust’s website after recording this episode. Perhaps we should move to the second curriculum subject that can be used in tackling misinformation and disinformation, which is also aligned with Runnymede’s suggestion and with our research findings. That course-subject is Classics!

Aslı: Ah that’s right.

Classics: Our participants pointed at the teaching of Classics as it could be used to deconstruct symbols that far-right organisations might use to create images and craft their own narratives. For instance, a White-British female teacher of Classics emphasised that [quote] ‘something that probably is very important for us [as teachers] to do is [to diversify our curriculum on Classics] because very often Roman iconography gets adopted by far-right organisations’ [unquote]. Also, participants highlighted the importance of collaborative work between the Classical Association and the Geography and History Associations, to achieve this diversification. This effort they said should also be in connection with arts and Religious Education educators and educational bodies as they are regarded as [quote] ‘a really useful vehicle to bridge the gap between inclusive curriculum and schools’ day-to-day practices’ [unquote].

Speaking of bridging the gap, during our roundtable discussions, educators and community leaders suggested that subject associations have a considerable reach in schools and they bridge the gap between academia and schools. Hence, they suggested to invite subject associations to develop curricula by making the most of subject-specific expertise. They also stressed about the issue on textbooks. They think textbooks might have poorly written and therefore, there must be a serious consideration around how to develop textbooks inclusively and effectively. A way doing that might be, as they said, community organisations could go into schools with a ‘how can we help you?’ perspective, rather than just challenging when there are issues. For instance, to make curriculum inclusive and textbooks well-written, Ottoman and Republican heritage of Türkiye might be included in, say, History lessons. Participants call this ‘responsive curriculum’ rather than even inclusive curriculum. And that can enable educators and community leaders to pick up on misinformation and disinformation as it comes up.

In line with Classics, History too was often mentioned by our participants as another important course-subject. In fact, in one of the roundtable discussions, a female White-British secondary History teacher highlighted that History curriculum could be quite delimiting. Especially GCSE history might include only [quote] ‘two, so-called non-Western individuals in one unit of the four units [they] teach, and there’s nothing else’ [unquote]. And pupils would be more concerned with whether the subjects covered in their curriculum are going to be included in the exam or not. Even if they’d enjoy learning different subjects, they will be keen to learn only if they’ll come as exam questions. However, primary school teachers are freer, as they said, because they can be more flexible in their curriculum design and delivery. The History teacher said: [quote] ‘I’ll talk about that, whilst I’m teaching, and I’ll give alternative examples, so we do look at women, and we look at different people that are not on the spec, and it’s wider knowledge, but they’re not going to get an exam question on it’ [unquote]. A Black Caribbean British primary History teacher told about the flexibility in primary History curriculum and teaching and addressed the importance of celebrating diverse histories to not only debunk myths and challenge misinformation but also to present a more balanced approach in history teaching.

Duygu: Wow! Yes! That’s really powerful and so meaningful for both our school communities in Birmingham and England and racially, ethnically and religiously minoritised communities. Therefore, such national and local government support as Community Recovery Fund which supports our project is invaluable for sustainable and meaningful community cohesion.

Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and Citizenship Education: Speaking of communities, it might be useful for us if we talk about the third and last course-subject that was recommended by our participants – which is Personal, social, health and economic education and it needs to be thought about in relation to Citizenship Education.

So Lara and Aslı, as you and our listeners know, these subjects are not statutory subjects. This means that they are not compulsory to be delivered but highly valued. It is these subjects in which moral values for a good character and civic values for good citizenship are taught. But we should remember that moral values and civic values are not necessarily the same value-sets. Therefore, they need diligent work and a special focus to design and deliver them.

It is not surprising, isn’t it Lara and Aslı, that our participants underlined these two subjects in bold?!!

Aslı: Yes, that’s right Duygu. For instance, do you remember the British-Asian Asst HT from Episode 1, he once told me that they give special importance to British values and values teaching from a more inclusive perspective. Therefore, they do not only put them on school boards but also ingrain them into the character of pupils, teacher, and school leaders.

Lara: Yeah, and these two curriculum subjects are great spaces for equipping children and young people with critical thinking skills. As participants often addressed, critical thinking, as a soft but crucial skill, should be taught in the schools and teachers, community leaders, and parents should be included in designing the curriculum to embed this skill-set into the curriculum development and school practices.

Duygu: Absolutely! Critical thinking abilities could also enable children and young people, even adults, to be wary of misleading myths, misinformation, and disinformation.

