Written evidence from British Future [CCI0028]

Summary

There have been four national independent reviews of community cohesion over the last 25 years, alongside other studies and evidence-gathering, with some consistent themes and recommendations which we summarise in this submission. Key evidence and insights on cohesion are not particularly accessible to policymakers and practitioners and we make recommendations to address this.

Many of the issues, challenges and barriers to building social cohesion are long-term and foundational, such as equality of opportunity, prejudice, lack of meaningful contact between people from different backgrounds and diminished trust in democratic institutions. There are also more immediate ‘trigger’ issues that need to be addressed as a priority, including online hatred and conspiracy theories, and the ongoing dangers of asylum accommodation becoming a flashpoint where local grievances can be exploited by extreme actors.

Social media exacerbates cohesion risks, catalysing flashpoints, amplifying toxic actors and making people with clashing views more easily accessible to each other, heightening polarisation. The policy and practice of social media platforms are not fit to address these cohesion risks. Inadequate enforcement of rules on hateful conduct risks disrupting advances in social norms, especially on misogyny and racism. Content found to be in breach of the law remains online. Our submission makes recommendations to help address some of these challenges, including more effective policing by platforms, more rigorous regulation and renewed efforts to build consensus on key boundaries of hatred and extremism.

Building cohesive communities requires local strategies and interventions, led and delivered by local organisations. But central government also has a significant role to play, including by providing clear leadership and direction through a national cohesion strategy. British Future set out some priority areas for the forthcoming strategy in its 2024 report ‘After the riots’. These included funding to implement the strategy in every local authority; efforts to increase levels of bridging social contact; targets for English fluency; more effective interventions to address hatred and extremism; and making social cohesion an objective of immigration and asylum policy. A tension-monitoring process should also be in place in every local authority, including a focus on risks from social media.

Our submission highlights good examples of proactive local cohesion strategies, including from the six Integration Action Areas (2018-21), such as the ‘Bradford for everyone’ programme; and outputs from the national social cohesion strategy in Wales.  A sense of shared identity can also be fostered through raising awareness of shared history, for example as part of Remembrance and VE Day 80. The submission also looks at the distinct public reach of sport, particularly football, and its strong potential to help build shared local identities.

Schools and colleges can also play a crucial role in fostering community cohesion by promoting bridging social contact, preparing students for active citizenship and serving as trusted community hubs. The submission makes recommendations to increase contact between students from different backgrounds, for example through schools linking, and to address school segregation. It urges new efforts to re-energise citizenship education. We further recommend that Mayors and combined authority leaders help schools and colleges develop their role as community hubs.

Introduction

British Future is an independent, non-partisan thinktank and registered charity, engaging people’s hopes and fears about integration and migration, identity and race, so that we share a confident and welcoming Britain, inclusive and fair to all. We welcome the inquiry of the Women and Equalities Committee into community cohesion, which we hope will influence the Government’s forthcoming community cohesion strategy. British Future’s evidence draws from its research and work with policymakers and practitioners, as well as British Future projects delivered in locations across the UK.

Our evidence is underpinned by a working definition of community cohesion, which we see as comprising connection, trust, shared values and a commitment to democracy and tolerance, shared identities and a sense of local and national belonging. Put simply, community cohesion is the glue that holds society together. 

Community cohesion is underpinned by a number of economic and structural foundations, such as poverty and inequality, housing conditions, labour market participation, education and skills.  A number of facilitators or inhibitors can also impact on community cohesion, for example, demographic change, the quality of local leadership or trigger events. Policy and practice interventions need to focus on these foundations and facilitators.

Q1. What assessments have been made of community cohesion in the UK in a local and national context?

There has been a lack of clarity about the nature of community cohesion in many policy documents, and little clarity in the aims of policy in this area.  There has also been a conflation of community cohesion with closely related policy areas, including migrant integration, counter-extremism, community development and democratic resilience, which has added confusion.

There is no consistent or regular ‘state of the nation’ assessment of social cohesion, but there is a large policy and research literature on cohesion themes. In addition to government data collection, policymaking and think-tank research, the four national independent reviews of community cohesion over the last 25 years – Cantle (2001), Singh (2007), Casey (2016) and Khan (2024) – each commissioned research. Key themes and trends in social cohesion, across studies, include:

●        Many local and national social, cultural, political, economic and structural factors can impact on community cohesion, so strategies must address multiple factors to succeed.

