Values and civic participation in Greater Manchester

19/10/16

Values and civic participation in Greater Manchester

A project between Common Cause and Manchester Museum to promote public demand for a more caring society.
This is a blog by Tom Crompton
Tom is a member of staff at the Common Cause Foundation.

Promoting public demand for a more caring society

Common Cause Foundation are working in collaboration with Manchester Museum, part of The University of Manchester, on a project to show how insights from social psychology could help to build social cohesion, wellbeing and support for positive social and environmental change across Greater Manchester – including public demands for ambitious action on climate change.

What’s preventing a more caring and compassionate society?

A society which fosters greater wellbeing for today’s citizens and future generations is an aspiration not just in Greater Manchester, but the world over.  We know what policy interventions, technologies and lifestyle choices are needed, but without vocal and sustained public demand for change, these seem to be a distant prospect.

Change won’t happen by itself.  Organizations working for a better society will benefit from developing a clearer understanding of how to motivate and sustain widespread public demand for change.  Only by doing this will political space and pressure be created and maintained.

What will we be doing?

Our recent research, published as Perceptions Matter, shows that over three quarters of people in the UK under-estimate the importance that typical fellow-citizens place on values such as responsibility, honesty, social justice, and equality (that is, ‘intrinsic values’).

With Manchester Museum we will be developing ways of addressing this widespread misunderstanding about what others hold to be important – something which, if we can overcome it, could enable citizens everywhere to be more civically engaged in building a better world.

Focusing on visitors to, and stakeholders of, Manchester Museum we will create a better understanding of the typical values of a Greater Manchester citizen, validating and strengthening social norms around intrinsic values by:

  • developing new resources for the 450,000 visitors to the Museum that convey a deeper understanding of their and their fellow citizen’s values
  • supporting other organizations in Greater Manchester to engage their audiences in ways that convey a better understanding of their values and concerns, strengthening their commitment to civic participation

What do we expect the outcomes to be?

  • deepening awareness among Museum visitors of the importance that they and others place on intrinsic values
  • increased engagement in civic participation by visitors to the Museum
  • inspiration and practical support for other organizations working in Greater Manchester to adopt similar changes, greatly magnifying impact
  • a toolkit and replicable approach to ways of strengthening people’s commitment to civic participation, for uptake by networks in many other city-regions, in the UK and beyond

This project builds on conversations facilitated by Happy Museum and is supported by the Minor Foundation for Major Challenges

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