Peer-reviewed Articles by Ralph Scott
Electoral Studies, 2022
An individual's level of education is increasingly significant in explaining their political atti... more An individual's level of education is increasingly significant in explaining their political attitudes and behaviour, with higher education proposed as a new political cleavage. However, there is limited evidence on the causal effect of university on political attitudes, due to self-selection into educational pathways. Addressing this gap, this article estimates the change in political values that occurs within individuals who graduate from university by applying longitudinal modelling techniques to data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, overcoming the selection problem by accounting for time-invariant confounding. It provides the first causal estimate of higher education specifically, finding that achieving a degree reduces authoritarianism and racial prejudice and increases economic right-wing attitudes. This has important implications for the study of politics: as populations become more highly educated on average, we should expect continuing aggregate value change towards lower levels of authoritarianism and racial prejudice, with significant consequences for political behaviour.
Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, May 17, 2013
This article explores how active citizenship can be encouraged through education and community ac... more This article explores how active citizenship can be encouraged through education and community action. It proposes that service learning and a renewed focus on voluntarism can both promote social cohesion between different ethnic and cultural groups while also fostering among the population a greater understanding of and commitment to civic culture. It reviews the international evidence on service programmes and the newly created National Citizen Service programme in the United Kingdom, arguing for a greater role for service learning in the citizen educational offer.
Evaluation reports by Ralph Scott
This guidance, designed for the Belong Network, presents structured advice for sports organisatio... more This guidance, designed for the Belong Network, presents structured advice for sports organisations to evaluate their impact on social cohesion and integration outcomes.
The development of digital citizenship in our young people, to help them navigate new online chal... more The development of digital citizenship in our young people, to help them navigate new online challenges, has become an urgent need - yet there is a dearth of resources to assist educators.
This report summarises the results of a pilot project which seeks to address this gap by developing, testing and evaluating new resources to help schools tackle online radicalisation. Based on the analysis of a survey of existing materials and a best practice review, it presents a digital citizenship intervention, developed by Demos and Bold Creative, designed to build this resilience to extremism, and measures its impact through a pilot study delivered in schools.
At a time when the growth of social media combined with the influence of extremism makes it more important than ever, this report adds to the public evidence base regarding counter-extremism interventions in a school context, and contributes to the development of effective education for digital citizenship.
In December 2014, the Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan MP announced a programme of w... more In December 2014, the Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan MP announced a programme of work intending to make Britain a world leader in character education. The programme included support for new projects to increase participation in character-building activities and improve the evidence base, with £3.5 million in grants allocated.
The Scout Association and Demos were successful in their joint bid to design, deliver and evaluate a pilot intervention as part of the grants programme, with Demos’s role being to undertake the independent evaluation. This report presents the findings of that evaluation of the Character by Doing programme, consisting of a full process and impact evaluation, including an impact analysis of participants using data from pre- and post-surveys and school data, as well as qualitative fieldwork with students, staff and parents, and session observations at each of the participating schools.
The report outlines the design of the programme and evaluation, the quantitative analysis of the impact on participants, and process findings relating to the experience of the programme, and draws conclusions on implementation based on the feedback of schools and local delivery partners.
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Peer-reviewed Articles by Ralph Scott
Evaluation reports by Ralph Scott
This report summarises the results of a pilot project which seeks to address this gap by developing, testing and evaluating new resources to help schools tackle online radicalisation. Based on the analysis of a survey of existing materials and a best practice review, it presents a digital citizenship intervention, developed by Demos and Bold Creative, designed to build this resilience to extremism, and measures its impact through a pilot study delivered in schools.
At a time when the growth of social media combined with the influence of extremism makes it more important than ever, this report adds to the public evidence base regarding counter-extremism interventions in a school context, and contributes to the development of effective education for digital citizenship.
The Scout Association and Demos were successful in their joint bid to design, deliver and evaluate a pilot intervention as part of the grants programme, with Demos’s role being to undertake the independent evaluation. This report presents the findings of that evaluation of the Character by Doing programme, consisting of a full process and impact evaluation, including an impact analysis of participants using data from pre- and post-surveys and school data, as well as qualitative fieldwork with students, staff and parents, and session observations at each of the participating schools.
The report outlines the design of the programme and evaluation, the quantitative analysis of the impact on participants, and process findings relating to the experience of the programme, and draws conclusions on implementation based on the feedback of schools and local delivery partners.