Diversity and Social Cohesion in Mixed and Segregated Secondary Schools in Oldham Research report August 2017 Miles Hewstone, Maarten van Zalk, Ananthi Al Ramiah, Katharina Schmid, Rachel New, Ralf Wölfer, Benjamin Fell, Christina Floe, & Clarissa Wigoder (University of Oxford) Acknowledgements We thank The Leverhulme Trust for funding the research described in this report. We are very grateful to all the schools of Oldham as well as the LEA for their support in collecting the data; to Robert Cirin and Peter Clark of the Department for Education for their detailed feedback on earlier versions of this report; and to Angelika Benz of the University of Oxford for her very useful comments. 2 Contents List of figures 5 List of tables 8 Executive summary 9 Aims 9 Background and method 9 1. Do attitudes relating to trust and tolerance of other groups differ amongst pupils in mixed vs segregated schools? 10 2. Do mixed schools result in more social mixing of different groups or do pupils remain segregated? 12 3. How does mixing manifest itself? In classes, clubs, lunchtimes, after school? 13 4. Do the attitudes of pupils who mix with other backgrounds differ compared to those who remain within their own ethnicities? 13 5. In schools that have merged, have the attitudes of pupils changed over time? 14 6. What role do parents and the wider community play? Do their attitudes have an impact on the extent to which young people integrate? 16 1. Background to the research: agenda set by DfE 17 1.1 A note on terminology 18 1.2 The contact hypothesis 18 Quantity of contact: frequency of interaction with outgroup members, e.g., ‘How often do you meet/talk to/etc. [outgroup members] where you live/shop/socialize, etc?’ 19 2. Study of nine segregated and mixed secondary schools in Oldham 20 2.1 Ethnic breakdown 20 2.2 Methodological details 22 2.3 Main findings: quantity and quality of contact, social intimacy, trust 23 2.4 Other measures: intergroup anxiety, norms, aspirations, life satisfaction 29 2.5 Does contact predict attitudes over time? 33 2.6 Other measures: intergroup anxiety and norms 35 2.7 Negative vs positive contact 38 3 2.8 Additional analyses for mixed schools only 40 2.9 Summary 44 3. Study of the three most mixed secondary schools in Oldham 46 3.1 Methodological details 46 3.2 Main findings: contact and attitudes 46 3.4 Summary 50 4. Evidence from post-16 education 51 4.1 Ethnic breakdown 51 4.2 Methodological details 51 4.3 Main findings: patterns and predictors of contact 51 4.4 Effect of social norms 55 4.5 Differences between ethnic groups 56 4.6 Differences as a function of gender 56 5. School mergers: evaluation of a social intervention in Oldham 58 5.1 Methodological details 59 5.2 Main findings 60 5.2.1 Results for Waterhead Academy 60 5.2.2 Results for merger schools ‘B’ and ‘C’ 66 5.3 Testing for whom the Waterhead merger works best 67 5.4 The Value of Gaining an Outgroup Friend 70 5.5 Comparing Waterhead with merger schools ‘B’ and ‘C’ 71 5.6 Observation of seating positions in school cafeteria at Waterhead 72 5.7 Analysis of friendship social networks at Waterhead 77 5.8 Summary 80 References 83 4 List of figures Figure 1: Outside school quantity of contact ................................................................... 24 Figure 2: Outside school quality of contact ..................................................................... 24 Figure 3: Proportion of friends who are from outgroup ................................................... 25 Figure 4: Number of close outgroup friends .................................................................... 25 Figure 5: Percentage of pupils reporting different numbers of ‘close outgroup friends’ .. 26 Figure 6: Social intimacy - how happy would you be to have an outgroup neighbour? ... 27 Figure 7: Social intimacy - how happy would you be to have an outgroup boyfriend/girlfriend? ........................................................................................................ 28 Figure 8: Attitudes towards the outgroup ........................................................................ 29 Figure 9: Trust towards the outgroup .............................................................................. 29 Figure 10: Intergroup anxiety .......................................................................................... 30 Figure 11: Ingroup norms about mixing ......................................................................... 31 Figure 12: Aspirations - getting a degree ........................................................................ 32 Figure 13: Aspirations - getting a high-paying job ........................................................... 32 Figure 14: Life satisfaction .............................................................................................. 33 Figure 15: The relationship between outgroup friends and attitudes for White-British pupils in segregated White-British schools ..................................................................... 34 Figure 16: Relationship between outgroup friends and attitudes for mixed schools (White- British and Asian-British pupils combined) ...................................................................... 35 Figure 17: Family norms in mixed schools ...................................................................... 36 Figure 18: Ingroup friends' norms ................................................................................... 36 Figure 19: Family norms moderate the effect of contact quantity on attitudes (for Asian- British sample in mixed schools) ..................................................................................... 37 Figure 20: Positive family norms affect attitudes when contact is low (for Asian-British sample in mixed schools) ................................................................................................ 38 Figure 21: Negative contact ............................................................................................ 39 5 Figure 22: Effects of friendship and negative contact on attitudes .................................. 40 Figure 23: Quantity of classroom contact in four mixed schools ..................................... 41 Figure 24: Quality of classroom contact in four mixed schools ....................................... 41 Figure 25: Quantity of break-time contact in four mixed schools .................................... 41 Figure 26: Quality of break-time contact in four mixed schools ....................................... 42 Figure 27: Relationship between classroom contact and outside school contact for mixed schools only .................................................................................................................... 43 Figure 28: Primary school contact .................................................................................. 44 Figure 29: Quantity of contact in the three most mixed schools ...................................... 47 Figure 30: Quality of contact in the three most mixed schools ........................................ 47 Figure 31: Number of outgroup friends in the three most mixed schools ........................ 48 Figure 32: Interest in making outgroup friends in the three most mixed schools ............ 48 Figure 33: Attitudes towards the outgroup in the three most mixed schools ................... 49 Figure 34: Relationship between contact and attitudes for mixed schools ...................... 50 Figure 35: Contact in the classroom and at break times (post-16) .................................. 52 Figure 36: Differences between ethnic groups for a range of variables .......................... 56 Figure 37: Gender differences ........................................................................................ 57 Figure 38: Overview and timetable for merger schools ................................................... 59 Figure 39: Latent growth modelling ................................................................................. 62 Figure 40: Latent growth models for White-British and Asian-British pupils for anxiety, liking, and contact ........................................................................................................... 62 Figure 41: Summary of multivariate latent growth model with example of Asian-British at Waterhead for contact quantity and outgroup liking ........................................................ 65 Figure 42: Summary of multivariate latent growth model with example of White-British at Waterhead and outgroup liking ....................................................................................... 66 Figure 43: Anxiety scores as a function of level of contact (White-British Waterhead longitudinal) .................................................................................................................... 68 6 Figure 44: Liking scores as a function of level of contact (White-British Waterhead longitudinal) .................................................................................................................... 68 Figure 45: Anxiety scores as a function of level of contact (Asian-British Waterhead longitudinal) .................................................................................................................... 69 Figure 46: Liking scores as a function of level of contact (Asian-British Waterhead longitudinal) .................................................................................................................... 69 Figure 47: Percentage of pupils