Experience of incivility shapes the way people feel about their communities and general social health more than crime statistics, according to new research co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Charm Offensive, published today  by the Young Foundation finds that the public still cares deeply about civility and challenges the common perception that Britain has been experiencing a spiral of decline into rudeness.

The report argues that civility acts as ‘glue’ in holding communities together and that when this breaks down it causes hurt, stress and deeper social problems. Researcher’s found that people are quick to find rudeness in others but are much less aware of how their own behaviour may offend; this was despite the finding that civility is underpinned by the expectation of reciprocity - or ‘tit for tat’ - and that it is ‘contagious’.

The research found that long-term trends make civility harder to sustain but even more important. These include:
• Pressures on time; people feel that their working lives are more pressured, exacerbated by commuting times and that incivility is more likely to occur when people are hurried.
• Mobility, diversity and density; people feel that shared codes of civility are harder to maintain as they have more interaction with strangers and less interaction between the generations.
• Technology: a common complaint was people speaking loudly in public on mobile phones or overhearing music from headphones. People are also concerned about incivility online.

Charm Offensive brings together what is known about civility from a range of disciplines and the findings of new empirical research undertaken in three areas: the London Borough of Newham (an inner city area with a diverse population); Cambourne in Cambridgeshire (a new purpose-built community); and Salisbury, Trowbridge and Devizes in Wiltshire (rural market towns). Levels of perceived civility varied in each area and were often shaped by specific demographics or incidents:
• Social housing residents were more likely to be viewed as a ‘problem’ in places where most of the housing was privately owned.
• Perceptions of higher levels of incivility were reported where minority groups were in areas where the majority was largely homogeneous. So Wiltshire, which has a higher than average number of elderly people, perceived higher levels of teenage incivility.
• The behaviour of girls featured highly among the concerns of people spoken to in all the case study areas.
• False or exaggerated rumours have a disrupting force and made it much harder to foster civility at a crucial point in this new community’s evolution. Once these perceptions became entrenched, people generally made little effort to verify whether they were true.

Researchers observed interactions in a range of settings and spoke to people working on the frontline of services: receptionists, shopkeepers, taxi-drivers, bus drivers and community support officers. Wherever they lived, many said civility was the single most important contributor to their quality of life.

Britain ranks either positively or average in international surveys of inter-personal trust, tolerance and politeness; by some standards behaviour is better than a generation or two ago. The report argues that assumptions that link incivility and disadvantage are simplistic; not all poor areas are uncivil and not all wealthier areas are more civil. Rather what seems to matter are levels of stress, people’s sense of belonging, their stake they have in their surroundings and the quality of infrastructure.

The report concludes that individuals being aware of and changing their own behaviour, often in small ways, is critical in maintaining and spreading civility. However, it argues that government focus on crime and anti-social behaviour has been at the expense of more serious consideration of the role that civility plays.

You can download a full pdf of the report here at http://www.youngfoundation.org/files/images/CharmOffensive_FINAL.pdf 

ENDS
                                                                                                                      

Notes to editors
Please contact Alison Harvie at the Young Foundation on +44 (0)7909 912 444 or alison.harvie@youngfoundation.org
Jake Gilmore at AHRC j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk
Danielle Moore at ESRC Danielle.moore@esrc.ac.uk

Charm Offensive, Cultivating civility in 21st Century Britain by Phoebe 

Griffith, Carmel O’Sullivan, Will Norman and Rushanara Ali will be available from the Young Foundation website.  

Interviews and observational research was conducted in these three sites from June to November 2010. Case study areas and examples of ‘civilty’ projects are available.

The project was jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economics and Social Research Council.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes hundreds of research awards ranging from individual fellowships to major collaborative projects as well as over 1,100 studentship awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.

The ESRC is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC’s total budget for 2010/11 is £218 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes.  More at: www.esrc.ac.uk

The Young Foundation – through its predecessor organisations – has been directly involved in strengthening society and pushing up social growth for over fifty years: helping to create mass membership voluntary organisations like Which? and the University of the Third Age, growing new generations of community leaders through the schools for social entrepreneurs. The Open University remains perhaps the most successful example of a new organisation that helped to transform thousands of people’s sense of their potential. The Young Foundation are involved in over 50 ventures and initiatives that range from neighbourhood websites to community schools, new models of healthcare to training community campaigners