Information for Policy Stakeholders
We are interviewing individuals who are involved in shaping, leading and enacting policy in the areas of curriculum, safeguarding, behaviour, and equality, with a focus on how young people’s capacity and opportunity to engage on race and faith equality issues is shaped inside and outside of schools in England. Interviewees include senior civil servants, politicians, non-governmental organisations concerned with youth, faith and/or race equality, headteachers, MAT CEOs, local authority officers and community policing. Please click below for more information.
What is this research study about? This is a University of Birmingham study peer-reviewed and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It examines the factors that help, and do not help young people to engage democratically on race and faith equality issues in England. We are examining school and wider societal and cultural influences, including national policies, schools’ practices, online and social media, and youth social background and location. To find out more, check out our video about the study on our homepage.
Why are certain stakeholders invited to take part? What does it involve? Stakeholders are invited to an individual interview because their work directly or indirectly influences policy or practice regarding young people’s school and societal participation. The interview lasts 45 minutes, in a place convenient to the participant (e.g., most likely online). Participation is completely voluntary and participants are free to withdraw at any time before or during the interview. Participants can also withdraw their interview data up to one month after the interview takes place by contacting the research team at a.kandemir@bham.ac.uk
Who has reviewed this study? The study is supported by an Advisory Group including members from the Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Programme, Birmingham City Council, brap Equality and Human Rights Charity, and teachers and academics and practitioners from across England. The study is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and ethical approval for the study has been granted by University of Birmingham.
What benefit will it have? In a complex society where young people receive so much conflicting information, the study’s findings will help policy-makers, schools, and communities better understand what is needed to support young people to express themselves democratically on sensitive equality issues, and to protect other people’s rights to expression. Once the findings are reported, we hope to work with policy stakeholders to help you further enable young people to engage affirmatively in a just and democratic society.
Will stakeholder participation be confidential? Yes. Stakeholders will not be named, their organisation will not be named, and we will only refer to your broad role (e.g. civil servant or charity CEO). Anything we quote in research reports and presentations will be completely anonymised. If participants have any concerns about your anonymity, please let the research team know. The only time we would need to break confidentiality with participants and inform a Designated Safeguarding Liaison is when they make a disclosure of experiencing harm or indicate harm is being caused to others.
How will the data be used and secured? We record all in-person and online interviews using a Dictaphone or digital recording device. Our audio recordings and consent forms are uploaded to our secure encrypted institutional computers and our secure institutional team online platform for the project period (to 2025). The audio is transcribed and anonymised by a professional transcriber, and destroyed once all project analysis is complete. All transcripts will be securely stored on our secure institutional long term server for 10 years, and then completely destroyed.
Where will I find out about the study results? We will publish our main study findings in a project report on our website, and share them in an online stakeholder launch event which participants will be invited to (without being publicly identified as participants of course). We will also share links to open access academic journal articles and headline national survey results from the study on this website. You can follow us on social media (@UoBEdResearch) to find out when the results will be out. We will also email participants with key findings, unless they us they’d rather not receive them.
What are the possible disadvantages of taking part? It is unlikely there will be any disadvantage to taking part. However, as we are discussing sensitive issues of race and faith equality, we will provide participants with examples of resources that might be useful in thinking about these issues.