●        UK society has become more accepting of ethnic and faith differences over time and across generations, with significant (though uneven) falls in levels of prejudice towards outgroups. But prejudiced attitudes are still held by significant minorities in society and can provide the ‘oxygen’ of tacit support to perpetrators of hate crime.

●        Increasing the extent, duration and quality of ‘bridging’ social contact that spans in/out-group divides helps to build cohesive communities. Bridging social contact helps reduce conflict, prejudices and stereotyping, increasing empathy, trust and the perception of shared identities.

●        Shared identities help people to reach across in-group and out-group boundaries.

●        Both adults and children are spending more time on social media than 10 years ago. This can bring people together but can have negative impacts too.

●        Concerning trends in democratic participation and declining trust can erode the legitimacy of institutions, weaken perception of shared values, and increase engagement in extremist or non-democratic alternatives. Despite some national initiatives, the 2024 Khan Review found local stakeholders often struggled to find ways to address disengagement and mistrust.

Key evidence and insights on cohesion are not particularly accessible to policymakers and practitioners interested in informing their work. The Government can take steps to address that gap through measures such as:

●        Clarifying how to define and measure trends in community cohesion, enabling clearer design, targeting and evaluation of effective interventions. For example, the DCMS-led Community Life Survey on social interactions, neighbourhood perceptions and civic participation has a core sample size of 10,500 adults. DCMS is looking at merging this survey with its larger Participation Survey, to survey an annual sample of at least 175,000 respondents, enabling local statistics on community cohesion to be generated.

●        Making its large knowledge base on community cohesion more accessible to those involved in policy and practice, locally and nationally and inside and outside government.

●        Building a better evidence base about interventions that work and promoting a stronger culture of evaluation and learning among policymakers and practitioners. Most work on social cohesion is not evaluated, and there is little consistency to make evaluations more comparable.

●        Encouraging more consistent and robust tension monitoring at a local level, mandating this activity as part of a national strategy. British Future would like to see all local authorities conduct tension monitoring as part of local plans of action. Toolkits are available to help them do this.[1] 
 

Q2. What are the primary barriers and threats to community cohesion?

The quality of community cohesion – in everyday language, the glue that holds society together, and how connected everyone feels to each other – has socio-economic and identity foundations.

In the long-run, sustained action to advance equal opportunities; to recover trust in democratic institutions, to tackle prejudices and to promote social relationships of mutual respect would strengthen the foundations of a shared, cohesive society.

Sustained meaningful contact across lines of difference helps to foster shared identities - and builds resilience when cohesion is tested by shock events. There are long-term improvements in inter-ethnic relationships, within younger generations, but risks of increased social segregation by social class and educational status.  But it is a barrier that meaningful contact across lines of difference in our society is unevenly spread. There is more organic contact in more socially mixed areas, though patterns of residential and educational clustering can dampen this positive impact of rising diversity, while the design of public space and services can promote it. More action is needed to extend meaningful bridging contact across geographic and generation gaps, and to prioritise this in areas of below average but increasing levels of ethnic and faith diversity. It is more difficult to engage those who are more sceptical about people from other groups, and potentially more prone to latent prejudices, than those who already have positive attitudes. Those working to bridge divides across faith and ethnic lines could benefit from accessible, practicable insights and advice on reaching these tougher audiences effectively.

Confidence that we are a democratic society able to settle our differences by dialogue is more difficult when trust in democratic institutions is falling, exacerbated by polarisation on identity issues at a time of rapid social and demographic change. Mutual respect between those with different views also depends on consensus regarding the boundaries of democratic tolerance. People may agree in principle on the aim of protecting free speech while excluding hateful extremism – but disagree on where that line should be drawn on particular issues, especially when these are felt to be of existential importance. A related challenge is maintaining appropriate boundaries to enable legitimate expressions of anger in political protest while excluding intimidation and threats. 
 

Contested boundaries between politics and prejudice have featured in several polarised identity questions, including immigration, integration and race relations; Brexit; Scottish independence; gender, sex and trans rights; the history of Empire; and the boundaries of antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice at home and in international conflicts.  Greater confidence in navigating identity issues in practice - in political, civic and educational settings - will be important if people are to feel they have an equal share of voice in a democratic culture that can handle significant disagreements and exclude conduct and views hostile to democratic values.

