Swedish values in a comparative perspective: The International Social Survey Program
The International Social Survey Program (ISSP) is a project involved in the construction of internationally comparable attitude surveys. The database is unique in many ways: (a) surveys covering different attitude topics have been fielded annually since 1985; (b) more than forty countries are members of the ISSP; (c) data is freely available to the research community. Two decades ago, the lack of good comparable attitude data was evident. Therefore, a joint project between four countries took form in the early eighties. At present, the ISSP involves more than forty countries on six continents. All major Western countries are represented. Some countries from Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America are also members. The width of countries participating in the ISSP facilitates comparisons along several different dimensions: between Sweden and other EU-countries, between Western Europe and the 'New World': USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, between West and East Europe, or between industrialized and developing countries. It is thus possible to compare countries that have similar societal structures and history, and countries that are significantly different from each other. Since 1985, the ISSP has covered the following topics: the role of government, social inequality, work, family and gender, religion, environment, and national identity.
Jonas Edlund, Umeå University
ISSP is primarily a data collection project designed to strengthen the survey-based research infrastructure. In summary, the project has so far proved particularly successful. First, data collection for up to 2010 has already been deposited at the German ISSP archive in Cologne and at the Swedish data archive SND. Data for 2011 will be delivered to the data archives in February this year.
Work on the 2012 survey follows on schedule and will go into fieldwork during February. Second, the Swedish role in the development and management of ISSP has progressed further. During the Annual Meeting 2009 in Vienna, Austria, Sweden was elected in as representative of the "Standing Committee", which is ISSPs highest governing body. Furthermore, Sweden has supervised the work on the 2006 and 2012 surveys ("Role of Government IV" and "Family and Changing Gender Roles IV"). Third, Sweden has played a key role in a comprehensive evaluation of the demographic variables collected in over forty countries (for example: occupation, education, income, family status, religion). This work was carried out within the ISSP DMG (Demographic Methods Group) in which Sweden is a member, and has resulted in detailed policy documents relating to further improvement of the comparability between countries. This work has been, and still is, fairly extensive as well as time consuming for Sweden, since I was in charge of all the variables relating to occupation and work. However, all this is progressing according to plan and a substantial alteration of documentation and policy documents was implemented as of the 2010 survey, reported in: (a) ISSP Background Variables Guidelines, and (b) ISSP Background Variables Questionnaire. The work that now lies within the DMG is a follow up and quality control of how this process has been implemented among the member countries, as well as an investigation on how to construct valid indicators of ethnicity that works in all countries.
The project has proceeded according to the project plan in all respects. Sweden has participated in all of ISSP's annual meetings and other meetings where Swedish participation were relevant. The differences that occurred have only to do with the growing commitments of Sweden acquired in the ISSP (see above). The main results generated by the project: (1) Swedish data collections of high quality have been deposited to the data archives, (2) the Swedish commitment to ISSP has grown significantly and consequently the Swedish influence over ISSP's further development has increased (3) the amount of publications using ISSP data shows an almost exponential growth. Over the past five years, the bibliography has increased by about 2000 publications and contains at present more than 4300 entries. Generating new research questions are not the primary aim of the project, but it is reasonable to assume that the empirical analyzes that researchers perform will lead to new research questions. In addition, each study includes research questions related to the current ongoing research in the area.
The project has produced the following spin-off effects: (a) research collaboration with Insa Bechert, GESIS, Cologne, relating to how survey instruments are adapted in different countries, (b) the possibility of cooperation with other international survey organizations in which the collection and coding of demographic variables is the focus, and (c) that I have been invited to conferences and workshops where survey-based research have been at the center, most recently at the European Survey Research Association, Lausanne, in the summer of 2011, where I presented the work process and quality assurance with regard to the collection of data relating to working life in an international perspective.
The information for this financial report has been given to me by Financial Secretary Helen Risberg at the Department of Sociology, Umeå University. The majority of funds were used for data collection. I want to clarify that the balance currently (Feb 2012) showing a remaining 489k SEK is due to the fact that costs of data collection and travel for 2012 have not yet been charged to the account. SIFO will get paid after the data have been delivered to us in June 2012. At year-end balance is estimated to be significantly closer to zero. All in all, it appears that the project's finances are in balance and we are ready to fulfill the commitments of Sweden within the ISSP until 2012-12-31.