Developing a national barometer of prejudice and discrimination in Britain

Abrams, Dominic, Swift, Hannah J., Houston, Diane (2018) Developing a national barometer of prejudice and discrimination in Britain. Equality and Human Rights Commission ISBN 978-1-84206-763-5.

Abstract

This is the first national survey of prejudice for over a decade. It measures prejudice and discrimination in Britain experienced by people with a wide range of protected characteristics: age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, and gender reassignment. Our report demonstrates the value of using a national survey of this type to measure prejudice and discrimination in Britain and to set out a benchmark for future surveys. The purpose of this research is to help establish a national ‘barometer’ for monitoring changes in the attitudes and experiences of the general population. We were commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to design and run a national survey of prejudice, using a consistent set of measures across a range of protected characteristics. We surveyed 2,853 adults in Britain using the NatCen Panel surveys and carried out an additional survey to target minority groups that may otherwise not be well represented in the survey. Our approach provides new insights into the form and prevalence of prejudice and discrimination in Britain. Measuring these issues in a consistent way across protected characteristics groups and across England, Scotland and Wales, gives us a uniquely recent and comparable overview. It enables us to look across a range of measures to paint a meaningful picture of the prejudice affecting a particular protected characteristic, rather than looking at individual measures on their own. Although it does not yet provide a picture of prejudice and discrimination for all protected characteristics – which would require a larger and further-developed survey – it sets out a workable model for a future national instrument for monitoring these issues in Britain. This report provides an overview of what we have found out about people’s experiences and expressions of prejudice in Britain.

Item Type:	Research report (external)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculties > Social Sciences > School of Psychology > Centre for the Study of Group Processes Faculties > Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Dominic Abrams
Date Deposited:	19 Oct 2018 09:45 UTC
Last Modified:	29 May 2019 21:19 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/69680 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)
Abrams, Dominic:	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2113-4572
Swift, Hannah J.:	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1911-0782