Live threats to social cohesion come from efforts from bad-faith actors to increase threat perceptions and then to seek opportunities to mobilise and activate.

Drivers of increasingly active threat perceptions include:

• Increased “affective polarisation” over “culture war” issues, including grievances about being ignored in favour of other groups, and mistrust in political institutions. 
• Promoting conspiracy theories that present an existential threat to the “in-group” (such as extreme Islamist claims of an attempt to eradicate Islam from the west; and the far-right’s Great Replacement Theory, presenting migration and diversity as an existential threat to the white majority).
• Socialising people towards supporting extreme groups, including the potential necessity of violence, as an in-group protection measure.
• Exploiting topical issues and shock events to trigger action, including mobilisation around asylum accommodation; Gaza and Remembrance weekend; and the 2024 riots after the Southport murders.

There is greater danger of active mobilisation of threat perceptions if rival extremisms can form a symbiotic “them and us” relationship to verify their narratives and present themselves as a necessary defence against an external threat. This dynamic featured in Northern Ireland, and in clashes between Islamist and far right groups - such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the BNP; and Anjem Choudary’s “Muslims against Crusades” and Tommy Robinson’s "English Defence League” (2009-2013). More recently during the 2024 riots, far-right groups hoped for clashes with a so-called “Muslim Defence League”. Efforts to spark Hindu-Muslim-Sikh inter-minority conflicts (as featured in Leicester in 2022) and Jewish-Muslim conflicts, including over the Middle East, can involve this symbiotic dynamic.

Asylum accommodation is a significant live flashpoint issue, including during the summer 2024 riots, after a tragic event with no direct connection to asylum. There are important challenges for government and politicians to reform asylum processes, including accommodation and integration, and to rebuild public confidence. The current pattern of local dispersal exacerbates social cohesion risks: it has not been given priority in a cost-driven process delivered by private suppliers. Local government often receives little or no advance notification that asylum seekers will be housed in their area. Urgent effort is required to ensure better local communication while longer-term reforms are considered.

A lack of clear national leadership on cohesion can also make it harder for civic and local actors to formulate and deliver effective responses. Gaps include:

-          A clear narrative about the type of society Britain is and wants to become.

-          A clear working definition of cohesion, so that programmes have clear aims and objectives.

-          Better data and analysis of social trends and the impact of interventions.
 

Q3. How can social media impact community cohesion?

Social media can have positive and negative impacts, depending on which online cultures prevail and how these interact with offline behaviour and norms. But social media dynamics do not simply reflect norms; they can shift public perceptions of out-groups and perceptions of boundaries of acceptable or unacceptable conduct. The summer 2024 riots exemplified why key unaddressed norms are currently pressing and urgent. However, platform policy and practice will get weaker, rather than stronger, in 2025 due to political change in the USA, and the alliance of major platforms with the Trump administration.

Social media exacerbates cohesion risks, catalysing flashpoint moments

• Localised incidents are able to spread at pace, nationally and internationally. This can be seen in the shifting role of technology in disorder in 2001, 2011, 2022 in Leicester and in the summer of 2024.
• Platforms offer always-on, 24/7 milieus, with more potential to socialise people towards violence.
• Social media amplifies the reach of toxic actors: fear was spread to 40+ locations during the 2024 riots, by posting online a list of potential targets for violence (regardless of the capacity to act on this threat).
   

Social media enables ‘affective polarisation’ among mainstream and extreme actors.
Making those with sharply clashing views more easily accessible to each other, social media facilitates ‘affective polarisation’ (eg. between mainstream political opponents).

Rival extremisms can also exploit this to have a symbiotic relationship to confirm parallel threat perceptions (eg. white far-right and extreme Islamists).

Inadequate enforcement of hateful conduct rules risks disrupting advances in social norms, especially on misogyny and racism. In this generation, women and visible minorities have more presence and voice in public life than ever; yet they also have a starkly unequal experience of online public space. Having to use key public spaces differently, because intimidation and threats are disinhibited, is corrosive for equalities in general, and undermines a key pillar for social cohesion: equal status is foundational to meaningful connection and mutual respect. When platforms fail to act on extreme content, they may be in breach of legal obligations under the Equality Act to provide an equal service to those with protected characteristics.

