Rigour and accessibility in crossnational research

1
Rigour and accessibility in cross-national
research

• Roger Jowell
• Centre for Comparative Social Surveys
• City University London
• May 25 2005

2
The quest for rigour

• A longstanding problem, particularly for attitude
  surveys (Eurobarometers, EVS, ISSP)
• Involvement of the European Science Foundation in
  the mid-1990s
• A series of expert groups and committees
• Application to EC for part-funding - conditional
  agreement
• The start of the European Social Survey (ESS) in
  2001

3
Three main aims

• To measure and explain long-term value change
  within and between European nations
• To improve the rigour of cross-national survey
  methodology
• To develop social indicators for Europe
  (including attitudinal indicators)

4
Obstacles to attitude measurement in general

• Non-attitudes
• Social desirability bias
• Prevalence v salience
• The satisfaction conundrum
• Weather vs climate changes
• Impact of context
• In any case, attitudes are elusive, cheap,
  changeable and cant be validated

5
Added problems for cross-national surveys

• Language differences that defy translation
• Differences in methodological habits
• Existing formulations to adhere to
• Differences in national contexts

6
On the other hand, monitoring social attitudes

• helps us understand how we see our world and
  ourselves
• challenges myths and stereotypes
• exposes political, cultural and moral divisions
• enables national success to be judged against
  social, not just economic, criteria
• Comparative sociology is not a branch of
  sociology it is sociology itself (Durkheim)

7
25 participating countries
Denmark Greece Finland Italy Norway
Portugal Sweden Spain Iceland Austria
Belgium France Czech Rep
Germany Estonia Ireland Hungary
Luxembourg Poland Netherlands Slov
enia Switzerland Slovak Rep UK Ukraine

8
Main features

• Rigid specifications of
• Sampling method and size
• Fieldwork procedures and timing
• Response targets
• Event monitoring
• Translation protocols
• Progress and compliance monitoring
• Transparent documentation, easy access
• Top-down and bottom-up questionnaire design

9
Core question topics

• Trust in institutions
• Political engagement
• Socio-political values
• Multi-level governance
• Moral social values
• Social exclusion

• National, ethnic, religious id
• Well-being, health, security
• Demographic composition
• Education and occupation
• Financial circumstances
• Household circumstances

10
Rotating modules

• Round 1
• Immigration
• Citizen engagement and democracy
• Round 2
• Family, work and well-being
• Economic morality
• Health and care-seeking
• Round 3
• Indicators of quality of life
• Perceptions of the life course

11
Access and dissemination

• Archive NSD Norway - part and parcel of Central
  Co-ordinating Team
• Data available on-line and for download
• No privileged access
• 5000 users to date www.europeansocialsurvey.org
• US clone now funded
• 7 books, many articles, more dissertations
• On-line bibliography and training

12
Conclusion

• Herding cats can be fun
• (Jowell, 2005)