Monday, 20 October 2008

Meaningful social interaction

We're still in the very early stages of 'measuring' meaningful social interaction with people from different backgrounds (that doesn't mean we don't already know a lot about it), and every little step is fascinating.

Meaningful_interaction

As in the early years of cohesion policy, it's a shame that this theme tends to get limited to 'people from different ethnic or religious backgrounds' - as if interaction between people from different social classes and different age groups was not hugely significant, especially in neighbourhoods. Lots more to be done, but meanwhile here's the latest snippet from this summer's Citizenship Survey data:

In April-June 2008, 82 per cent of people mixed socially at least once a month with people from different ethnic or religious backgrounds, either at work, at a place of education, through a leisure activity, at a place of worship, at the shops or through volunteering. This has increased since 2007-08 (80%) when it was first measured.

20 Oct 2008 21:09:57 | Cohesion and diversity, Neighbourhood relations, Social capital

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