Lara: That’s right. However, the main challenge here, as participants said, is the current education system being too exam-driven. This doesn’t leave enough room to teachers and school leaders to use course-subjects such as PSHE and CE as open and brave spaces to debate and discuss – in fact, to dissent.

Duygu: Yes, and in response to the challenge they raised, participants also brought their own solution. They said that meetings with parent-teacher associations are also an important part to co-develop and co-produce responsive curricula that can meet pupils’, communities’, and educators’ needs. They also said that school governors can be important sources of meeting these needs. Similarly, community leaders are important for educators and parents because they are gatekeepers for communities to be accessed and worked together for a responsive curriculum. If parents, teachers, governors, community leaders interact actively, school level implementation of policies and responsive curricula might be achieved more quickly.

Outro:

Aslı: Absolutely Duygu! Such an important food for thought for us educationalists. And Dear Listeners, this brings us to the end of Episode 2, in which we looked at the importance of inclusive curriculum, or as our participants call it, responsive curriculum, which is a fascinating finding of this research. And this is quite significant not only because responsive curriculum equips children and young people with critical thinking skills to challenge misinformation and disinformation, but also because it has a broader understanding of diversity crystallising in different histories.

Lara: Exactly! Maybe something like my own personal history combining my Turkish identity with Greek-Cypriot identity and my British national identity. This is along the lines of the topics we’ll discuss in the next and final episode of this series.

ALL: (Giggle)

Aslı: Thank you all for listening, catch us next time to hear more on how we can build resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion by developing heritage-inclusive national values. See you next time.

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Aslı: Hello and welcome to Values for Cohesion podcast series!

This is Dr Aslı Kandemir and I am with my co-hosts

- doctoral researcher in Education, Duygu Dogus Tandirci; and

- Digital Media and Communications analyst, Lara Tsentides.

I am the lead of this University of Birmingham project titled ‘Values for Cohesion: In the Shadow of Karagöz and Hacivat’. This important project is funded by Birmingham City Council with Community Recovery Fund of the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and it is in partnership with NASUWT Teachers’ Union and West Midlands Turkish Association.

This project seeks ways in which schools and communities can work together to rebuild resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion in the local Birmingham community and beyond. To achieve it, the project asks questions about

- what misinformation and disinformation means for school managers, teachers, and community leaders, and

- how they can be challenged to safeguard young people and communities.

In so doing, this project incorporates cultural heritage traditions such as Turkish Shadow Play called Karagöz [meaning the Black-eyed] and Hacivat [meaning The Wise].

This project tries to answer some questions, and to be able to do that, in May and June 2025, we held creative workshops, chaired roundtable discussions, and interviewed teachers and community leaders, who had been working within the education ecosystem. We actually wanted to gain a comprehensive understanding and insight into how misinformation and disinformation operate within this ecosystem.

Today, in this episode, we’re going to discuss misinformation and disinformation; in terms of what they are, how to identify them and the issues that are created from them.

Before we begin, we should remind you, our dear listeners, of our resources we’ve shared with you on the project website. Please feel free to have a look at those resources should you feel distressed with the topics discussed in this podcast series.

Duygu, Lara, I think I shall start by asking you two what misinformation and disinformation means..

Duygu: Thanks Aslı. Perhaps I can start by giving some academic and journalistic definitions of the concepts.

According to BBC, misinformation refers to fake news created by someone who is unaware that it’s fake. The mistake is simply unintentional, and it has the capability to spread quickly through social media. Whereas, disinformation is misleading news, created and made with the intention of it being false. Its purpose is often to influence people to think and act a certain way. This topic arises the important discussion of the need to think critically and question what one comes across online.

Therefore, it is also a hot topic for many academic studies from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, criminology, education studies, and journalism. A good example I’d like to share with you would be from a media and communications scholar Theodora Dame Adjin-Tettey

She published a research paper in 2022 titled ‘Combating fake news, disinformation and misinformation’. She states in her paper: [quote] Fake news is news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers. It is also sometimes referred to as information pollution, media manipulation or information warfare. Disinformation has also been defined in UNESCO’s handbook for journalism education and training, as deliberate (often orchestrated) attempts to confuse or manipulate people through delivering dishonest information to them, while misinformation is misleading information created or disseminated without manipulative or malicious intent. [unquote]

Lara: Yes, this shows that the role that intent plays in defining these terms is very important. This reminds me of another term, malinformation, can you help us break that down, Duygu?

