The Campaign Company specialises in social research and behaviour change. This is your guide to what we’ve been reading. Here’s what’s coming up this week:
UPDATED: Thanks to the eagle-eyed Weekly readers who spotted that Charlie's Attic was a few weeks old. Blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our (mostly French) Editor who was distracted by singing La Marseillaise and other Bastille Day activities. Correct version in this edition!
Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their Muscle Memory from their Muscle Car.
This week, aptly on Bastille Day, we look at the recent riots in France. We ask if Britain’s community relations and stronger than those across the Channel because we produce better data.
And of course, there’s the part of the Weekly you can’t put a number on, Charlie’s Attic – including a fantastic map of UK spending.
The recent French riots have caused many to focus on the differences between approaches to cohesion in Britain and France. Why has integration on this side of The Channel, while far from perfect, been less of an issue in recent years?
There are many hypotheses, but one major argument is about the data Britain collects. This article, by friend of TCC Trevor Phillips, argues that countries must “collect data by ethnicity to have any hope of tackling discrimination in education and employment. You can’t solve a problem unless you know accurately its shape and size.” France’s unwillingness to do this is one cause of the cohesion challenges they face, Phillips says – an argument subsequently taken up by others.
This white paper, produced by TCC, looked at exactly this question, following the riots in Leicester last year. Using the Origins tool, which Trevor Phillips and colleagues have been central in pioneering, it sought to understand why certain ethnocultural dynamics create particular cohesion issues – and to identify areas with similar risk factors.
Another aspect of integration is change. Many places in Britain are diversifying extremely fast, often without having previously experienced much inward migration. In order to mitigate the risks here you need to first know where change is happening. (The Origins tool is especially useful here, as it provides an updated snapshot of the population every three months).
Ultimately, a risk on both sides of the Channel is that those seeking to address cohesion are always playing catch-up: rebuilding community relations in areas that have experienced tensions, rather than anticipating these tensions before they happen. Better use of data is central to changing this, providing the insight necessary to get ahead of the curve.
And finally this week Charlie’s Attic, the part of the Weekly where hearsay and hard data go to war each Friday:
Ask yourself why fans throw things at their idols.
