Social Change, 1987-1997 (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

The extent of 'social liberalism'

What social liberalism meant in this period

• Social liberalism describes a society in which people have greater freedom over their private lives

  • It can be measured through both changes to attitudes and changes in the law

  • Change between 1987 and 1997 was uneven, with some attitudes changing faster than legislation

• Britain entered this period from a relatively socially conservative position

  • In the 1987 British Social Attitudes survey, around 75% of respondents said sexual relations between two adults of the same sex were always or mostly wrong

  • Fear surrounding AIDS also contributed to hostility towards gay men

    • The first UK case had been recorded in 1981

    • The illness was widely described in the press as a "gay plague"

• Government policy showed both conservatism and attempts to respond to changing social problems

  • From 1986, the government ran a major AIDS awareness campaign using the slogan "Don't die of ignorance"

  • Diana, Princess of Wales, publicly shook hands with an AIDS patient without gloves in 1987, helping challenge fears about how the illness was transmitted

Section 28 and the reaction to it

• Concerns about homosexuality became particularly political during the late 1980s

  • Some Conservative-supporting newspapers attacked Labour-controlled councils that funded lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) support groups as part of the "loony left"

• A tabloid controversy in 1986 focused on the children's book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin

  • The book showed a girl living with her father and his male partner

  • Its availability through some Labour-controlled councils and school libraries was used by critics as evidence that local authorities were "promoting homosexuality"

• Parliament responded with Section 28 of the Local Government Act (1988)

  • It prevented local authorities from "promoting homosexuality"

  • The law did not directly ban discussion of homosexuality in schools

    • However, many teachers and councils interpreted it cautiously and avoided the subject

    • This led to wider self-censorship than the wording of the law itself required

• Section 28 also encouraged greater LGBT political organisation

  • Stonewall was founded in 1989 to campaign through mainstream politics

    • It also supported legal challenges concerning the age of consent and the ban on gay people serving in the armed forces

  • OutRage! used direct action, including protests aimed at politicians and clergy

Approach: Tatchell was a gay-rights campaigner and co-founder of OutRage!, writing in 2012 about the 1980s

The source is useful because he experienced the period directly and shows how campaigners viewed Section 28 as a turning point that encouraged greater LGBT activism

However, he was writing around twenty-five years later and had a strong campaigning perspective, so claims about the scale of repression should be checked against contemporary evidence and the wording of Section 28 itself

The limits of liberalisation

• Legal change towards greater equality remained incomplete during the 1990s

  • The age of consent for gay men was reduced from 21 to 18 in 1994

    • It was not equalised with the heterosexual age of consent, the age of 16, until 2000

  • The ban on gay men and lesbians serving in the armed forces also remained until 2000

• More liberal attitudes towards relationships and family life also existed alongside continuing anxiety about social change

  • The divorce rate reached record levels during the 1990s

  • Births outside marriage rose from around 12% in the early 1980s to around 30% by the early 1990s

    • Lone parents, particularly single mothers, were often criticised in political and press debate

  • The Child Support Agency was established in 1993 to enforce maintenance payments from absent parents

• Major's government also continued to use socially conservative language

  • His Back to Basics campaign in 1993 called for a return to values such as responsibility and family stability

    • It was widely mocked after sex scandals involving Conservative MPs, which made the government's social conservatism look out of step with how many people now lived

  • Concerns about permissiveness also remained influential

    • Mary Whitehouse continued campaigning against violent sexual content

    • The Video Recordings Act was strengthened in 1994 after renewed concern over violent videos following the murder of James Bulger

Anti-establishment culture

A more 'classless' society?

• When John Major became Prime Minister in 1990, he stated that he wanted to create a "classless society"

  • The phrase suggested a softer tone than Thatcher's, promising that a person's background should not limit their opportunities

• At the same time, traditional sources of authority were increasingly questioned

  • Some historians link this partly to Thatcherism itself, which had encouraged challenges to established institutions and traditional elites

  • Historian Alwyn W. Turner argues that much of the 1990s saw the results of changes that had begun decades earlier

    • He described the period as seeing "the coming to fruition [of] seeds that had been planted a quarter of a century earlier"

The monarchy under scrutiny

• The monarchy faced unusually intense criticism during the 1990s

  • 1992 became known as the Queen's annus horribilis

    • Three of her four children saw their marriages break down

    • Details of royal affairs and private telephone conversations appeared in the tabloid press

    • A major fire at Windsor Castle in November 1992 caused further controversy

• The cost of the monarchy also came under greater scrutiny

  • Public criticism over who should pay for the Windsor Castle repairs contributed to the Queen agreeing to pay income tax on her private income

  • The civil list was also reduced

• Criticism intensified after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997

  • The royal family was accused by some newspapers and members of the public of appearing distant while the country mourned

