What does Scotland really think? 12 October 2010 briefing

Tuesday, 12th October 2010 with John Curtice, Frank Bechhofer, David McCrone, Rachel Ormston and Lindsay Paterson

Tuesday, 12th October 2010

with

John Curtice, Frank Bechhofer, David McCrone, Rachel Ormston and Lindsay Paterson

The decade since devolution has contained much to excite the political classes. Major policy divergences between Scotland

and England, changes of Scottish and UK government, and ongoing tussles over Scotland’s constitutional future have helped

fuel debate about the changing character and direction of Scotland in the 21st Century. What is less clear is how the Scottish

public feels about these issues. Do they actually want Scotland to have different policies from England? Is the changing

political character of Britain reflected in changing public beliefs about issues like redistribution and fairness? How does the

public want Scotland to be governed? And are people’s understandings of what it is to be Scottish changing?

At this event, researchers will use the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey to look at current attitudes to these issues and

how public views have changed over time. SSA is a unique source of robust data on public attitudes to a wide range of social

and public issues. Established in 1999, it benefits not only from being able to track change over the last decade, but by being

able to compare views in Scotland with those in England, as measured by its sister survey, British Social Attitudes.

The seminar will explore recent findings and trends over time in public attitudes towards:

• Understanding National Identities – exploring what difference birthplace, residence, ancestry and ethnicity make to

acceptance of the claims of others to a Scottish identity.

• How Scotland is governed and how it pays for its services - considering whether any of the options currently under

discussion are likely to meet public aspirations.

• Policy in principle and practice – using data from SSA and BSA to scrutinise the received wisdom that Scotland is

more ‘social democratic’ in outlook and has different aspirations for policy compared with its nearest neighbour.

The event will also provide a forum for debate and reflection on what we can learn from data on public attitudes.

  • John Curtice is Research Consultant to the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) and Professor of Politics at
  • Strathclyde University
  • Professor Frank Bechhofer is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Governance, University of Edinburgh
  • Professor David McCrone is Head of the Institute of Governance, University of Edinburgh
  • Rachel Ormston is a Research Director at ScotCen and co-director of SSA.
  • Lindsay Paterson is Professor of Educational Policy at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh

This page was published on 22 September 2010


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