Data File SCOATT.DAT


     The data come from British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey started 
     in 1983. The eligible persons were all adults aged 18 or over living 
     in private households in Britain. The sampling was multi-stage. At 
     the first stage, parliamentary constituencies were sampled with 
     probability proportionate to electorate size (PPES). At the second 
     stage, districts were sampled out of the selected constituencies 
     with PPES again. Thirdly, addresses from each of the selected 
     districts were sampled. At the fourth stage an individual was randomly
     selected at each address. The data refer to surveys carried out in 
     1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. There  were  seven 
     dichotomous items asking  whether the respondent supported or opposed 
     a woman's right to have an  abortion under different circumstances 
     each year. Finally there were 410 respondents who responded to all 
     four years' interviews. The data consist of completed results of 264 
     respondents out of 410 with 9 variables for each record. There are 
     1056 records from the joining of four years' data.  The format is 
     as follows:


     Column   Description              Coding

     1-2      Districts                codes 1-54

     4-7      Respondent code          39-3388

     9        Year                     1983=1; 1984=2; 1985=3; 1986=4

     11       Total answering codes    Yes for one item=1; Yes for two=2;
              for seven items          ......
                                       Yes for seven=7; No for seven=0
     
    13        Party chosen at any one
              ofthe stages             Conservative=1; Labour=2;
                                       Liberal/SDP/Alliance=3;
     				       other party=4; none=5
     
     15       Self assessed social     
              class                    middle=1; upper working=2;
                                       lower working=3

     17       Gender                   male=1; female=2

     19-20    Age                      In years from 18 to 80

     22       Religion                 Roman Catholic=1;
                                       Protestant/Church of England=2;
                                       other religion=3;
                                       no religion=4


                               Further References


   Ashworth,K & Wiggins,R (1991). A Multilevel Analysis of Social Attitude
   Data. In: Data Analysis with ML3. eds.  R.Prosser, J.Rasbash and
   H.Goldstein, Institute of education, London.

   Knott,M.,Albanese,M.T.and Galbraith,J.I.(1991). Scoring attitudes to
   abortion. The Statistician, 40, 217-224.

   McGrath,K. & Waterton,J.(1986). British Social Attitudes, 1983-1986 Panel
   Survey. Technical Report. London, Social and Community Planning Research.

   Wiggins,R.D.,Ashworth,K.,O'Muircheartaigh,C.A.and Galbraith,J.I. (1991).
   Multilevel analysis of attitudes to abortion. The Statistician, 40,
   225-234.

   Witherspoon,S.(1983).Brithsh Social Attitudes, Technical Report; London,
   Social and Community Planning Research.