European Social Survey

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The European Social Survey (ESS) is a social science study that has been collecting opinions on social and political issues from over 30 European countries since 2002. With the participation of the German study, the ESS has established itself as one of the most internationally renowned comparative studies.

Due to its high methodological standards, the ESS is the most widely used study for comparative analyzes in Europe in research and teaching. In addition to the Eurobarometer of the European Commission and the European Values ​​Study , this is the largest European social science survey project to date.

Goal setting

The aim of the European Social Survey is to make social science data available to all interested users in a transparent, high-quality and free manner so that students or scientists do not have to use their own financial resources. The aim is to improve the visibility and access to scientific data on social change for politics, science and the public.

While the methodology is based on the highest scientific standards, the pan-European, social-science infrastructure project aims to document the stability and change in the social structure as well as the living conditions and attitudes of people in Europe by means of a long-term observation of the whole of society.

organization

The ESS is steered across Europe by an international coordination group, which has been led by Rory Fitzgerald from the Center for Comparative Social Surveys at City University London since 2011 . Six additional members are provided by partner institutions from various European countries. The international coordination team is supplemented by the teams in the individual countries participating in the study who implement the ESS in their own country.

In November 2013, the European Research Infrastructure Consortium ( ERIC ) was founded against the background of the special importance and quality of the study by EU member states , through which member states legally bound to finance two further waves of the survey. This measure was intended to improve the long-term prospects for scientific cooperation in the study and to secure the financing of the project by assuming the central coordination costs through contributions from the member states. Before the ESS ERIC was institutionalized, these costs were covered on a turn-based basis by the framework funding programs of the European Union or the European Science Foundation. National coordination and field work costs are borne by the participating countries themselves. In Germany, the first seven waves of the survey were carried out as part of DFG long-term funding. Funding for the eighth wave of the ESS is provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) .

The German sub-project called "Germany in Europe" was coordinated by the Mannheim political scientist Jan van Deth until the end of 2012 . Sociologist Stefan Liebig from Bielefeld University has been coordinator of the German part of the project since 2013 .

execution

Research design

In Germany, the survey is carried out every two years in the form of computer-aided, personal face-to-face interviews (CAPI). For this purpose, the English source questionnaire will be translated into German and, in some areas, adapted to the specific country.

The sample of the German partial study of the ESS is representative for persons older than 15 years and living in a private household within Germany. It is irrelevant what nationality and citizenship you have or what language (s) you speak. After deducting design effects, the random sample selected by strictly random procedures contains at least 1500 interviews. Due to the international nature of the study, the comparability of the data from the more than twenty participating countries is particularly important. For this reason, the ESS places high and strict methodological requirements on data collection. In addition, all participating countries are bound to adhere to the standards in other areas, such as sample design, questionnaire translation, the collection of socio-demographic characteristics or interviewing. In order to guarantee the transparency that the ESS promises, all steps of the survey are documented centrally and made freely available.

The surveys for the German sub-project of the ESS in waves one to four were carried out by the Institute for Applied Social Science (infas) in Bonn. The fifth wave was carried out by TNS Infratest Sozialforschung from Munich. Since the sixth wave, however, the ESS has been collected again by infas.

participating countries

A total of 36 countries participated in the ESS over the first seven waves (2002–2014), even if the composition of the countries did not remain constant over the individual ESS waves. Nevertheless, 16 of the 36 countries participated in all ESS waves and 27 of the 36 countries in at least four ESS waves. Even if the study clearly focuses on Europe, countries such as Israel, the Russian Federation or Turkey are also included. The following table lists the participating countries with the frequency of their participation.

Wave 1

2002

Wave 2

2004

Wave 3

2006

Wave 4

2008

Wave 5

2010

Wave 6

2012

Wave 7

2014

Wave 8

2016

Albania x
Austria x x x x x x x
Belgium x x x x x x x x
Bulgaria x x x x
Croatia x x
Cyprus x x x x
Czech Republic x x x x x x x
Denmark x x x x x x x
Estonia x x x x x x x
Finland x x x x x x x x
France x x x x x x x x
Germany x x x x x x x x
Greece x x x x
Hungary x x x x x x x x
Iceland x x x
Ireland x x x x x x x x
Israel x x x x x x
Italy x x x
Kosovo x
Latvia x x x
Lithuania x x x x x
Luxembourg x x
Netherlands x x x x x x x x
Norway x x x x x x x x
Poland x x x x x x x x
Portugal x x x x x x x x
Romania x x
Russian Federation x x x x
Slovakia x x x x x
Slovenia x x x x x x x x
Spain x x x x x x x
Sweden x x x x x x x x
Switzerland x x x x x x x x
Turkey x x
Ukraine x x x x x
United Kingdom x x x x x x x x

subjects

The ESS main questionnaire consists of the core modules, which are queried almost unchanged in every wave, and the interchangeable modules, which cover more specific topics, are reassigned on a wave-specific basis.

ESS core modules

politics
immigration
religion
Media usage
Trust in institutions
health
Personal and social wellbeing
Fear of crime
Individual value orientations
Demographics

ESS exchangeable modules

module wave
Immigration, Citizenship and Democracy ESS 1 (2002)
Economic Morale, Work, Family and Wellbeing, Health and Care ESS 2 (2004)
Life planning, personal and social wellbeing ESS 3 (2006)
Age discrimination and attitudes to the welfare state ESS 4 (2008)
Trust in criminal justice and police, work and family ESS 5 (2010)
Understanding and evaluating democracy, personal and social wellbeing ESS 6 (2012)
Attitudes to immigration, health inequalities ESS 7 (2014)
Attitudes to the welfare state, climate change and energy security ESS 8 (2016)

Awards

The project received the Descartes Prize in 2005 because the strict selection of respondents and the frequent quality controls with the long-term study set new standards for intercultural comparative studies.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ European Social Survey: Data and Documentation. Retrieved September 23, 2016 .
  2. ^ European Social Survey: Countries by Round (year). Retrieved September 23, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Data and Documentation by Theme | European Social Survey (ESS). Retrieved September 5, 2017 (Norwegian).

Web links