A tool for social analysis

A Close Look at Europeans

The European Social Survey is the first network of comparative social analysis in Europe. This very sophisticated tool, awarded the Descartes Prize in 2005, is designed to investigate and compare the attitudes, beliefs, and behavior patterns of Europeans.

A comparative survey conducted at the European level?

It's a dream come true for social science researchers, thanks to the European Social Survey (ESS), a tool designed several years ago by researcher members of the European Science Foundation. The third series of surveys has just got under way. It proceeds from the first two campaigns, which were carried out successively in 2002-2003 and 2004-2005  in 23 European countries, comprising all the countries of the EU-15 plus four of the new Member States (Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, and Poland), as well as Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, and Israel. A total of over 40,000 people were interviewed for the survey.

This tool makes it possible to undertake an extremely detailed analysis of European sociopolitical reality and to track development of national profiles over time, with the aim of determining the characteristics of each country and underlining similarities and differences between countries, thus creating a network of analysis of social values in Europe. The rigor of the ESS was acknowledged in 2005 with the European Descartes Prize, a first for social sciences.

Although the project is jointly funded by the European Science Foundation and the European Commission, most of the fieldwork is funded by each participating country. “For a country such as France, each survey costs €300 000,” reveals Daniel Boy, a researcher at the Center for Political Research at Sciences-Po (Cevipof) who is one of the two national coordinators, together with Nicolas Sauger. Funding for the surveys was provided by the French Ministry of Research, via the Coordinating Committee for Social Science Data.¹

In practical terms, the surveys are carried out via face-to-face interviews after a representative sample has been selected through a strictly random method. The questionnaire undergoes a long validation process. Designed by the participating countries, it comprises a “core” module repeated every two years in order to measure development of values over time, as well as “rotating” modules specific to each series of surveys. The text of the questionnaire and the entire survey protocol are submitted to the Central Coordinating Committee of the ESS for validation. “The aim is to get as close as possible to the protocols used in other scientific disciplines. Researchers use the same tools under identical experimental conditions in order to check a given result,” Boy explains. Once the survey is completed, the data are centralized and checked for consistency. They are then made available as a comprehensive file on the ESS website,² particularly for use by politicians, researchers, and students.

As the third round of the ESS gets under way, French researchers are preparing a comparative analysis of the first results. A wide variety of subjects are covered, such as differences in values throughout Europe, trust placed in institutions, attitudes of Europeans towards the medical establishment, as well as notions of well-being and happiness specific to each country. Results should be published by the end of 2007.

Séverine Duparcq