Together and Apart: the Dynamics of Ethnic Diversity, Segregation and Social Cohesion among Young People and Adults

Rising ethnic diversity across countries is becoming a highly-charged issue. This is leading to intense academic, policy, and public debate, amid concerns that diversity may pose a threat to social cohesion. Within these debates, residential communities are increasingly seen as key sites across which both fractures may emerge, but also where opportunities for building cohesion exist. In light of this, research showing diverse communities weaken cohesion is worrying. Yet, there is a potentially key omission from this work: the role of residential segregation. While studies largely focus on the size of ethnic groups in an area they rarely explore whether the level of segregation in the area matters; that is, how (un)evenly ethnic groups are spread across it. This project aims to advance our understanding of the role segregation plays for cohesion alongside diversity; in particular, exploring what occurs at the intersection of the two: is it only in 'diverse and segregated' areas (where groups tend to live in separate neighbourhoods) in which cohesion is threatened? Can 'diverse and integrated' areas actually build more cohesion? We posit that how segregated a community is may form a 'missing link', helping to explain when diversity may build or undermine cohesion.

This project draws on an interdisciplinary framework (geography, demography, and developmental fields); marshals longitudinal panel/cohort data linked to multiple censuses; applies advanced statistical methods; and measures multiple inter-ethnic, intra-community and wider cohesion outcomes and mechanisms. Through this it will conduct the most complete investigation to date into how both diversity and segregation across communities affects cohesion, among majority and minority young people and adults, contemporaneously and across their lives. This will include:

*Performing some of the first robust 'causal' tests of how changes in community diversity and segregation affect cohesion over time, including asking: what happens to residents' cohesion when the levels of diversity and segregation in their communities change around them? Does moving into/out of communities with different levels of diversity and segregation affect peoples' cohesion?

*Producing crucial insights into processes of residential selection in the diversity-segregation-cohesion relationship, including: do levels of diversity and segregation affect beliefs and decisions to move into/out of certain communities? How far are such decisions driven by inter-ethnic attitudes? Or, are they driven instead by processes such as life cycle or disadvantage?

*Exploring the role of communities in young people's cohesion, asking: does community diversity and segregation affect youth cohesion? What role do familial attitudes, schools environments, and civic activities, play in youth cohesion, and can these domains help understand the pathways through which communities impact young people? And, do the levels of diversity and segregation in the communities we grow up in exert enduring impacts on cohesion over people's lives?

*Investigating how diversity and segregation across communities affect both minority and majority groups. For example: do minority-group residents respond in the same way as majority-group residents when they are more or less segregated from one another? How does the size of, and level of segregation from, other ethnic minority groups affect minority residents' cohesion? In particular, what occurs when newly-arrived immigrant-groups increasingly live among more established minority groups?

Through partnering with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and building an advisory panel of experts and key youth and community stakeholders, this project will contribute to academic debates while engaging in high-impact knowledge exchange, generating a crucial evidence-base for practical policy solutions to directly feed into the government's developing integration strategy.

Given the topical yet sensitive nature of debates into diversity and cohesion this project has the capacity to have substantial impact across non-academic beneficiaries. Through marshalling high-quality data and methodologies to establish stronger 'causal' insights it will produce robust evidence for beneficiaries to draw on. Via a range of activities (see 'pathways to impact') the project will draw (non-)governmental stakeholders from various backgrounds together, along with academics, providing unique opportunities to create dialogues between often isolated groups, and future avenues to collaborate for high-impact questions.

Government and public sector

A key beneficiary will be our non-academic partner: the team from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MCLG) who are leading the government's Integration Strategy. The project aims were co-designed with extensive input from the MHCLG to produce evidence to feed directly into their evolving strategy and recent green paper. Particular benefit will come from insights into obstacles/opportunities for inter-group mixing, across multiple adult/youth domains, given the strategy's view of this as a key lever for cohesion. These insights will also be of use to the Greater London Authority in the recent development of its own integration strategy, as well as other bodies involved in governmental integration e.g., the All Party Parliamentary Group on Integration to draw on in their recommendations. The findings should be of use to Local Authorities through insights on cohesion across local areas, the supporting role of schools in this, and the possibilities of more cost-conscious practical solutions, such as targeted civic involvement. The Local Authorities forming part of the government's integration strategy should particularly benefit given our aim to compile detailed profiles of the obstacles/opportunities for building cohesion in their areas, derived from our findings. The focus on young people's integration will be of direct relevance to the Integration & Vulnerability team at the Home Office, while the insights into the role of schools will be of interest to the Department for Education. Given parallel international debates, this project also has the ability to contribute to non-UK governments.

Third Sector

The project findings will also be of direct import for think tanks developing policy strategies for cohesion, such as IPPR (and IPPR North, given concerns of weaker integration in the region), as well as Policy Exchange, the Social integration Commission, and Runnymede. This body of evidence will prove particularly useful for youth organisations aiming to contribute (locally or nationally) to cohesion, both within and outside of the UK; for example, the National Citizen Service Trust and Uniformed Groups. These can benefit from the robust evidence into how civic engagement can help youth cohesion; especially in communities where relations are already strained. Similarly, the evidence on youth cohesion will benefit non-for-profit groups aiming to work with young people in fostering positive inter-group cohesion (e.g. Immigration Education Nottingham, The Challenge Network). These findings have wider, international salience, and their insights on the obstacles/opportunities for cohesion across communities can be drawn on to inform programmes of more international-based non-for-profits, such as 'More in Common'.

Public sphere

Given the salience, and potentially polarising effects, of debates across the media and public sphere into how diversity affects social cohesion, this project has the potential to produce detailed, evidence-based insights to inform these debates. Through the application of robust quantitative analysis of large scale, representative data sets, it will be able to engage directly with the myriad claims of how ethnic diversity affects societal cohesion, the drivers behind this, as well as how challenges can be overcome.