Through the library’s membership in the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) data are now available to researchers at Vanderbilt. The GSS is a personal interview survey of U.S. households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The 2006 study contains cumulative data from 1972 to 2006, with over 4,500 respondents interviewed in 2006. For the first time, the GSS contains data collected from interviews conducted in Spanish.
In addition to the standard questions, the 2006 survey covers the following special topics: quality of working life, attitudes towards firearms, shared capitalism, level of disability, use of foreign languages, mental health attitudes and experiences, participation in congregations, knowledge about and attitudes towards science, religious trends, and sexual behavior.
The 2006 International Social Survey Program data focus on the role of government and work orientation, with special emphasis on social-welfare and economic regulation, civil liberties, spending priorities, and political efficacy.
General Social Surveys, 1972-2006: [Cumulative File] (ICPSR 4697) is available in the following formats: ASCII data with SAS, SPSS, and Stata setup files, SAS transport (XPORT) file, SPSS portable file, and Stata system file.
Access to the data is available through the Data Archives link under Get Help With Research on the library’s website:http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/data.shtml. Click on the link to ICPSR, then “ICPSR Services at Vanderbilt.If you have questions about locating or accessing data for research, please contact Sue Erickson, Data Services Librarian.