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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Factual: Politics

Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad.

Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics.

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Analysis: What is 'British culture'?

What is 'British culture'?

BBC Radio 4 - Analysis, What is 'British culture'?

How can people truly integrate into British culture when it's not clearly defined?

New migrants, and first, second and third generation immigrants are encouraged - or told - that they must integrate into 'British culture', but what exactly is it?

'What is "British Culture?” I was born in the UK and have lived here for 40 years, and yet, as a British Asian person, I am constantly told “we are not integrating”. Not integrating into what culture exactly?' 

Bushra Shaikh runs a charity, is a business-owner and is also a writer and commentator. When she posted this question on social media, two million people viewed it, she received thousands of replies, but no clear definition of British Culture. Some respondents mentioned the food, while others defined it by quoting literature or history. But those answers were often just lists; of meals. books, names and dates.  

Is "culture" a synonym for race? How can British people of colour integrate, and what does that mean? 

Americans put their hands on their hearts, gaze at the stars and stripes and identify with freedom, while the French look to liberty, equality, and fraternity, but is there a British equivalent? Bushra speaks to Historians, cultural commentators, as well as both the UK's newest citizens, and people who can trace their British family roots back hundreds of years, to try to find out what British culture means to them. 


Presenter: Bushra Shaikh 
Producers: Ravi Naik and Sean Johnson
Editor: Clare Fordham.

Contributors: 
Robert Colls, emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University 
Lionel Shriver, novelist and journalist
Pen Vogler, food historian and writer
Dr Bernard Trafford, retired headteacher and former member of the citizenship advisory group
Anton Dani, Conservative councillor and former mayor of Boston
Robert Owen, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside   
Professor Alice Foucart, Principal Investigator, Psycholinguistics, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid
Dr Tessa Dunlop, historian and broadcaster
Keith Richardson, Author

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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What is 'British culture'?

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