  • Support for the monarchy fell to one of its lowest points of the period

Approach: The Queen gave this speech publicly at the Guildhall in November 1992, at the end of a year of intense criticism of the royal family

The source is useful because it shows that the monarchy itself recognised the growth of public scrutiny. Her acceptance that no institution should expect to be free from criticism reflects a significant change in attitudes towards deference

However, this was a carefully prepared public speech, so it shows what the monarchy was willing to admit publicly rather than everything happening within the royal family

Challenge in the arts

• Anti-establishment attitudes were also visible in popular culture and the arts

  • The Young British Artists (YBAs) challenged traditional ideas about what art should look like

  • Artists such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin used unconventional materials and subjects

    • Hirst became particularly known for works involving dead animals

• Much of Hirst's work deliberately attracted controversy

  • Advertising executive and collector Charles Saatchi became an important patron

  • His collection formed the basis of the Sensation exhibition in 1997

• The wider significance was less about one particular artwork and more about a willingness to challenge accepted standards of taste and respectability

Youth culture and rave

• Youth culture also developed in ways that worried politicians and parts of the press

  • Acid house music spread from the United States in the late 1980s

  • Large raves and free parties became increasingly common

    • The summers of 1988 and 1989 were nicknamed the "Second Summer of Love"

• Drug use, particularly ecstasy, became closely associated with rave culture

  • This contributed to a wider moral panic in the press

  • Around 20,000 people attended the week-long Castlemorton Common Festival in 1992

    • Its scale, drug associations and the difficulty of policing such a large free party increased pressure for government action

• The government responded with the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994)

  • It gave police greater powers to break up larger gatherings

  • The Act became famous for defining rave music as involving "repetitive beats"

Direct action and environmental protest

• Some anti-establishment feeling took the form of direct action protest

  • Campaigns opposed major road-building projects, such as the M3 extension through Twyford Down from 1992

  • Protesters also targeted the M11 link road and the Newbury bypass

• Protest methods were deliberately disruptive

  • Activists chained themselves to trees, occupied land and dug tunnels to delay construction

  • These campaigns often brought together experienced environmental activists and local residents protesting for the first time

  • These protests showed that direct challenges to government decisions could occur at a local level

The position of women

Third-wave feminism and 'girl power'

• Third-wave feminism emerged in Britain during the early 1990s

  • It built on the legal and economic concerns of second-wave feminism but placed greater emphasis on identity, sexuality and differences between women

  • Issues such as race, class and sexuality became more prominent within feminist debate

    • This is known as intersectional feminism

• Some of these ideas developed through underground culture

  • The Riot Grrrl movement used punk music and feminist activism to challenge sexism

  • Bands such as Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear became associated with the movement

• By the mid-1990s, some of the same ideas had entered popular culture

  • The Spice Girls popularised the language of "girl power"

  • Television increasingly featured assertive female characters

  • At the same time, the rise of the ladette suggested that greater female freedom could also be expressed through behaviour traditionally associated with men

Women in public life

• Women became more visible in some important public positions during the 1990s

  • Betty Boothroyd became the first female Speaker of the House of Commons in 1992

  • Stella Rimington became the first woman to head MI5 in the same year

• Margaret Thatcher's premiership had already shown that a woman could reach the highest political office

  • However, this did not automatically lead to wider female representation

    • Thatcher appointed only one woman to her Cabinet

    • She also showed little interest in presenting herself as a representative of women more generally

    • Only 41 women MPs were elected in 1987 and 60 in 1992, before Labour's all-women shortlists helped raise the total to around 120 in 1997

• The Church of England also changed

  • Parliament approved the ordination of women, and the first women were ordained as priests in 1994

  • The debate showed that opposition to greater female equality remained strong in some institutions

Approach: Gummer was a Conservative MP speaking in the House of Commons in October 1993 during the debate over the ordination of women

The source is useful because it shows how some opponents framed the issue as one of religious authority rather than women’s rights. However, that distinction should be tested against the wider debate over whether excluding women from the priesthood amounted to discrimination. Gummer was also a Cabinet minister speaking as a Church of England member

Approach: Benn was a Labour MP speaking in the same Commons debate in October 1993. Benn was a long-standing campaigner for equality

The source is useful because he directly challenges Gummer’s argument and presents opposition to women priests as prejudice against women. His response shows how the debate could be understood as part of a wider question about gender equality, rather than only a theological issue

Law and employment

• Women made significant legal gains during this period

  • In R v R (1991), the House of Lords ruled that a husband could be convicted of raping his wife

    • The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) then placed that principle into statute law

• Women's participation in paid employment also continued to increase

  • By 1993, around 68% of women of working age were economically active

  • By 1996, women made up roughly half of all employees

  • Married women were also able to be taxed separately from their husbands from 1990

• However, greater participation did not produce full equality

  • Women's full-time hourly pay remained at around 80% of men's

  • The relative position of women in part-time work improved much less

  • Women also remained under-represented in many senior positions

How far had the position of women improved?

