Communities and demographics
Research Topic
Language: English
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Research problems linked to this topic
- Who accesses the services of charitable and voluntary organisations and social enterprises?
- Do these differ regionally or for different groups?
- What works in addressing barriers and increasing engagement of specific groups?
- Better understand and quantify the extent to which investment in grassroots facilities improves participation, including for underrepresented groups and in different parts of the country.
- Examine how sport, and interventions in sport, affect pride in place, levelling up, and other wider societal outcomes.
- • Are the benefits of FE and HE shared equally or do some groups benefit more than others? • Do these benefits vary by the type of HE or FE study e.g. full degree or short courses, institution (university or FE college) or mode of study?
- How can schools and local partners work together effectively to reduce persistent and severe absence?
- • What are the characteristics and motivations of returners to the education and social care workforces?
- What are cost-effective approaches to promote a sense of safety and school belonging, and ensure attendance and positive behaviour in school, enabling children to be motivated and engaged?
- How can collaboration between organisations, commissioners and other funders across CSY sectors and actors be enhanced at local levels to support better outcomes?
- How can levels of civil society and of pride in place in a local area be increased?
- What are the drivers of demand for services in this sector taking into account the needs of different groups?
- How can DWP best support places, regions and sectors in levelling up? What approaches work best in addressing employment skills development, employment skills shortages and employment skills mismatches across the UK?
- Where children cannot live with their birth parents, how do we support and enable others (including wider family networks) to provide good quality care which leads to better life outcomes? • How does this vary for different family types, including both formal and informal kinship carers, foster carers, and children who leave care under an adoption order or special guardianship order?
- What are the benefits of greater equality of access?
- How can we better monitor and evaluate the impacts of road schemes, and other large-scale infrastructure projects, on the local environment and those who use and live in that that environment e.g., on cultural heritage sites in the area; on local residents, in terms of well-being and on local biodiversity?
- • How can we support all children by removing barriers to opportunity, balancing high standards for all with support for those who need it most, including the most disadvantaged children?
- What are the barriers and challenges within the labour market that prevent adults from disadvantaged backgrounds having good outcomes, even if they have the same attainment outcomes (e.g. networks, local labour market factors, social capital etc)? How does this vary for different groups (e.g. adult offenders)? What are the most cost-effective ways to address them?
- What are the impacts of lower/greater rates of engagement with voluntary sectors?
- Do different interventions work for different groups and in different contexts?
- • How can artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies be implemented in our settings so that they do not widen existing inequalities or create new inequalities?
- • What are the social, emotional, physical, and longer-term career benefits of enrichment activities?
- What are the characteristics of those organisations (charities, youth organisations, social enterprises) working across this space?
- Which parenting programmes are most effective, especially in engaging disadvantaged parents and families with a social worker? Are they equally accessible to all families, including those that are hard to reach, and easily scalable?
- How does creative content affect cultural identity at both the national and local level?
- What are the benefits of increased levels of civil society participation and of pride in place, overall and in more localised areas?
- What are engagement levels across different groups?
- • What drives differences in school belonging, motivation, and engagement between primary and secondary?
- How do we ensure that all children, particularly those in most need, can access and participate in good quality early learning?
- • How do local availability of courses and transport infrastructure impact on disadvantaged groups’ opportunities and choices, and what works to improve them?
- What can we do to reduce barriers to take-up of childcare and to work, particularly for parents from disadvantaged communities?
- • How can childcare for school aged children better support disadvantaged children and children with SEND?
- • What enrichment activities (such as arts, cultural and sports activities) are available through childcare for school aged children? How and why does this vary (e.g. by place and age group) and how can we boost these opportunities for those most need them?
- Analyse and explain the role and drivers of AHT sectors in creating a greater sense of pride in place in communities?
- • What opportunities do children have at present for enrichment activities (including opportunities for play, especially outdoor play, breaks, and engagement with nature) and how does this vary by place, family, and personal characteristics? What are the barriers to take-up?
- What behavioural and technical interventions will improve the safety of public spaces and the public’s perception of their safety?
- What is the quality and value of services provided by the sector, relative to those offered by other sectors (eg. public sector)?
- How can we best support children and adults who lack or have lacked family support (such as those who have experienced care) to maximise their opportunities to live a healthy and rewarding life?
- What is the optimal amount and type of early education in formal settings? How does this vary for different groups of children?
- • What types of practice and/or interventions (including both by schools and other parties such as local authorities), work to prevent or reduce the different types of absence (including low-level, persistent and severe absence) and how do they affect other outcomes (including wellbeing)?• What conditions need to be in place for schools and/or local authorities to effectively implement these interventions?
- To what extent does greater voluntary, community and social enterprise participation in procurement lead to better outcomes for people and communities including young people?
- What works in terms of improving diversity (defined as representation of protected characteristics and socio-demographic background to the UK population) within the creative industries sectors’ workforce to bring it closer to being representative of the UK workforce and audiences?
- What are the social and cultural impacts of digital engagement and how do they differ from or compliment physical engagement?
- What interventions can support communities to tap into and take ownership of social investment at local and “hyper-local” levels?
- What are the major barriers to volunteering for different demographic groups?
- What is the level of voluntary, community and social enterprise resilience at the sector level?
- • What factors influence parental attitudes to school attendance and what can we do to address them?
- What services are provided by those within this sector and how can these be enhanced?
- How can we ensure that multi-agency responses are coordinated effectively to reduce, and ideally prevent, young people’s exposure to and experience of harm? • How do we ensure that front line staff have access to all the relevant information from across systems and agencies, to ensure effective decision making in provision of support?
- What factors influence the recruitment and retention of teachers at all stages of their careers – particularly in schools that serve disadvantaged communities?
- • How can we maximise the benefits of work experience for those students who lack social capital?
- What affects and supports resilience at the organisational level?
- What family focused solutions work to ensure that children and their parents have the support needed to meet their basic needs for housing security and quality of life?
- How do we improve connections and relationships between parents and professionals (e.g. through parental networks)?
- Which methods could be best implemented and provide robust estimates of in person engagement with cultural events, especially when activities are unticketed?
- What are the barriers to different groups engaging with civil society and youth sectors?
- How well-used are available family services (such as family hubs and children’s centres services) and how representative are these users? How can we make these services more attractive and easier to access for those parents and carers whose children stand to benefit the most?
- What works to raise attainment, taking account of different starting points and different contexts experienced by children, including the most disadvantaged?
- How do issues related to CSY’s policy responsibilities affect pride in place and social capital at the local level?
- How can we mitigate the factors that put stress on families and enable them to have suitable housing and good quality home environments? • How much information and understanding do education providers across our sectors have about students’ home circumstances, and what adjustments do they make?
- "• What are the most cost-effective school and classroom practices to help children develop positive relationships and pro-social behaviour at school and increase school attendance – especially for those children with challenging behaviour? How do these vary for different groups (and for those students with SEND, for different types of need)? "