Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
This study investigated public attitudes towards science, risk and forms of governance. The centrepiece was a major quantitative survey conducted with ESRC support, and linked to the Programme on Understanding Risk, a major research programme (2001-2005) supported by the Leverhulme Trust. The quantitative survey covered five core issues selected by the programme for detailed investigation, namely: climate change; radiation from mobile phones; radioactive waste; genetically modified food; and genetic testing. These cases were chosen, as all are prominent within UK society, and have complementary as well as contrasting facets. Each issue contains, among others, the following elements: they all relate to scientific knowledge, public trust in science and scientific procedures, interrelationships with business, civil society and government, and matters of democratic choice, freewill and tolerance of collective decisions; they all test governmental competence as well as scientific authority, especially when scientific interpretations clash with wider values such as free choice, democratic accountability and the role of business and civil society in changing patterns of governance; they are all themes that are covered by various surveys of public opinion, but where a richer set of contextually referenced and comparative data is lacking. The study is designed to provide theoretical progress and integration in the field of risk perception and representation, facilitating advances in our theoretical understanding of public framings and attitudes towards science and risk issues. It is also intended to provide scientists and policy makers with an understanding of how the public views and characterises science and scientific procedures in settings where risk and policy interact. A later survey by the same research team, the 'UEA-MORI Genetically-modified (GM) Food Survey, 2003' uses questions on GM foods from this study, and is held at the UK Data Archive under SN:5027.
Main Topics:
The quantitative survey was administered in Great Britain with a national quota sample of 1547 people aged 15 years and older interviewed face-to-face in their own homes. The interviews took on average about thirty minutes to complete. The total sample comprised five separate quota samples of about 300 respondents, each of which was given a different version of the questionnaire covering one of the five risk cases. A maximum of one interview per address was conducted. The questionnaire was subdivided into three main sections. The first general section was about general issues, and was common to all respondents. This section consisted of questions on cultural values, worldview, science in society, and on the importance of various personal and social issues. The second risk specific section presented the respondents with a set of standardised questions on only one of the five risk issues listed above. Each of the five separate quota samples was given one of the five risk versions. Questions in this section were aimed at, among others, measuring perceived risk characteristics, attitudes to risk regulation, social influence, trust, concern and acceptability of the five risk cases. The questionnaire was concluded with a section in which respondents were asked to provide background information, and was again common to all respondents. This final section not only had the usual socio-demographics such as gender, age, income and level of education, but also a range of questions on social and political exclusion. Standard Measures The revised New Environmental Paradigm was used (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig and Jones, 2000).
Quota sample
Enumeration Districts were used as sampling points.
Face-to-face interview