Policy and practice are not fit to address these cohesion risks
Most major platforms made some significant changes in 2019, particularly after the Christchurch Mosque massacre in New Zealand. Some major platforms have sustained these advances - doing more than the legally compelled minimum, for motives including user experience and public reputation. For example, YouTube and TikTok reduce the reach and monetisation of prejudiced content from bad faith actors, when crafted to be technically just inside platform rules.

• Twitter/X was a clear case of regression, after changes in policy, practice and capacity under new ownership from Autumn 2022, re-platforming and monetising actors previously banned for a history of violence (eg Britain First, Tommy Robinson). A significant reduction of Twitter/X staff capacity, with inadequate automated systems, sees the platform regularly fail to act on clear cases of criminal incitement before, during and after dangerous flashpoint moments.
• Facebook has responded to the election of Donald Trump by weakening platform policy and enforcement. How regulators respond will depend on how far these changes will apply globally, or be mitigated in the EU, UK or other national contexts.
• Initial studies suggest Telegram and X made outsized contributions to the spread of violent disorder last summer. More should be done to collate the evidence in ways that can inform effective responses.
   

There are barriers to effective action to address the cohesion risks of social media
 

• There are gaping holes in dealing with criminal/unlawful content, presenting future risks. Content linked to the Summer 2024 riots, for which users were imprisoned, remains online six months later.
• New legal and regulatory frameworks in the Online Safety Act are not yet operational.
• There are significant gaps in analysis of the 2024 riots online and the policy response.
• Polarised debates about hate speech and free speech are impeding responses.

Potential recommendations for action in response:
 

Government and Parliamentarians should place an expectation on Ofcom to make full use of its powers under the 2023 Online Safety Act. Ofcom has new powers under section 100 of the Online Safety Act to request and require information to inform the exercise of its regulatory functions. So far, Ofcom has written to remind social media platforms that it will begin to use its powers in 2026 and to suggest that platforms could voluntarily act earlier.  
 

Review the Online Safety Act 2023 and consider a rolling process for review and amendment for how legislation remains up to date with emerging threats.

Ensure a comprehensive audit of cases of criminal activity online during the 2024 riots
Ofcom could request information earlier, including investigating the triggers and enablers of the disorder, and asking platforms to account for the specific examples of extreme and criminal conduct.

More consistent, rapid removal of illegal content

Government should instigate a routine process of notification, from the courts/police to the platforms involved, when there are criminal charges and later criminal convictions for conduct online. There should be an expectation/requirement on platforms to remove criminal content, and to give an account of why their systems failed to respond to it.

Build more consensus on key boundaries of hatred/extremism, nationally and multilaterally
Political change in the USA will make consensus-building more difficult, but also offers opportunities to broaden a domestic consensus in the UK and transnational coalitions (eg UK, EU, Canada, Australia).
- There is often a 90%+ latent social consensus among the UK public on the need for action against the most actively dangerous and overtly extreme content. People with different political views will disagree over the potential risks of under-policing and over-policing boundaries on other content.
- Structured ‘mystery shopping’ exercises on reporting have significant potential to shame the worst performing platforms, or to build a broader coalition of support for enforcement and sanctions if some platforms continue to fail on the most basic expectations.
 

Pilot ‘Social media misinformation labs’, in which government collaborates positively with platforms to develop proposals and protocols for rapid responses to UK-based community tensions. The Leicester 2022 disorder highlighted knowledge gaps of platforms around different faiths, cultures and extremisms, enabling misinformation and prejudice to spread unfettered. Social media labs could convene experts from across faiths and cultures, together with communications and digital innovators, to consider new solutions to online polarisation: such as developing an early warning radar for significant spikes in extremist activity, and strategies for tracking and flagging mis/disinformation during complex, fast-changing and live events.

Q4. What can be done at local and national level to improve community cohesion?

Community cohesion is felt locally in communities, but also at a national level, through shared and inclusive national identities. Building cohesive communities requires local strategies and interventions, led and delivered by local organisations. But central government also has a significant role to play in community cohesion, namely:

●        Articulating a public-facing vision for a cohesive society and the overarching aims of the planned national cohesion strategy.

●        Providing guidance, support and funding for councils and combined authorities to develop and deliver local strategies.

