Survey finds Britain may be more inclusive in attitudes towards what it means to be British

Alex Scholes is one of NatCen's senior social researchers, to find out more about the report's findings and what they mean.

Transcript

00:00We asked a battery of questions on levels of pride in history, achievements in arts and literature,

00:06achievements in sports, the way democracy works, our political influence in the world,

00:11as well as our economic achievements. And as you'd expect, there's been different changes

00:16in different metrics for those periods. But the one standout feature was that

00:20pride in our history has declined quite markedly in the last 10 years. So 86% of people in 2013

00:29said that they were proud or very proud of Britain's history. And that's dropped down

00:33by 22 percentage points to 64% in our latest survey. And that's the largest drop of any of

00:38the questions we asked in that battery. Some areas like Britain's achievements in the arts,

00:43literature and sports, they've remained quite strong. So why do you think there's

00:47there's pride in these areas that's remained resilient?

00:49There are two ways you can broadly conceive of your national identity in simple terms,

00:55one would be a civic conception or a more inclusive conception where you think anyone

01:00can be truly British say if they make the effort. On the other hand, you would have a more say

01:05ethnocentric or exclusivist conception of national identity where you think you really have to be

01:10born British to be truly British. And we broke down levels of national pride in those different

01:18elements, you know, so history, arts and literature, sports, by your conception of your

01:22national identity. And people with a more ethnic conception of national identity tend to take pride

01:29in different things to the more civic. So if you have a more ethnic conception of national identity,

01:34say, you're more likely to say pride in Britain's history than someone with a more civic conception.

01:39And since there's been a decline in the proportion of people with a more ethnic

01:42conception of national identity over the same period, that may go some way to explain why

01:49we're seeing a decline in, you know, the levels of pride in say Britain's history,

01:54and not the same levels, not the same decreases and say, you know,

01:57arts and literature and sports and things like that.