A methodological workshop on attitudes to equality in Scotland 

Summary

It is known that one of the main reasons why inequality persists in Britain today is a lack of awareness and shared understanding of what equality means. Surveys on equality often focus on discrimination and prejudice and while they provide a valuable insight into what people do not want, they tell us less about what people do want in terms of a positive vision of equality.

This study takes a positive approach to understanding what people mean by equality and fairness and takes the first steps in helping us to develop a bank of questions that can be used over time to assess public attitudes to equality. By working with the research community in Scotland through this study, we found that a four-stage approach to develop this bank of questions may be most feasible:

1. Qualitative work with focus groups to explore people's understanding of equalities and to determine which questions would be suitable for a survey
2. Development of questions that can be asked in a survey, including some small scale cognitive testing to refine the language used and the structure of the questions
3. Fully develop and run the survey, possibly by inserting a module in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey to enable trends in attitudes to equalities to be measured
4. Follow up with some of the survey participants to explore in greater depth their responses and understanding.

Building on these findings, we have now commissioned the National Centre for Social Research and the Scottish Centre for Social Research to conduct the first stage qualitative work to explore people’s attitudes to equality and fairness, and how this relates to perceptions of good relations. Two final reports, one covering England and Wales and one covering Scotland, will be produced by March 2009, and will include 60-80 questions that can be asked in a survey.

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