●        Promoting effective cross-departmental working at a central government level, particularly between MHCLG and the Home Office.

●        Scrutinising how government policy in all areas can support rather than cut across social cohesion.               

●        Taking action to increase levels of trust and confidence in democratic institutions.

Sustained work is needed on long-term foundations but there are some immediate ‘trigger’ issues that need to be addressed as a priority, including online hatred and the ongoing dangers of asylum accommodation becoming a flashpoint where local grievances can be exploited by extreme actors.

In its 2024 report ‘After the riots’, British Future set out some priority areas for the forthcoming national cohesion strategy.[2] These are:

1. The national strategy should articulate a practical, accessible and communicable definition of social cohesion for policymakers, practitioners and the public.

2. The national strategy should provide a model for effective cross-departmental working on key cohesion issues. New government policy should be subject to a social cohesion impact assessment. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission should use its powers to ensure public bodies uphold their Equality Act duty to ‘foster good relations’.

3. All local authorities should receive an earmarked budget of around £75,000 to develop and implement strategies, with further funding for local authorities with significant cohesion challenges. MHCLG should provide guidance on strategies’ content, aims and desired outcomes, and how to engage local people and stakeholders in their development.

4. The national social cohesion strategy should aim to increase levels of bridging social contact, including a norm that schools should deepen bridging contact among students of different backgrounds through twinning, linking and other initiatives. Volunteering programmes and sport can also make significant contributions: making connection a theme of Euro 2028 could catalyse sustained activity over time.

5. The Government should set a national target of achieving universal literacy and universal fluency in English, as well as universal digital inclusion, by 2030. Over 1 million people do not speak English well or at all; 6.7 million people are digitally excluded; and 8.5 million people lack functional literacy.[3] Devolution deals, which put mayors in charge of the Adult Education Budget, should include this target. There should be a clear expectation that employers support workplace-based English language, literacy and digital skills training.

6. The national cohesion strategy should set out how immigration policy can better support social cohesion. The current asylum accommodation model significantly exacerbates local cohesion risks. Central government needs to improve local communication urgently, and develop a model that takes cohesion seriously, when contracts expire in 2029,[4] or earlier if break clauses are triggered.

The government should review citizenship policy and processes, including the citizenship test, fees and the 10-year routes to regularisation, to encourage citizenship for those settling in Britain.

7. National and local organisations should give higher priority to integration in working with migrants and refugees. Funders, including statutory funders, should encourage local faith and civil society organisations to develop ‘welcoming hubs’ that increase social contact between newcomers and receiving communities. Measures to increase local integration should also be included in the imminent immigration white paper.

8. The impact of faith and civil society organisations in promoting cohesion can be strengthened through secure funding streams, partnerships and collaboration, effective evaluation and promoting a culture of learning. The Government should also support work to involve a younger cohort of activists in inter-faith projects, to increase the reach of these programmes across generations and among women.

9. The effectiveness of interventions to address hatred and extremism needs to be increased. The Government should adopt a clear working definition of anti-Muslim prejudice and help build consensus on what should be defined as extremism. This should be led by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, alongside Parliament, faith and civil society organisations and groups that focus on free speech. Cohesion and conflict de-escalation training should be provided for all elected officials, including local MPs, councillors and Police and Crime Commissioners.

Local social cohesion strategies should have a duty to set out how hate crime and extremism will be addressed locally, including through a practical tension-monitoring process in every local authority, which should include a focus on risks from social media.

10. Community cohesion policy should include an explicit focus on strengthening democratic institutions, given falling trust and participation. Parliament might consider a Speaker’s Commission on strengthening democracy, using a model designed to reach those with low levels of trust and participation in democratic processes and institutions.

Q5. What examples are there of best practice which has positively impacted community cohesion?

Proactive local authority strategies
There are good examples of proactive local cohesion strategies, where local authorities play an enabling role.

In England, the six Integration Action Areas (2018-21) made significant advances, showing that resources, support and local leadership can make a difference.

The Bradford for Everyone programme, part of the MHCLG Integration Action Area scheme, developed a council-led, city-wide integration and cohesion strategy. A small team led on proactive cohesion efforts. Funding supported over 80 ‘test and learn’ style projects, directly engaging over 36,000 people. The council strengthened relations with local civic groups with distinct reach across a multi-ethnic city, supporting activities that improved social mixing. A regular reassurance and engagement group met throughout the programme to monitor and address tensions and issues, including from national and international events. The council led an anti-rumour campaign aiming to increase public resilience to misinformation among key segments, with good outcomes on critical thinking among participants.
 

