Committee
Equal Opportunities Committee, 29 Jan 2008
29 Jan 2008 · S3 · Equal Opportunities Committee
Item of business
“Attitudes to Discrimination in Scotland: 2006”
Professor Curtice:
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Yes, and we tried to do that. We asked whether people agreed with the statement that"People from outside Britain who come to live in Scotland make the country a better place".That statement gets a different pattern of response; a third of people agree with it and only a quarter disagree. Many people sit in the middle and say, "Yes, on the one hand, but on the other …"You are right, convener. None of the questions should be taken at face value. The survey researchers were always aware that if we gave people a statement and asked them to agree or disagree with it, there was a danger that they would yea-say, as it is easier to agree than it is to disagree. We get something of a different picture if we turn the question round, but then we have to decide whether the glass is half full or half empty. We might regard that statement as being evocative of the spirit of the fresh talent initiative, but only a third of responders positively endorsed it, so there are still two thirds out there who are not quite sure.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Margaret Mitchell):
Con
Good morning and welcome to the second meeting in 2008 of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I remind all those present, including members, that mobile phone...
Professor John Curtice (Scottish Centre for Social Research):
I thank members for giving us the opportunity to talk to the committee about our research. The report's origins go back to 2001, when the Scottish Centre for...
The Convener:
Con
That is useful background information. The committee welcomes the fact that the new research covers the six equality strands. The report contains an enormous...
Professor Curtice:
Positive and negative are in the eye of the beholder, so I will let the committee decide on that. However, I will bear in mind your request for me to talk ab...
The Convener:
Con
Thank you. The committee will, no doubt, want to ask you more about several issues that you have raised.You mentioned that people are less likely to express ...
Catherine Bromley (Scottish Centre for Social Research):
With such research, there is always a concern about whether people are giving true answers. The interviews were all conducted in the same setting—that is, in...
Professor Curtice:
We are well aware of the issue that the convener raises and have worked to acknowledge it. For example, you can see that we are always careful in the report ...
Catherine Bromley:
We have not yet explored the issue of change over time, which Professor Curtice mentioned earlier. There is an argument that the change-over-time pattern sho...
The Convener:
Con
We shall touch on that matter a little more later on.
Sandra White (Glasgow) (SNP):
SNP
I was intrigued by what the report said about positive action, and thought that there was a contradiction in terms. The report seems to show that, in general...
Professor Curtice:
I, too, found those results intriguing. We cannot prove why a different pattern exists, but we should bear in mind that we are talking about measures that ar...
Catherine Bromley:
Interestingly, we found that although older people were in general more discriminatory than younger people, younger people expressed the most concern when as...
Sandra White:
SNP
I was intrigued and quite concerned about all this, because it seems that the people who are rolling out programmes to enable disabled folk or folk from disa...
Professor Curtice:
That might be true. However, it is not the case that all people in salaried positions or with university degrees are opposed to positive action; in fact, a s...
Bill Wilson (West of Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
The report is strictly about attitudes, not behaviour. You note that it is possible for discrimination to occur in the absence of discriminatory attitudes. P...
Professor Curtice:
Yes.
Bill Wilson:
SNP
That is what I thought you would say.
Professor Curtice:
We have made it clear that the study is not about discriminatory behaviour. However, I will say that although there may be a correlation between the incidenc...
Bill Wilson:
SNP
Have you considered doing further work to identify the margin of error in that respect?
Professor Curtice:
I dispute your use of the word "error", because we are not trying to measure behaviour. That would be quite a different, and certainly demanding, research pr...
Bill Kidd (Glasgow) (SNP):
SNP
I do not want to show any prejudice in asking this question.In her final report as chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, Sally Daghlian said that ...
Professor Curtice:
There is a little. Professor Miller, from the University of Glasgow, did a project with us in 2003 on attitudes towards Muslims, which made an explicit attem...
Bill Kidd:
SNP
You said that a strikingly large number of 18 to 24-year-olds expressed concern about jobs being taken by workers from eastern Europe. That relates to Sandra...
Catherine Bromley:
It is difficult for us to identify the best way of solving problems or changing attitudes. There is a limit to how effective public campaigns to try to chang...
Professor Curtice:
Young people aged 18 to 24 are typically in a relatively insecure position in the labour market. Either they are still trying to find a job or they have only...
The Convener:
Con
I wonder whether problems arise with the questions. If, instead of asking about threats, questions were more positive and asked whether there were circumstan...
Professor Curtice:
Yes, and we tried to do that. We asked whether people agreed with the statement that"People from outside Britain who come to live in Scotland make the countr...
The Convener:
Con
Do people have to positively endorse such a statement if they have a reasoned explanation of why they do not, such as that there are insufficient jobs in a s...
Professor Curtice:
Of course not. I am just giving you some idea of degree. That statement is designed to find out whether people will positively endorse and embrace people com...
The Convener:
Con
If people do not endorse the statement, is that discrimination per se?