Resources for International Comparative Analysis: The European Social Survey ESRC Research Methods Festival, St Catherine's College, Oxford, 02 July 2008 Caroline Roberts*, Gillian Eva*, Atle Jåstad ~ *Centre for Comparative Social Surveys City University, London ~ NSD, Norway

About the ESS  Cross-national biennial time-series  Academically-driven  Multiple funding sources  18,300 registered data users RoundFieldwork year No. of countries (so far)

Three main aims: 1.To produce rigorous trend data about changing social values across Europe 2.To improve the reliability of quantitative cross-national measurement in Europe 3.To advance the cause of social indicators and attitudinal measures

Participating countries AustriaFranceLithuaniaSlovenia BelgiumGermanyLuxembourgSpain BulgariaGreeceNetherlandsSweden CyprusHungaryNorwaySwitzerland CroatiaIcelandPolandTurkey Czech Republic IrelandPortugalUK DenmarkIsraelRomaniaUkraine EstoniaItalyRussia FinlandLatviaSlovakia

The Questionnaire Core question topics: Trust in institutions Political engagement Socio-political values Multi-level governance Moral & social values Social exclusion National, ethnic, religious identity Well-being, health, security

Rotating Modules  Round 1 Immigration Citizenship, engagement and democracy  Round 2 Family, work and well-being Economic morality Health and care-seeking  Round 3 Timing of the life course Subjective well-being  Round 4 Experiences and expressions of ageism Welfare attitudes in Europe

Methodological Advances  Organisational structure  Translation  Sampling  Fieldwork procedures and timing  Response targets and enhancements  Progress monitoring  Contextual and event data  Methodological research  Transparency  Access for all

ESS Resources For background information & documentation:  ESS home website: For ESS data:  ESS Data Archive website: For training in data analysis:  ESS EduNet

ESS Data Archive  Free & immediate access; quick registration  Data & documentation organised by round  Survey documentation: including information about sampling, weighting and population statistics Survey documentation  Fieldwork documents: questionnaires; showcards, etc. Fieldwork documents  Fieldwork summary: response rates, fieldwork dates, sample size, and national deviations Fieldwork summary  Data download: integrated & country files Data download  Contextual data & indices: including macro & event data Contextual data & indices: event  Cumulative data file now available for rounds 1-3  Online-browsing & analysis using ‘Nesstar Webview’  ESS Bibliography  ESS ‘EduNet’

Other resources: NESSTAR NESSTAR  Online browsing and analysis  For use with the full ESS datasets or the specially prepared ESS EduNet data  Options: 1. Description: of study, datafile, variables, etc. 2. Table: create frequency tables and crosstabs 3. Analysis: perform regression analysis  

NESSTAR: example table

Other resources: ESS Bibliography ESS Bibliography  Provides information about publications based on the European Social Survey  Can search by author, keyword, year, country, publication type…  Authors submit information about their own publication

ESS Bibliography: search page

Other resources: ESS EduNet  Internet-based analysis training programme aimed at facilitating and enriching access to empirical data in the social sciences  The resource is developed for use in higher education  A hands on introduction to social science data analysis  Combining theory, data and methodology  Connect text (written by distinguished researchers) with data (high quality ESS data)

Social and Political Trust (using ESS round 1 data): Ken Newton 2 theories of the origin of social trust, outlines the relationship between political and social trust Human Values (using ESS round 1 data): Shalom Schwartz Schwartz’s theory on human values, shows how values can be used as both dependent and independent variables Regression (using ESS round 2 data): Odd Gåsdal ‘Hands on’ introduction to analysing cross-sectional survey data using linear regression methods Family, Gender and Work (using ESS round 2 data): Noah Lewin- Epstein and Haya Stier Different ways in which survey data are used in comparative research, uses these to examine the family-work connection Topics

Topics: chapter navigation  Each topic is divided into several chapters  Each chapter is again divided into several short pages  Each chapter contains exercises of varying degrees of difficulty  Chapters take around 1 hour to complete

Statistical Data  Extracts from the ESS rounds 1 and 2 and a data set with country level information  Available for online analysis in Nesstar WebView (with correlation)  Or to download in different formats Methodological glossary  Short description of some key concepts. Each concept is followed by a link to Wikipedia and an online statistical textbook Data

Other resources About Short description of the ESS project and ESS EduNet User guide Help pages on technical requirements, NSDstat, weighting, etc. An introduction on how to analyse data online - a useful starting point for those with no experience in statistical analysis

Advantages of ESS EduNet Closeness to data Research practice Easy to use

Any Questions? Thank you!