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Charm offensive needed to counter pressure on civility

Embargo: 00.01 Monday 10 October

Charm offensive needed to counter pressure on civility

Experience of incivility shapes the way people feel about their communities and general social health more than crime statistics, according to new research. Charm Offensive, published today (10 October 2011) by the Young Foundation finds that the public still cares deeply about civility and challenges the common perception that Britain has been experiencing a spiral of decline into rudeness.

It argues that civility acts as ‘glue' in holding communities together and that when this breaks down it causes hurt, stress and deeper social problems. Researcher's found that people are quick to find rudeness in others but are much less aware of how their own behaviour may offend; this was despite the finding that civility is underpinned by the expectation of reciprocity - or ‘tit for tat' - and that it is ‘contagious'.

The research, co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council, found that long-term trends make civility harder to sustain but even more important.

These include:

  • Pressures on time; people feel that their working lives are more pressured, exacerbated by commuting times and that incivility is more likely to occur when people are hurried.
  • Mobility, diversity and density; people feel that shared codes of civility are harder to maintain as they have more interaction with strangers and less interaction between the generations.
  • Technology: a common complaint was people speaking loudly in public on mobile phones or overhearing music from headphones. People are also concerned about incivility online.

Charm Offensive brings together what is known about civility from a range of disciplines and the findings of new empirical research undertaken in three areas: the London Borough of Newham (an inner city area with a diverse population); Cambourne in Cambridgeshire (a new purpose-built community); and Salisbury, Trowbridge and Devies in Wiltshire (rural market towns). Levels of perceived civility varied in each area and were often shaped by specific demographics or incidents:

  • Social housing residents were more likely to be viewed as a ‘problem' in places where most of the housing was privately owned.
  • Perceptions of higher levels of incivility were reported where minority groups were in areas where the majority was largely homogeneous. So Wiltshire, which has a higher than average number of elderly people, perceived higher levels of teenage incivility.
  • The behaviour of girls featured highly among the concerns of people we spoke to in all the case study areas.
  • False or exaggerated rumours have a disrupting force and made it much harder to foster civility at a crucial point in this new community's evolution. Once these perceptions became entrenched, people generally made little effort to verify whether they were true.

Researchers observed interactions in a range of settings and spoke to people working on the frontline of services: receptionists, shopkeepers, taxi-drivers, bus drivers and community support officers. Wherever they lived, many said civility was the single most important contributor to their quality of life.

Britain ranks either positively or average in international surveys of inter-personal trust, tolerance and politeness; by some standards behaviour is better than a generation or two ago. The report argues that assumptions that link incivility and disadvantage are simplistic; not all poor areas are uncivil and not all wealthier areas are more civil. Rather what seems to matter are levels of stress, people's sense of belonging, their stake they have in their surroundings and the quality of infrastructure.

The report concludes that individuals being aware of and changing their own behaviour, often in small ways, is critical in maintaining and spreading civility. However, it argues that government focus on crime and anti-social behaviour has been at the expense of more serious consideration of the role that civility.

Simon Tucker, Director of the Young Foundation said: "Our report likens civility to bacteria that sustain complex ecosystems; its importance is often only bought home to us when absent. Small acts of daily civility and incivility are often invisible: but play a vital role in helping societies to get by and flourish. We often only notice and appreciate the power of civility when it disappears: when estates become no-go areas, or - as we have seen to recently - when high streets descend into violence. Spirals of decline quickly ensue as relationships of reciprocity become vindictive rather than virtuous.

"Promoting civility is as much about changing the public mood and encouraging positive behaviour, as it is about a clamp down or penalties, which can be effective in the short-term but are unlikely to instill the culture of stewardship which underpins civil societies. We argue that subtler interventions are likely to be more sustainable. This requires a collective effort by residents, local organisations, public servants, the media and those in positions of authority."

END

Notes to editor

  • "Charm Offensive, Cultivating civility in 21st Century Britai"n by Phoebe Griffith, Carmel O'Sullivan, Will Norman and Rushanara Ali will be available from the Young Foundation website.
  • The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC
    provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support
    research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from
    languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and
    creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes hundreds
    of research awards ranging from individual fellowships to major
    collaborative projects as well as over 1,100 studentship awards. Awards
    are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only
    applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of
    research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides
    social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic
    success of the UK. www.ahrc.ac.uk
  • The ESRC is the UK's largest
    organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It
    supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on
    business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC's total
    budget for 2010/11 is £218 million. At any one time the ESRC supports
    over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic
    institutions and independent research institutes. More at:
    www.esrc.ac.uk
  • The Young Foundation - through its predecessor
    organisations - has been directly involved in strengthening society and
    pushing up social growth for over fifty years: helping to create mass
    membership voluntary organisations like Which? and the University of the
    Third Age, growing new generations of community leaders through the
    schools for social entrepreneurs. The Open University remains perhaps
    the most successful example of a new organisation that helped to
    transform thousands of people's sense of their potential. The Young
    Foundation are involved in over 50 ventures and initiatives that range
    from neighbourhood websites to community schools, new models of
    healthcare to training community campaigners