The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (111 page)

http://www-sidos.unine.ch/Commun/DE/toc00D.html

Taiwan

Office of Survey Research, Academia Sinica

The Office of Survey Research maintains the Survey Research Data Archive (SRDA) for the purpose of promoting and supporting Taiwanese research. The archive is for academic use only, and includes social, political, educational, and economic data. Major data sets include the Social Image Survey in Taiwan, the Taiwan Social Change Survey, the Public Opinion Polls, and the Influence of Air Pollution on the Health of Human Beings study. Data and documentation are available at the cost of US$1 per floppy disk, US$0.10 per page of documentation, plus shipping and handling. Data are available in raw, SAS, or SPSS format.

http://www.sinica.edu.tw/as/survey/index_e.html

Turkey

State Institute of Statistics (SIS)

The SIS provides access to data on Turkish economic and social indicators. The web site includes a financial statistics page, the 1997 Population Register results, and information on IMF economic and financial data for Turkey.

http://www.die.gov.tr/

United Kingdom

British General Household Study (GHS)

The General Household Survey is a national survey conducted quarterly by the Social Survey Division of the Office for National Statistics. Begun in 1971, the GHS provides information on housing, employment, education, health and social services, transport, population, and social security. The survey is based on a sample of approximately 9,000

households. SPSS files were created for all years from 1973 to 1982. Data for 1971 and 1972, however, are only available as ASCII files. Since 1983, the data have been supplied in SIR format and can be distributed to researchers in a variety of formats. There was no data collection for 1997±8. Data are currently available through the Data Archive at Essex.

http://biron.essex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/biron/

The British Household Panel Study

The BHPS is a household-based multipurpose panel study of adults. The survey includes large numbers of elderly individuals and single parents, and can be linked with data from other surveys. The first wave included 5,500 households and 10,300 individuals from 482

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250 areas of Great Britain. Waves 1 through 6 are currently available through the Data Archive at Essex and are disseminated in SPSS, SAS, STATA, and SIR formats.

http://www.irc.essex.ac.uk/bhps/

Centre for Applied Social Surveys (CASS) Question Bank

The CASS Question Bank was established to help researchers to devise their own survey questionnaires by providing examples of how other surveys have operationalized and measured specific concepts. The questionnaires of many of the major British surveys are stored in the Question Bank, and can be searched by survey, year, topic area, and keywords. Questionnaire information is transferred through PDF and can be read

using Adobe Acrobat. CASS also provides aid to analysts trying to identify appropriate secondary data to use in their research.

http://www.scpr.ac.uk/cass

Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University of London

The Centre focuses upon the use of longitudinal methods to study the citizens of Britain.

Three major multidisciplinary longitudinal studies located here include: The 1970 British Cohort Study, a continuing study of all people born April 5±11, 1970; The National Child Development Study, a continuing study of all people born March 3±9, 1958; The National Survey of Health and Development, a continuing study of those born in March of 1946. Data for the cohort studies are available through the ESRC Data Archive.

http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Edinburgh Data and Information Access (EDINA)

EDINA provides free access to a national data library for students and researchers in the United Kingdom. EDINA houses agricultural, environmental and life science, art,

humanities, social science, census, geographic, and Scottish regional data. The data library (EUDL) heads several major projects, including: the British Survey of Fertilizer Practice, the Scottish Data Initiative, the Scottish Migration and Housing Choice Survey, and Digimap (digital map data via the web). Data can be converted to SPSS, SIR, Excel, Arc/Info, MapInfo, and ASCII formats.

http://edina.ed.ac.uk/

ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex

The ESRC Data Archive contains the largest collection of social science and humanities data in the United Kingdom. Initiated in 1967, it now contains 7,000 data sets, including cross-sectional academic, government, and commercial studies, as well as time series, longitudinal, panel, and cross-national studies. Areas studied include agriculture, crime, social and political attitudes, family expenditures, health, and the labor force. Data are available to domestic and foreign researchers.

http://dawww.essex.ac.uk

Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS)

MIMAS provides national research support services, free to researchers in the UK, at the University of Manchester. MIMAS allows easy access to a limited number of data sets.

These include census and census-related data sets, government and continuous studies, Data Resources on the World Wide Web

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macroeconomic time-series data sets, spatial data sets, and scientific data sets. Documentation is available in hardcopy.

http://mimas.ac.uk/

Qualitative Data Archival Resource Centre (Qualidata)

Qualidata was established in 1967 at the University of Essex in response to the lack of archived qualitative data. Qualidata salvaged past research and continued to locate, assess, and document current data, arranging for it to be deposited in public archives.

