British Social Attitudes Survey Series

collection: series

Investigator(s): Social and Community Planning Research, Sharon Witherspoon, C.R. Airey, and R. Jowell

Studies

19

Variables

0

Publications

54

About this Collection

The British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey series began in 1983, and has been conducted every year since, except in 1988 and 1992. Core funding for BSA is currently provided by Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts and is supplemented by financial support from a number of sources (including government departments, the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC], and other research foundations). Final responsibility for the coverage and wording of the annual questionnaires rests with the National Centre for Social Research (prior to 1999 called Social and Community Planning Research). The series, designed to produce annual measures of attitudinal shifts, complements large-scale British government surveys such as the General Household Survey and the Labour Force Survey, which deal largely with facts and behavior patterns, as well as the data on party political attitudes produced by the polls. One of the main purposes of the BSA survey is to allow the monitoring of patterns of continuity and change, and the examination of the relative rates at which attitudes, with respect to a range of social issues, change over time. Many questions from this series were also included in the Northern Ireland Social Attitudes Survey, thus allowing direct comparison of the attitudes, values, and beliefs held by citizens of the United Kingdom on both sides of the Irish Sea.

For more information, visit the British Social Attitudes Information System Web site.

Studies

19 results

British Social Attitudes Survey, 1983-1991: [Cumulative File]

This survey is part of a continuing series designed to monitor trends in a wide range of social attitudes in Great Britain. The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) is similar to the General Social Survey carried out by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in the United States. The BSA questionnaire has two parts, one administered by an interviewer and the other completed by the respondent. In the cumulative file, BSA data for the years 1983-1991, covering a range of social, economic, political, and moral issues, were merged. Demographic data included gender, age, education, occupation, income, marital status, and religious and political affiliations.

British Social Attitudes Survey Panel Study, 1983-1986

This survey is part of a continuing series designed to monitor trends in a wide range of social attitudes in Great Britain. The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) is similar to the General Social Survey carried out by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in the United States. The BSA questionnaire has two parts, one administered by an interviewer and the other completed by the respondent. This panel study is very closely linked, both in terms of design and content, to the British Social Attitudes cross-sectional series. Given that a key aim of the series was to look at trends and changes in attitudes over time, there were strong arguments for using a longitudinal (rather than a repeated cross-sectional) design since this would allow analysis of change to be linked to individual characteristics. The panel study was a unique opportunity to explore the methodological and analytical considerations of a longitudinal approach. The panel study compromises four interviews with individual respondents carried out on an annual basis. The field work for the cross-sectional and panel surveys took place at approximately the same time each year during the years 1983-1986. The topics covered in the questionnaires (by section) were as follows: (1) politics/defense, (2) economic expectations, evaluations, labor market participation, (3) social expenditures, welfare state, housing, education, the National Health Service, (4) crime/police, social class, religion, divorce, racial prejudices, household division of labor, public and personal morality, sexual morals, and (6) change of attitude (perceived). Additional demographic data gathered included age, gender, education, occupation, household income, marital status, social class, and religious and political affiliations.

British Social Attitudes Survey, 1995

This survey is part of a continuing series designed to monitor trends in a wide range of social attitudes in Great Britain. The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) is similar to the General Social Survey carried out by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in the United States. The BSA questionnaire has two parts, one administered by an interviewer and the other completed by the respondent. As in the past, the 1995 interview questionnaire contained a number of "core" questions covering the major topic areas of defense, the economy, labor market participation, and the welfare state. The 1995 self-enumerated questionnaire was devoted to a series of questions on a range of social, economic, political, and moral issues. Topics covered (by section) are: (1) newspaper readership and identification, (2) public spending, welfare benefits, and health care, (3) economic activity, labor market, training, and disabled people, (4) fear of crime, (5) constitutional issues, (6) education, (7) drugs, (8) Northern Ireland, (9) housing, (10) religion and ethnic origin, (11) classification, (12) countryside, the environment, and transportation, (13) taste and decency, (14) economic prospects, (15) taxation and public spending, (16) charitable giving, (17) welfare/Social Security, (18) euthanasia, and (19) pensions. An international initiative funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), also contributes a module to the BSA. The topic of the ISSP module in this collection was national identity. Additional demographic data included age, education, income, marital status, and religious and political affiliations.

Variables

0 results

Variable-level metadata is not available for this collection.