The ISSP and its Approach to Background Variables

Abstract

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a cooperation between national general social surveys of different countries which every year jointly prepare a questionnaire for one substantive topic and conduct their surveys in a similar manner (Braun 1994; Davis and Jowell 1989). General social surveys are research projects designed to collect and distribute social science data for academic research and teaching. Since 1972 the American General Social Survey (GSS) and since 1980 the German ALLBUS have been conducted annually or every second year. The British Social Attitudes Survey began in 1983. Most of the general social surveys have 3 primary goals: (1) to study social change, (2) to provide key data for researchers and students who have no direct access to national samples and (3) to provide data for continuous social reporting. The national research teams realised that the provision of internationally comparable data would greatly enlarge the scope of analyses possible (Kuchler 1987).