Race relations

Signs of progress

• By the late 1980s, Britain appeared more comfortable with multiculturalism

  • Multiculturalism means accepting that different ethnic, religious and cultural communities can keep their own identities while sharing the same rights and institutions

  • There were no disturbances on the scale of the race-related riots seen in 1981 and 1985

  • Riots in 1991 and 1992, in places from Oxford to Newcastle and Burnley, mainly involved young white men living on deprived estates

• Representation in Parliament also improved

  • Four Black and Asian MPs were elected at the 1987 general election, the first time since the 1920s

  • All four retained their seats in 1992

• These changes suggested some movement towards greater political inclusion

  • However, representation remained limited and did not mean that racism had disappeared from everyday life

Continuing racism and violence

• Progress remained uneven

  • In 1992, John Taylor, the Black Conservative candidate for Cheltenham, faced reports of racist opposition from some local Conservatives

  • Relations between some young Black men and the police also remained tense

• The murder of Stephen Lawrence exposed the continuing seriousness of racist violence

  • Lawrence, a Black A-level student, was murdered by a group of white youths at a bus stop in south-east London in April 1993

  • The Crown Prosecution Service decided there was not enough evidence to bring successful prosecutions

  • The police investigation was heavily criticised

    • Officers were accused of failing to investigate the case properly

    • The Lawrence family also argued that assumptions about Black teenagers shaped the way the case was handled

• Doreen and Neville Lawrence continued campaigning after a private prosecution failed

  • Their campaign eventually led to a public inquiry ordered in 1997

Approach: Diane Abbott was the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and, from 1987, the first Black woman elected to Parliament. She spoke in a Commons adjournment debate on racial violence on 21 May 1993, one month after Stephen Lawrence's murder

The source is useful because she presents the killing as part of a wider pattern of racial harassment and violence, rather than as an isolated incident. Her position as the MP for a diverse London constituency helps explain why she stresses how serious the problem was

However, she was an opposition MP and a campaigner on race equality, so she had a clear reason to emphasise the failures of the government and the media. Speaking only a month after the murder, she also could not know how much the later inquiry would reveal about the police investigation

Approach: Peter Lloyd was the Conservative Minister of State at the Home Office. He replied for the government in the same debate on 21 May 1993

The source is useful because he accepts that recorded racial attacks had risen to nearly 8,000, but questions what the increase proves. He suggests that some of the rise may have come from better reporting and recording, so his response shows the government's more cautious reading of the figures

However, as a minister defending the government's record, he had a reason to play down the scale of the problem. The figures he quotes were also only the attacks reported to and recorded by the police, so they are likely to underestimate how many took place

New pressures on social cohesion

• Patterns of migration also changed during the 1990s

  • The number of asylum seekers increased, including people fleeing violence in countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq

  • Migration from New Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, also continued

    • Many migrants joined family members already living in Britain

• Questions about the place of Muslim communities became more prominent

  • Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988

    • Many Muslims regarded the novel as blasphemous

  • In February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death

    • Rushdie subsequently went into hiding

  • Reactions within Britain were divided

    • Some British Muslims accepted publication as part of freedom of expression

    • Others protested publicly and, in some cases, burned copies of the book

    • The dispute highlighted tensions between religious belief, freedom of expression and integration

How far had race relations improved?

How far did British society change, 1987–1997?

• This question weighs evidence of real social change against evidence that older attitudes and structures survived

  • Some key evidence for each side is outlined below

Areas of significant change

• Britain became less deferential and more socially liberal

  • Traditional institutions such as the monarchy faced greater public scrutiny

  • Attitudes towards sexuality became more tolerant

• Women gained greater legal, economic and public opportunities

  • More women entered paid work and senior public roles

• Britain also became more visibly multicultural

  • Ethnic minority representation improved, and diversity became more established in public life

• Youth culture, art and protest became more willing to challenge authority

  • This reflected a broader decline in respect for traditional social boundaries

Areas where change was limited

• Liberalisation remained uneven

  • Conservative measures such as Section 28 and Back to Basics showed that traditional moral attitudes still had political support

• Greater opportunity did not mean full equality

  • Women still faced pay gaps and limited access to senior positions

  • Racism and tensions with the police remained serious

• Government often responded to social change with restriction as well as acceptance

  • This was especially clear in responses to rave culture and direct action protest

• Traditional elites and class divisions survived

• Major's "classless society" remained an aim rather than a reality, and the monarchy kept majority public support despite growing criticism

• Some changes associated with the 1990s had begun much earlier

  • The decade may therefore be better seen as the continuation of longer-term trends than a complete social break