No pride of place: gap-year students are unpatriotic
With wider travel and access to university, young are less than a third as likely as old to feel patriotic
GAP-YEAR students might think they are simply having a nice time away from home. But something more intriguing has emerged from their travels.
A study shows only one in five university students is proud to be British, against 59 per cent of youngsters without qualifications. Researchers blame the chasm on gap-year students who prefer new countries to home.
BRITISH national pride is quietly fading in the age of budget air travel and social media networks, research shows.
A younger, more internationally minded generation who, crucially, are more likely to have been to university than ever before, are only a third as likely to feel a “strong” sense of national pride as those who grew up in the shadow of the Second World War.
The findings emerge from a study of data from the British Social Attitudes survey, the longest-running and most authoritative barometer of public opinion of its kind. Researchers analysed responses to questions about patriotism and attachment to the UK in 2003 and 2013.
On the surface, overall levels of national pride appear unchanged, with the same proportion of people (82 per cent) telling researchers they were either “very proud” or “somewhat proud” to be British in both years.
But when the figures are broken down, they point to a striking move away from overt patriotic fervour.
In 2003, 43 per cent of those surveyed said they were “very proud” of their nationality, with another 39 per cent saying they were only “somewhat” proud.
But 10 years later, in response to the same question, the figures were more than reversed, with only 35 per cent expressing strong pride in being British and 47 per cent saying they were “somewhat proud”.
The responses to related questions – on whether people felt “close” to Britain and whether they would rather be a citizen of the UK than any other country – showed a similar pattern.
Britons emerge as more strongly patriotic than the French or Germans but less so than the Spanish, Swiss or Japanese, and significantly less so than the Americans.
Out of 33 countries, by far the strongest feelings of national pride could be found in emerging developing powers: South Africa, India and the Philippines especially.
“Britons come out as middling compared with the rest of the world and, although most of us do feel proud, we are far less likely to express this view strongly than many other countries,” said Ian Simpson, of NatCen Social Research, which carried out the analysis.
“There is perhaps something quite British in being reticent about overt flag-waving patriotism.”
The figures also point to a subtle generational shift. Although most younger Britons are proud of their nationality, they are dramatically less likely than their grandparents to admit to a strong national attachment.
Only one in five of those in their twenties surveyed in 2013 said they felt “very proud” of their country, compared with 66 per cent of over-75s.
One possibility, the report suggests, is that people’s patriotic ardour grows with age. But it points out that, were this the only explanation, strong national pride would be growing rather than declining because of the ageing population.
Mr Simpson said: “If this trend continues, we would expect to see pride in British identity continuing to decline at a gentle but significant level.”
He said that it was possible that stronger national feelings in older generations had been forged in tougher times.
“Perhaps their sense of ‘Britishness’ links back to memories of the war or post-war years, when national pride might have been boosted by the shared experience of adversity,” he said.
Significantly, the gap in national pride between generations has widened in 10 years. Older Britons were twice as likely to express strong national pride at the beginning of the new century; now they are three times as likely.
The study also notes a link between university education and lower levels of patriotic feeling. Only one in five graduates said they felt “very proud” to be British compared with 59 per cent those with no formal qualifications.
Prof John Curtice, a leading expert on public opinion, said: “I think there are two things about younger people today: the first is that more of them than in any previous generation are exposed to a university education. Universities themselves are quite international – they constantly have that international perspective in many respects and also just encourage people to be a little bit critical about the world.
“The second thing obviously is that today’s younger generation expect to be able to go to Barcelona or Berlin or Warsaw, and most have experience of doing that.
“They are living in a world in which information and communication is global: once upon a time, you might have had a pen pal in Spain; now you can talk to them on Skype, if you can get over the language barrier – it creates a more cosmopolitan perspective.”
Surprisingly, he added, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum altered perspectives on Britishness north of the border, with surveys since then showing Scots more likely to identify themselves as “British”.
‘If this trend continues we would expect to see pride in British identity continuing to decline significantly’