Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.BackgroundThe British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey series began in 1983. The series is designed to produce annual measures of attitudinal movements to complement large-scale government surveys that deal largely with facts and behaviour patterns, and the data on party political attitudes produced by opinion polls. One of the BSA's main purposes is to allow the monitoring of patterns of continuity and change, and the examination of the relative rates at which attitudes, in respect of a range of social issues, change over time. Some questions are asked regularly, others less often. Funding for BSA comes from a number of sources (including government departments, the Economic and Social Research Council and other research foundations), but the final responsibility for the coverage and wording of the annual questionnaires rests with NatCen Social Research (formerly Social and Community Planning Research). The BSA has been conducted every year since 1983, except in 1988 and 1992 when core funding was devoted to the British Election Study (BES).Further information about the series and links to publications may be found on the NatCen Social Research British Social Attitudes webpage.

Main Topics:Each year, the BSA interview questionnaire contains a number of 'core' questions, which are repeated in most years. In addition, a wide range of background and classificatory questions is included. The remainder of the questionnaire is devoted to a series of questions (modules) on a range of social, economic, political and moral issues - some are asked regularly, others less often. Cross-indexes of those questions asked more than once appear in the reports.

In the 1983-1986 Panel Study the design of the panel and cross-section questionnaires was similar, but not identical, although where the same question was asked on both surveys, it was asked in an identical form. In 1983-1984 and 1985 a self-completion questionnaire was also asked. In 1986 the panel questionnaire was considerably shortened and no self-completion element was included.

The panel was selected from the 1983 cross-sectional survey. At the end of the 1983 interview, respondents were questioned about their willingness to participate in a further interview. In 1984 a random half (57) of the polling districts were chosen. As numbers were too high, a further 10% of individuals were later discarded at random.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

See documentation for each BSA year for full details.