Ask: Research and Methods. Volume 19, Issue 1 (2010)
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Mobile Phone Surveys: Empirical Findings from a Research Project
Haeder, Sabine; Lehnhoff, Iris; Mardian, Elisabeth pp. 3-19
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How to Model Parental Education Effects on Men and Women’s Attainment? Cross-National Assessments of Different Approaches
Tomescu-Dubrow, Irina; Domanski, Henryk pp. 21-50
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Processing, Archiving and Dissemination of ESS Data: The Work of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services
Kolsrud, Kirstine; Orten, Hilde; Øvrebo, Ole-Petter; Skjåk, Knut Kalgraff; Midtsæter, Hege pp. 51-92
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Cross-National Measures of Political Inequality of Voice
Dubrow, Joshua Kjerulf pp. 93-110
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Poland’s Opinion and Market Research Industry
Mazurkiewicz, Lukasz pp. 111-117
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Item Poland’s Opinion and Market Research Industry(IFiS Publishers, 2010) Mazurkiewicz, ŁukaszThe market and opinion research industry in Poland emerged as a separate, organized area of business as a result of the radical economic and political transformations of 1989. During the socialist era, Poland had two survey centres (OBOP – Ośrodek Badania Opinii Publicznej, currently TNS OBOP, established in 1958, and CBOS – Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej operating since 1982) and social research was conducted by scientific institutions and academic centres. Under this system, there was no room for market research, notably consumer research in the contemporary meaning of the term. While historians of the industry provide examples of such studies conducted for state-owned industrial companies under communism, those efforts were small scale and of little impact on corporate decision-making. In a shortage economy with little emphasis on the production of consumer goods, there was little emphasis on consumer market research. The majority of active opinion and market research firms were established in the first years following 1989, a period that saw an unparalleled explosion of entrepreneurship (see Table 1). The vast majority of companies set up during that time were closely linked to academic social research as most owners and managers were either academics or young social sciences graduates. During this truly pioneering period of the research industry, companies whose main assets were knowledge and founders’ enthusiasm, set up their businesses in modest offices, without major investments or technical facilities. Owing much to the newfound hunger for market and opinion research in post-communist Poland, in a short while they solicited serious business from major clients.Item Cross-National Measures of Political Inequality of Voice(IFiS Publishers, 2010) Dubrow, Joshua KjerulfSocial scientists have long argued that political power is a key dimension of stratification, yet few empirically analyze political inequality or explicitly discuss the methodological implications of their measures of it. Political inequality is a distinct dimension of social stratification and a form of power inequality whose domain is all things related to political processes. It is a multidimensional concept–comprised of voice, response, and policy–that occurs in all types of governance structures. Conceptions of political inequality of voice reflect the well-established finding that position within the social and political structure impacts individual and group political influence. I argue that definitions and measures of political inequality of voice should focus on the extent of influence given its connection, but not reduction, to economic resources. This article proposes and evaluates cross-national structural measures of political inequality of voice based on the relationship between socioeconomic status and political participation. I explore the relationships between the measures and the rankings of European countries using data from the European Social Survey 2008 and the Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy 2008’s “political participation” category.Item Processing, Archiving and Dissemination of ESS Data: The Work of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services(IFiS Publishers, 2010) Kolsrud, Kirstine; Orten, Hilde; Øvrebo, Ole-Petter; Skjåk, Knut Kalgraff; Midtsæter, HegeEver since the advent of the social science data archive movement, the work to reduce financial, technical, legal and administrative barriers between users and data resources has been a recurring theme, indeed a driving force behind the development of many of these institutions. Deploying a data life cycle approach, this article is an attempt to illustrate how the endeavour to reduce these barriers is tackled in the context of the biannual European Social Survey (ESS). The authors argue that the ESS’ organisational structure, in which the Central Coordinating Team constitutes the backbone, is an important factor in overcoming barriers previously caused by lack of standardisation and harmonisation in cross-national surveys of this kind. Moreover, the introduction of cutting-edge data access arrangements, has lowered the legal and institutional barriers between ESS data producers and users substantially. This includes giving users without access to more sophisticated statistical packages the opportunity to browse and analyse data through the online data distribution tool Nesstar. However, the authors also suggest that the cumulative nature of surveys such as the ESS, poses a counterforce to the process of reducing barriers, challenging the data archives to seek new ways of improving the structure and design of their main dissemination channels. The authors are all involved in the ESS at the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD). NSD is one of the seven scientific partners in the project and has served as data archive for the ESS since its inception.Item How to Model Parental Education Effects on Men and Women’s Attainment? Cross-National Assessments of Different Approaches(IFiS Publishers, 2010) Tomescu-Dubrow, Irina; Domański, HenrykResearch in social stratification shares the assumption that social origin operates through assets embedded in the family structure, yet scholars’ opinions of how resources get transmitted intergenerationally vary significantly. The result of this variation in opinions is a range of measures for family background, and distinct empirical models. A simplified schema yields three main methodological approaches: (a) one parent’s characteristics models; (b) models using characteristics of both parents; and (c) models accounting for specific effects of social origin depending on gender. In this paper we analyze how models of each type perform when applied to cross-national data from the European Social Survey (Round 3). We focus on the impact of parental education on children’s success, while controlling for parents’ social class position. Individual success is conceptualized primarily in terms of educational attainment, but also of occupational standing. Although our analyses do not disclose consistent patterns across all studied countries--neither of the models performs uniformly better, or worse, in majority of countries–some regularities are noticeable. In particular, with respect to explaining educational attainment, we find that it is generally preferable to include measures for both parents’ education, rather than use one parent’s characteristics models. The best fitting model – in terms of explained variance – is that combining father’s and mother’s education by including an interaction term of these variables. In the case of occupational standing, we generally consider the model that accounts for father’s and for mother’s education as the preferred solution– at least when direct effects are statistically significant. In addition, the hypothesis that the intergenerational transmission of parental education affects men and women differently is, in light of these outcomes, supported only in some of the countries.Item Mobile Phone Surveys: Empirical Findings from a Research Project(IFiS Publishers, 2010) Haeder, Sabine; Lehnhoff, Iris; Mardian, ElisabethThe growing number of mobile-only households across Europe and in Northern America is at present one of the key challenges for survey research. So far, frames for telephone survey sampling include only landline phone numbers. But in future landline phone surveys and mobile phone surveys will have to be combined. However, at present there are a lot of practical questions unsolved. In this paper we want to present some findings of a recent research project where we recruited individuals for an experimental mobile phone panel. Our main objective was to study their response behavior. In the first chapter we explain the motivation for our research. Then we describe the fieldwork of our study in detail to show which efforts are necessary to conduct a mobile phone survey. In the third chapter we show some findings on the response behavior of the panelists. Finally, we give an outlook on future telephone surveys where the dual frame approach will become the usual method.