Duygu: Yes, definitely! I’ll refer back to Adjin-Tettey and will quote from her. She says: [quote] malinformation, is the intentional dissemination of confidential information, by typically changing context, date, or time, for personal or corporate rather than public interest. [unquote] But returning back to the difference between misinformation and disinformation, Adjin-Tettey summarises it nicely and says: [quote] The two main differences between misinformation and disinformation are that: 1) fake news mimics the form of mainstream news, while disinformation does not; and 2) while disinformation is purposefully crafted to mislead, the one engaged in misinformation does not deliberately do so because they are not aware information being shared is fabricated or false. [unquote]

Lara: This is such a great quote, Duygu, thanks! It really highlights the layers to how this operates in society and gives us useful ways to look out for disinformation and misinformation. It also makes me think of the dangers that could arise.

Duygu: Yes Lara, because as Adjin-Tettey states: [quote] Disinformation (and by extension fake news) and malinformation are dangerous because of how it is deliberately orchestrated and resourced by malicious actors and how it is reinforced by digital technologies and platforms, including social networks. [unquote]

Lara: That’s right Duygu, the need to think critically and question what is encountered in social media is very important. If we don’t, significant risks to the well-being of people and society are posed. For example, the OECD highlights that misinformation, or false information, can undermine trust in democratic institutions and processes. We can see this happening increasingly among youth. If we think about being in school and how vulnerable young students can be to information discussed amongst themselves, it’s important to provide them with the tools that help them think critically and recognise what misinformation and disinformation really is.

Aslı: Well-said, Lara. In fact, this is something that we intended to address in our previous research project with my colleagues Prof Karl Kitching, Prof Reza Gholami, and Dr Shajedur Rahman. In that project we evidenced and documented this vulnerability among young people. We have recently published an opinion piece; I’m sure you are familiar with The Conversation. We were just published by them and we presented our findings there on this issue. In that research, we conducted a survey with more than 3,000 young people in year ten (which is constituted of 14-15 year-olds as you may know) in schools across England. And we found that, and presented that, 75% said that they learned most about social and political issues online, including on social media. This means that if young people are not digitally literate and critically engaged with social and political issues, they may be negatively affected by false information and stereotypes. Our study found, though, that some of these young people were wary of getting information from social media outlets such as TikTok and YouTube, and they were inclined to crosscheck what they had seen on social media with news journalism as a reliable source as you may agree, Lara and Duygu.

In Values for Cohesion project, we also asked teachers and school leaders what they would say about the change that they’d like to see in tackling misinformation for instance, not only locally in schools but also, broadly in society. A male British-Asian Assistant HT answered this question by emphasising how important it is to prevent students from [quote] [unquote] ‘going down a rabbit hole’.

He said: ‘I think, in terms of school, it’s making sure that we are covering misinformation as part of our personal development, our PSHE session, but going more in depth with it like, obviously, technology changes. I remember when the first mobile phone came out to what it is now, the mobile phone was literally to receive and make calls. Nowadays, that’s the secondary of it. The primary is literally apps, Facebook and all that. […] He then continues: In terms of Artificial Intelligence coming out now, we had a safeguarding audit several weeks ago and the visiting official said, “Have you talked about AI?” I said we've talked about AI in terms of careers. She goes, “You need to talk about it in terms of misinformation, fake news, they are the two key things because our youngsters are, she said, so technology advanced compared to when we were younger, they know the loopholes, they know how to get through towards websites what we couldn’t do before.”’

Lara: I can second this quote, Aslı. From my own research, I know how easy it is to fall down a rabbit hole. For example, Scholar Jonas Kaiser highlights the harm that algorithms cause in facilitating this. I am currently writing a paper on it and I argue that hate speech is increasingly platformed under the guise of free speech. Then this normalises the over-circulation of harmful expressions towards others.

Aslı: This can have big risks, Lara, so it’s important for educators and families to understand how to prevent this. Do you remember the Asst HT that I just mentioned?.. He discussed how they strive to equip students with the correct tools to break down misinformation. For example, during our roundtable discussions participant teachers mentioned how political ideology orchestrates disinformation through myths about, for instance, immigrants. A participant said and I’ll quote their words: [quote] [A political party leader] said if you had 10 to 15 men from different cultures come to live on your street, move into a house, [whilst] you’re getting up at 5am to work on a building site, [and] you’ve got to pay your taxes [whereas] those 10 to 15 men are here illegally, they get free dental, free money to spend and get full bed and breakfast paid for. And then this party leader says, “Isn’t that unfair?” That’s his politics… [unquote] ... COMMENTS MADE… We should question what we hear in this example, what’s wrong with it? What happens if we do not question this? Would you agree?!