Wales’s national social cohesion strategy since 2009 has resourced local councils to recruit social cohesion officers working to strengthen relationships, promote moments for connection and oversee tension monitoring. This national framework recognises cohesion as an ‘everywhere issue’, rather than a challenge for specific places. Challenges have included the ebb and flow of national funding. Coordinators report that more guidance on strategies to engage both longer-settled residents and new arrivals would be useful. An ongoing Senedd consultation is reviewing the strategy. The Welsh model and experience could inform a national strategy in England.

National policymakers can also supply practical resources and facilitate networks. The LGA Special Interest Group in Countering Extremism has provided important support to council officers and members under specific pressure. However, it no longer receives government funding. Toolkits and ‘how to’ guides can additionally support local councils to model and adapt useful cohesion initiatives. There is patchy and weak tension monitoring but resources such as the 2010 Tension Monitoring toolkit by the Institute of Community Cohesion, funded by MHCLG, could be easily updated and distributed nationwide to support local efforts.

Shared History

Fostering shared identities requires practical focal points. Remembrance is a cherished national annual tradition. Remember Together is a project from British Future and The Royal British Legion which has contributed to growing public awareness that the service and sacrifice we commemorate each November spans all ethnicities and faiths, due to the scale of Commonwealth contribution. It aims to ensure that those from all backgrounds feel invited to participate in Remembrance today.

The project was piloted in schools including in Rochdale, East London and Bradford. Students conducted research in their families and communities to find and document in online videos the stories of WW2 commonwealth contribution. A project evaluation found that most of the participating students were previously unaware of the involvement of black and Asian servicemen in the Second World War yet reported pride in uncovering the extent of their involvement. Communicating this effort can increase confidence in cohesion. In a split-sample experiment, the half of the sample shown a short video of the East London project had more confidence about shared identity in a diverse society, with the biggest impacts among those with more sceptical views.

This Spring’s 80th anniversary of VE Day offers national and local opportunities to significantly grow public awareness of diverse contributions, and a platform to extend the reach of local Remembrance activities across groups and generations.
 

Building connections through football
Football’s distinct public reach makes it a strong potential tool to build shared identities.

British Future research finds that, in England and Wales, 57% of adults support a club and 37% their local professional team, across people of different ages and ethnic, faith and social backgrounds.  Fans for Diversity’s My City My Shirt campaign has used football to celebrate common ground among people with different backgrounds and characteristics, capturing fans’ memorable moments for their club to produce artworks and club communications conveying a ‘show not tell’ story of shared local pride. British Future’s ‘Shared Goals’ initiative supported clubs Huddersfield Town and Brentford FC to produce video content with their fans. Evaluating its impact on fans’ attitudes showed a significant impact on perceptions of inclusive local identity.
 
The English Football League (EFL) was funded by MHCLG during the pandemic to support community initiatives with pilot clubs including in Rochdale, Blackburn, Oldham and Preston, to each work with 10 local families from different ethnic and faith backgrounds. Participants also reported feeling more confident and willing to challenge a negative view heard about someone from a different background.

Sports have the potential to reach both general and tougher audiences. Support through convening and toolkits could have significant reach and impact.

Q6. How should community cohesion be best approached in schools?

Schools and colleges play a crucial role in fostering community cohesion by promoting bridging social contact, preparing students for active citizenship, and serving as trusted community hubs.
 

The role of schools in promoting bridging social contact

A review by Miles Hewstone et al[5] suggests inter-group social contact among children and young people had significant positive impacts on cohesion in UK schools. This reduces inter-group conflict, stereotyping and prejudice, and promotes empathy, trust and shared identities. Hewstone’s research underpins the work of initiatives such as the Linking Network and other programmes bringing children and young people of different backgrounds together.[6]

Schools in England have a duty to promote community cohesion and good community relations but are no longer inspected on this duty by Ofsted. British Future recommends schools should be held to account for their duty to ‘foster good relations’ (Equality Act 2010) and promote community cohesion. Ofsted is probably the most appropriate body to do this.

