other students won’t be able to do that’ and would need extra support to overcome
obstacles that seemed unfair, carry on in school and perform well.
The data collected informed questions on fairness in the following questionnaire.
8. Perceptions of Britain
Hundreds of students said they had good values and were good people. Does Britain
have good values? Is it a good and fair place?
Many students voiced agreement that they wanted the police to intervene more in the
community to make it a safer place. A majority said or agreed that theirs was a
community that was increasingly only about selfish individual interest. School, they said,
demonstrated some moral values here and there, ‘we have assemblies where they tell us
to work hard and wear school uniform,’ but one student said that although the school
cared somewhat, it needed kinder, more caring teachers.
Questions on values and Britishness were asked in the following questionnaire.
9. Levels of trust
The Bible says ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart’ (Proverbs Ch3 v 5-6). The
Qu’ran says ‘whoever trusts in God will find him sufficient’ (Holy Quran, Ch65 v3).
If you don’t have a belief do you have an issue/problem with trust? What trust do
we have?
Trust emerged as a theme from the first questionnaire. Many students said they did not
trust people easily. Pakistani students displayed far more trust of their teachers than the
other groups. Nearly all students across the board voiced a lack of trust of the police and
politicians. Muslim students said they trusted the police more, but all students
complained about being stopped for no real reason by the police. The students answered
this question enthusiastically by talking at length and insisting each of their opinions was
heard.
In terms of the quality of trust, just over a third said that they trusted people around them,
a third said that they had no trust outside of the family, and just under a third said that
they had both some trust of people and no trust.
Questions about trust were asked in the following questionnaire.
10. Levels of happiness and optimism
How happy and optimistic are you? Very much/quite/not much/not at all. Give
reasons for your answer.
Only five of the students said that they were particularly optimistic when asked directly,
and four claimed to be pessimistic, but the majority (13) said that they tended towards
being pessimistic. There were many shrugs and several attestations that there was ‘not
53