Public Sentiments Towards Immigration in Wales

Title: Public Sentiments Towards Immigration in Wales

Funders(s): Welsh Government New Ideas Social Research Fund

Funding: £9378

Start Date: 1 September 2010

End Date: 31st March 2012

Research Team

Robin Mann (WISERD Bangor)

Yvonne Tommis (School of Social Sciences, Bangor University)

Overview

The aim of this project was to investigate public sentiments in Wales towards immigrants and immigration. The monitoring of what people think about immigration has come to feature regularly within numerous national and cross-national surveys and opinion polls. But there has been little or no attempt to consider the nature of these sentiments at the devolved or sub-state level in which there are a distinct set of national identities; and in which the devolved national governments are adopting progressive political agendas.

In order to address these sentiments in Wales, the project presents a secondary analysis of the European Social Survey and Citizenship Survey. Using a number of questions asked in successive waves in these surveys, we examined whether and how sentiments towards immigration are different in Wales; how these sentiments relate to different national identifications; as well as how sentiments in Wales compared to the other nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

Final Report

This is a final report for the Welsh Government New Ideas Social Research Fund project entitled ‘Public Sentiments Towards Immigration: The Difference Wales Makes?‘