The opportunity for some children to meet and mix with those from different ethnic, faith and class backgrounds is limited by clustering in school intakes, as noted by Casey, Cantle and others. It is harder to monitor trends in social and ethnic segregation in schools with no agreed measures or regular comparative overviews. Some evidence suggests a gradual decrease in educational segregation in England but with varied and complex local patterns.[7] Admissions policies and parental choice can lead to schools in close proximity having contrasting demographics.

British Future recommends that the Department for Education conducts new research tracking patterns of school segregation in relation to ethnicity, faith and free school meal eligibility, and other social class measures. The Department for Education must also scrutinise more closely all proposals to open new faith and single sex schools in areas of high educational segregation. British Future also recommends that it should be mandatory for all pupils to engage in activities that deepen their level of contact with children from different ethnic, faith and class backgrounds.

There is strong evidence for the positive impact of schools linking projects. The Linking Network now stretches across England, connecting 18,000 pupils across a wide range of local authorities. A 2011 evaluation by the National Foundation for Educational Research found that children who took part in  linking activities showed increased interest in other cultures; confidence in social mixing;  and increased awareness and understanding of people from different backgrounds.

It would be a reasonable expectation for all publicly funded faith schools to develop linking or twinning relationships, balancing their valuable role with the commitment, articulated by all major faiths, to educate children to be citizens of a shared society. This approach should also be encouraged in non-faith schools. British Future recommends this be promoted as a norm in all schools in local authorities with high educational segregation by faith, ethnicity and social class, with consideration given to making this a mandatory requirement.

Schools should be allowed to decide which approach works for them. That could include linking classes in schools with different intakes; sharing facilities such as playing fields or arts spaces; or by sharing sixth form teaching. Other options might include pupils from twinned schools volunteering together through a ‘local citizenship service’.

Social class and ethnic segregation in early years’ provision often exceeds that seen in schools.[8] This is important as friendships formed between families with young children often persist for many years. The Department for Education should ensure that the current extension of free early education does not increase levels of segregation by class and ethnicity.

British Future recommends an expectation that students attending independent schools and in home education are involved in activities that deepen levels of contact with those from different ethnic, faith and class backgrounds. Home-educated children are thought to make up 1.4% of pupils in England but with little oversight, some will not receive a broad and balanced education.

Preparing children for life in a multi-ethnic democracy

British Future welcomes the stated aim of the Becky Francis Curriculum Review, to ensure young people leave school with “digital, oracy and life skills” and receive “a curriculum that reflects the issues and diversities of our society.”[9]

There are some concerns about the delivery of citizenship and religious education. In principle, citizenship education offers a space for children to debate social and political questions associated with community cohesion. In practice, as discussed in recent House of Lords inquiries examining citizenship education,[10] it is neglected in many schools. It is often subsumed into Personal, Health and Social Education and rarely delivered by trained teachers. Academy schools have no statutory requirement to offer citizenship education at Key Stages Three and Four (although the Francis Review may explore this). Citizenship education rarely involves opportunities to volunteer. British Future recommends that the Department for Education re-energise citizenship education, including making sure every secondary school or tertiary college has at least one trained citizenship teacher.

The neglect of citizenship education means schools and colleges often lack resources and confidence to address polarising and controversial issues or to provide young people with the critical thinking skills they need to identify online mis- and disinformation. British Future recommends that the Department for Education work with experts to develop curricular guidance and teaching materials to promote constructive debate on challenging issues, and resilience to online disinformation and extremist narratives through the citizenship curriculum.

Schools as community hubs

Many schools go beyond their primary educational role by acting as a ‘hub’ for broader services. Schools can open their facilities (like libraries, gyms and auditoriums) for community use, and provide a hub venue for support services such as foodbanks, literacy and English language classes, or a coordination point for volunteering. Regular social contact in a neutral, trusted and accessible venue can boost trust, dialogue and cohesion.

The history of schools acting as community hubs stretches back over a century. The extended schools initiative (2003-2006) developed this agenda, and it was highlighted, including through case studies, in the Government’s 2007 Commission on Integration and Cohesion.[11] There has been little coordinated action to encourage more schools to develop their role as hubs. British Future recommends that Mayors and combined authority leaders help schools and colleges develop their role as community hubs, using the devolution of the adult education budget to combined authorities as a potential driver.

Notes and References