2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games

Informing the 2012 Education Plan

In 2007, Ipsos MORI were commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), now the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to undertake a large scale project investigating young people's views about what events and activities they would like to see and be involved in, during the lead up to the Games and in what is being promoted as the ‘Cultural Olympiad'. 

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) in partnership with the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (DIUS) is responsible for the 2012 programme objective 3.1.4:  Maximise the social benefits, including in health, education and volunteering, of hosting the Games.

A plan for delivering this has been developed and approved by ministers and covers strands including sport, culture, languages, international links, volunteering and healthy living.  While some research and initial consultations have already been conducted, no wider-scale, structured consultation had taken place amongst 5-19 year olds.

As such, the key research objectives of the study were:

• To explore the extent to which young people feel part of the ‘2012 Generation', and within this:
• Young people's perceptions of the Olympic Games and specifically of the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games;
• Young people's aspirations for 2012;
• The extent to which they feel involved;
• To explore what types of activity young people would find exciting and inspirational in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games;  more specifically, to probe what this would mean for activities in terms of:
• Activity content; 
•  Where activities would be held/located and what venues would be used; 
•  Whether the activities should be ongoing or one off;
• Who should have ownership of activities;
• The role of celebrities in the activities;
• How events link to the London 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic Games;
• Use of technology within the activities;
• How educational establishments could be involved;
• How diversity should be celebrated; 
• To understand how best to communicate with young people to engage them;
• To give guidance, bearing in mind the aspirations and expectations of young people, regarding directions for the DCSF/DIUS delivery programme.

This research presented the need to elicit rich data in an exploratory, open-ended manner.  As such, the focus of the approach was qualitative in nature, with the mainstay of the research combining 144 in-school, mini-group discussions amongst young people up to Year 10 (in 36 schools across all nine GO regions in England), and supplemented by 4 friendship pair group discussions amongst older young people (16 to 19 year olds).

A quantitative Omnibus study among 866 young people was also conducted in order to provide some statistical evidence to supplement the qualitative findings and to provide a robust measure of opinion on several topic areas.

The full report was published on 31 July 2008 and can be downloaded here.