Are the Creative Opportunities on Offer in Scotland Diverse Enough?

In 2018, sociologists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Sheffield released a major new paper called ‘Panic! It’s an Arts Emergency!’. The project investigated inequalities in the cultural workforce and concluded that women, people of colour and those from working-class backgrounds are significantly underrepresented across the sector.

Since the publication of ‘Panic! 2018’ many in the culture and creative industries have reflected on their projects, recruitment and diversity; though there is still a long road ahead to get to where the sector needs to be. The Scottish Government’s Culture Strategy aims to encourage greater openness and diverse cultures to reflect a changing Scotland in the 21st century.

Furthermore, an ‘outcome’ in the National Performance Framework (which describes the kind of Scotland we collectively aim to create) is that people in Scotland 'are creative and their vibrant and diverse cultures are expressed and enjoyed widely’.

In new research conducted by Survation on behalf of Culture Counts, we've measured public opinion on diversity in cultural activities. Our survey sampled 1,010 residents aged 16+ living in Scotland. Fieldwork took place on 4-9 December 2020.

Just 51% of Scots said they view the arts, creative and culture opportunities on offer in Scotland to be diverse enough. You can explore our interactive research into how different groups and communities view diversity in culture below.



Generations

We’ve looked in more detail at the age cateogries below. 60% of those ages 65+ view opportunties as diverse enough, compared to just 44% of those aged 35-44. Explore the different age categories below.



Income & Opportunity

There was very marginal differences across houseold income categories. Explore the interactive chart below to looked further into how people grouped by income responded differently to this question.



Opinion By Region

You can explore how people in your local regional resonded below.



Investment in New Leadership Schemes

Throughout 2020, Culture Counts worked with the culture sector to produce a Crowd-Sourced Manifesto for the Scottish Parliament Elections in May 2021. Throughout our discussions we identified that the diversity of the cultural sector itself may be improved by improving structural design. For example: Ensuring diversity on boards needs to be a priority for the cultural sector and for anyone designing strategy or policy (and that includes the government).

Our Manifesto asks for investment in a leadership scheme to ensure that people from diverse backgrounds are heard at an early stage in the design process across Scottish Government policy-making and strategic thinking.

This is a first step towards inclusive decision-making and structural design. Having men and women represented is not enough. Diversity is not just about men or women or race, it’s about age, class, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership.

Learn More

Culture Counts Corwd-Sourced Manifesto for 2021
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