In this Policy Brief, Dr Anna Tuckett recommends that the contents of the Life in the UK Handbook, on which the UK citizenship test is based, should include only information relevant to citizenship and exclude cultural and historical information.
There is currently much discussion among UK policy makers regarding the routes to citizenship for immigrants, including a current Inquiry by The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee into settlement, citizenship and integration, and a recently completed government consultation on earned settlement. A key part of this process under discussion is the Life in the UK test.
Based on her recently published research on this test, which highlighted how contents of the test could induce feelings of exclusion and marginalisation among candidates, Dr Tuckett recommends:
- Remove sections that are misleading, misrepresentative, and potentially offensive
- Remove sections that are largely irrelevant to modern day life in the UK
- Review the rest of the Handbook to ensure that its contents are limited to: knowledge of the countries that make up the UK; factual content in relation to citizens’ rights and responsibilities in contemporary Britain; and practical information relevant to somebody who has been resident in Britain for several years
See the full policy Brief here