The latest issue (No. 37) of British Social Attitudes provides a useful cache of opinion data from NatCen – “Britain’s largest independent social research agency” – on a number of issues of interest to sociology teachers looking to update their knowledge about what, not to put too fine a point on things, the “Great British Public Thinks About Stuff”.
In this issue I’ve highlighted 3 chapters I thought we probably most-relevant to A-level teaching:
Family Life: Attitudes to non-traditional family behaviours “examines changing attitudes to social norms related to five aspects of family life, including choosing to remain childless, cohabitation without marriage, children born outside of marriage, full-time work with young children, and divorce with children”. There’s also comparative data between the UK and a selected set of European countries.
Social Inequality: Attitudes towards social inequality in England and Scotland “seeks to understand the differences and similarities in attitudes to social inequality in England and Scotland”.
Fairness and Justice “explores the extent to which the British public believes that the political and judicial system and the distribution of wealth in Britain is fair and just”. Again, there’s also useful comparative data between the UK and Europe.
Update
The latest British Social Attitudes Survey (No.39) considers the question “Broken Britain?” from a range of angles (the most interesting for A-level Sociologists probably being stuff on Regional Differences in Values and Culture Wars).
