The Making of Social Values Social Attitudes and Social Change Paula Surridge Department of Sociology University of Bristol

General aims and objectives  Bring together data resources on social attitudes in Britain  Document changes in attitude structures, esp. outside of the traditional ‘left-right’ framework  Develop expertise in advanced modelling techniques

Aims and objectives (Education)  Investigate the relationship between education and social attitudes Context of expansion of education participation especially HE  Look for mechanisms that underpin the relationship between attitudes and education

Aims and Objectives (Political Preferences)  Attitudes as a mediator between social location and political preferences?  Changes in relationship between attitudes and partisanship in changing political discourse

Background  Link between attitudes and education ‘one of the most stable and consistent findings in empirical social research of contemporary American society’  Especially link between education and ‘liberal’ attitudes

Two key social changes  Expansion of higher education  Changing political discourse Everyday politics increasing about issues that are not part of the traditional ‘left-right’ debate

Potential explanations  Developmental model Leads to cognitive and personality changes  Socialization Socializes into dominant norms  Ideological Refinement Leads to better defence of self-interest  Cultural Capital Attitudes adopted to gain position in political field

Timetable  Two year fellowship Feb 06 – Jan 08  Six stages Designed to grow in complexity of data, technique and research question

Stage 1: The structure of contemporary social attitudes  Are two dimensions sufficient to represent social attitudes in 21 st century Britain?  Data BSA surveys  Techniques Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Stage 2: Relationships between education, social class and attitudes  How do education and social class interact in the formation of social attitudes?  Data BSA surveys: pooled cross-sections  Techniques Correspondence analysis, Log linear models

Stage 3: Additional dimensions of education  Does it matter what subjects are studied?  Data BCS  Techniques Advanced regression techniques

Stage 4: Household dynamics and party preferences  How are attitudes modified by changes in household conditions or structures?  Data BHPS  Techniques Structural Equation modelling

Stage 5: The impact of social attitudes  How do social attitudes effect political preferences?  Data BES ( ) Census data  Techniques Multi-level modelling