It maintains an information database about the extent and availability of qualitative research dating back to 1970. The Qualidata catalog (Qualicat) is available via the Internet. Some of the archives referenced by Qualidata are: the National Social Policy and Social Change Archive; the National Sound Archive, the British Library; the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge; Archives and Business Records Centre, University of Glasgow; and the

School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh.

http://www.essex.ac.uk/qualidata/current/backg.htm

Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)

SOSIG provides an excellent online catalogue of Internet resources. SOSIG screens sources for high quality standards and the ability to support serious educational and research aims. Researchers can search SOSIG by keyword, or can browse SOSIG's

``virtual shelves'' by subject area or geographical region.

http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/

United States of America

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), US Department of

Health and Human Services

The ACF homepage provides updates on recent research and political developments

relevant to ACF, a news archive, access to an HHS listserv, a variety of fact sheets, and fiscal and statistical information. The information provided deals with child care, child support, child welfare, Head Start programs, refugees, and welfare.

http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/

Aggression Research Program, University of Michigan

The Aggression Research Program studies the etiology and prevention of aggressive and anti-social behavior through laboratory experiments, longitudinal surveys, and clinical field trials. The Program also addresses issues such as peer relations, social judgment, and mass media. Links are provided to major studies, such as the Children's TV and Aggression Study, the Evaluating the Metropolitan Area Child Study, and the C-2 Believe Prevention Study.

http://www.isr.umich.edu/rcgd/aggr/index.html

American Religion Data Archive (ARDA)

Sponsored by the Lilly Endowment, the ARDA collects, preserves, and provides access to quantitative data sets for the study of American religion. Archived data include 484

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surveys of the general population, of selected religious groups, of religious professionals, and of religious aggregations. Documentation can be viewed and data downloaded from this web site. This site also has an excellent list of links to related web sites.

http://www.arda.tm

Americans Changing Lives

This study constitutes both the 1986 and 1989 waves of a national longitudinal panel survey covering a wide range of sociological, psychological, mental, and physical health items. It was designed to investigate the differences between black and white Americans in middle and late life. Among the topics covered are interpersonal relationships, satisfaction, social interactions and leisure activities, traumatic life events, retirement, health behaviors, and utilization of health care. Also included are measures of physical health, psychological well-being, and cognitive functioning. Data are available in SPSS and SAS

formats.

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cgi/ab.prl?file=6438

American Society of Criminology ± Divisions and Other Sources

This site provides information on the four divisions of the American Society of Criminology (Critical Criminology, International Criminology, People of Color and Crime, and Women and Crime) and a helpful list of links to other criminal justice sites. Included in this list are sites dealing with general criminal justice, international criminal justice, the courts, juvenile justice, corrections, police, white collar crime, drugs, government sites, criminal justice newsletters, and available listservs.

http://www.asc41.com/four.html

ASA Section on International Migration

The purpose of this ASA Section is to encourage and promote the development of theory and research in the field of international migration. This site provides links to the Section's newsletter, World on the Move, and includes updates on conferences, awards and calls for papers. It also has an excellent listing of links to web sites containing information and data dealing with immigration, race, and ethnicity.

http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~intermig/

Assessing the New Federalism

A multiyear project of the Urban Institute, ANF is designed to analyze changes in government funding of income support programs, social services, health programs, and programs aimed at children and families. This site offers access to 872 variables for all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. These data allow researchers to explore changes over time and conduct comparative analyses. Data can be viewed online or downloaded to a PC.

Look for a button on the Urban Institute's homepage that is labeled with the project name.

http://www.urban.org

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

The BRFSS, administered and supported by the Division of Adult and Community

Health at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Data Resources on the World Wide Web

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of the CDC, is an ongoing data collection program. Its main objective is to collect and analyze data regarding the state-level prevalence of the major behavioral risks among adults that are associated with premature morbidity and mortality. Since 1994, all states, the District of Columbia, and three territories were participating in the BRFSS. Prevalence data and questionnaires are available online.

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/brfss/

Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)

The BJS collects, analyzes, and distributes information on crime, criminal offenders, victims, and the justice system. This site provides access to key facts at a glance, publications, and press releases. It also provides links to other sites that provide criminological and justice data. Selected public-use data can also be downloaded here via the Internet.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

The BLS is the principal fact-finding agency for the federal government in the field of labor economics and statistics. It collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates data to the public, Congress, state and local governments, and labor organizations. The BLS data include time-series data, as well as surveys dealing with the labor force, unemployment, prices and living conditions, compensation and working conditions, and productivity and technology. The BLS also maintains the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) homepage. Data provided by the BLS are relevant to current issues and of high accuracy and statistical quality.

http://www.bls.gov/

Center for Disease Control (CDC) Web Search

The CDC Web Search web page allows researchers to directly search the CDC database for health-related statistics and studies using keywords or phrases.

http://www.cdc.gov/search.htm

Country Studies, Library of Congress

A continuing series of books is prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to provide detailed information on foreign countries. These books, compiled by interdisciplinary authors, describe and analyze the politics, economy, social system, and national security systems of 85 countries. They also provide photos, tables, maps, glossaries, and bibliographies. Maps and charts are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or higher.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html

County and City Data Books

This web site allows access to electronic version of the 1988 and 1994 County and City Data Books. These data books provide information regarding such areas as population, race, households, health, crime, education, and income for both the state/county and city levels. Researchers are able to obtain information on CD-ROM, or can receive customized printouts or data subsets. Data can be converted into SPSS files.

http://fisher.lib.Virginia.EDU/ccdb/

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Current Population Surveys (CPS)

Conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics for over 50 years, the CPS is a monthly survey of approximately 50,000 households. The primary purpose of the CPS is to provide nationally representative information on the labor force characteristics of the US population. To access data, researchers must register at this web site.