12-03-14 School of Advanced Study
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Penny Young (Chief Executive of NatCen Social Research)
Quantitative Training for Humanities Students Lecture Series - Understanding the changing British psyche: thirty years of British Social Attitude
In a modern representative democracy, it's not enough to court the public every few years at Election time. The need for instant accountability and punchy soundbites means that the modern politician has to be well versed in the values and beliefs of ordinary people. And in theory, politicians have a wealth of such information at their fingertips: instant opinion polls, twitter, Question Time... not to mention real contact with real people. But in practice, the sheer pace and volume of such information, together with its piecemeal nature, can mean that politicians, policy makers and journalists miss the real picture.
This is, perhaps, how politicians of all colours failed to pick up on emerging sensitive issues such as ordinary voters' concerns about the impact of immigration and the welfare benefits budget for so long. The next election will be fought following the UK's longest lasting recession, and another hung parliament is entirely possible. This means that the party that truly understands and connects with the public will have a great electoral advantage.
One route to understanding the British public in depth is the annual British Social Attitudes survey, conducted by NatCen Social Research. This is an in-depth study of the public that has been conducted every year since 1983 -- a period encompassing seven general elections, five prime ministers and three recessions. Around 3,000 members of the public give an hour of their time to be interviewed in-home -- and over the life of the study we've interviewed enough people to fill an Olympic Stadium. The questionnaire covers subjects as diverse as sense of national identity, attitudes to sexual morality, beliefs about tax and spending, attitudes to institutions such as the NHS, politicians, belief in environmental policies and so on.
Penny Young will share highlights from 30 years of this fascinating study, showing how we've changed as a nation since the 1980s.
Bio: Penny is Chief Executive of NatCen Social Research, an independent not-for profit research organisation. At NatCen, we believe that social research has the power to make life better: by understanding the complexity of people's lives and what they think about the issues that affect them, we give the public a powerful and influential role in shaping decisions and services that can make a difference to everyone. We deliver a wide range of projects across the full policy spectrum. Through our training arm, NatCen Learning, and methodological work we share our research knowledge and capability to build expertise and promote research quality amongst the wider research community.
Penny's career has been spent understanding consumers and citizens in a variety of settings: as Director of Research at the campaigner and publisher Which?, as head of audiences at the BBC Trust, and in her early career she trained at the Office for National Statistics. The thread that links her work is ensuring that decision makers, policy makers and practitioners take better decisions based on a good understanding of people's lives.
This event is part of the lectures series, Quantitative Training for Humanities Students, an excellent, free lecture series, held at Senate House and featuring high profile speakers. The lectures are offered by the School of Advanced Study, King's College and UCL and are funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Lectures will run every Wednesdays at 5:30pm, from January to March.