Lara: Yeah, we see this happening frequently over social media. This can be a catalyst for actions that occur in society. Think about the 2024 summer riots that took place in several cities in England... COMMENTS MADE… As a Digital Media and Communications analyst, I know the importance of looking at how the digital landscape intersects with reality. For example, scholar Bethany Usher suggests that digital media and interconnected technologies do construct our political realities such as what we’ve seen in those riots. This just goes to show how social media discourse is mirrored in everyday life. Students should be encouraged more in schools to question and reflect after seeing an example like this.

Duygu: It’s so interesting to see how this issue unfolds within an educational environment too. The British-Asian Assistant HT we interviewed said [quote] ‘every parent’s got a mobile phone for their daughters and sons to be safe’ [unquote]. But from discussing this topic, we can see the safety risks that are caused by this. With young people mainly downloading social media when starting secondary school and even younger, misinformation and disinformation can effectively occupy their screens.

Lara: This is where digital literacy comes into play, isn’t it? Currently, in the area of media and communications, we’re focusing on the impact of Artificial Intelligence – it’s increasingly on the rise and becoming harder for many to identify false information when especially fact-checking policies are helpful to overcome this issue only to a certain degree. In my paper, I also focus on the choice of digital media platforms to lift fact-checking in early 2025. We can see how impactful politics is in the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of social media. I know this through research, but these policies aren’t necessarily explicit for school management and teaching staff, or even pupils in schools.

Duygu: What you’re saying goes to show the importance and need to fact-check. Children are curious. They consistently question and this is such a great trait. And we need to continue to encourage this within learning. Educators can provide their students with sites that provide reliable answers to their questions regarding fact-checking. In Values for Cohesion Project, we also prepare our Misinformation and Disinformation Toolkit with a Teachers’ Guidebook and a Community Guidebook, which will be used in schools and communities.

Outro:

Aslı: By the way, Duygu and Lara, I might not have shared this information with you but the toolkit and these two guidebooks that Duygu just mentioned will be shared with Community Cohesion Taskforce of the UK Government. They are very interested in seeing these resources, to be able to be disseminated with schools and community organisations. Therefore, it is very exciting and very important, I think, to be able to produce such resources. So we’re looking forward to sharing this Toolkit with you all in the near future, Dear Listeners! So watch this space. But Today, we were able to unpack the layers of misinformation and disinformation and apply these concepts to a learning environment in order to develop a shared understanding for teachers and community leaders. We hope this helps better-equip pupils and educators, as well as community leaders, with effective ways on how to address, understand, and explain these terms.

Lara: I know this has definitely helped me!

Aslı: What do you think, Duygu?

Duygu: Yeah, it’s really helpful.

Aslı: Thank you all for listening, catch us next time to hear more on how we can build resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion through an inclusive curriculum.

All: Bye…

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Kaiser, J., and Rauchfleisch, A. (2019) The implications of venturing down the rabbit hole. Internet Policy Review [online]. Available from: <https://policyreview.info/articles/news/implications-venturing-down-rabbit-hole/1406>.

Kitching, K., Kandemir, A. and Rahman, Md. S. (2026). Teens see social media more than school as the place to learn about race and faith [online], The Conversation.

Kitching, K., Gholami, R., Kandemir, A. and Rahman, Md. S. (2025). ‘Free’ Expression at School? The Making of Youth Engagements with Race and Faith. Final Project Report, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

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Usher, B. (2025) Defining Networked Constructed Reality: Hyperpopulism, Hypercriminality, and the 2024 UK “Far-Right Riots”. Emerging Media, 3:4, 562-581, DOI: 10.1177/27523543251398126.

1. NASUWT Guiding Principles on Student Voice
2. National Education Union Framework for Developing an Anti-Racist Approach
3. Podcast and Infographic from Prof Judith Pace on Learning to Teach Controversial Issues
4. Scottish Government National Improvement Hub Recognising and Realising Children’s Rights: A Professional Learning Resource to Promote Self-Evaluation and Improvement Planning
5. Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Resources
6. Racism and Mental Health
7. Fake news and mental health - BBC Bitesize
8. Google Fact Check Tools
9. BBC Verify – Fact Check Tool
10. Online Misinformation & the UK Riots - Educate Against Hate
11. Youth Engagement with Race and Faith at School Project Website
12. Contact a Samaritan