General Social Survey (GSS): The Next Decade and Beyond. National Science Foundation Workshop on Planning for the Future of the GSS

摘要

The National Science Foundation (NSF) began supporting the General Social Survey in the early 1970s and has continued to do so with a grant to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in 2005 to complete the 2006 and 2008 surveys. The GSS, along with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the American National Election Studies, is one of the three major infrastructure projects supported by the Division of Social and Economic Sciences. The GSS is an important survey data resource used by sociologists and other social scientists for research and teaching. On May 2-3, 2007, the Division of Social and Economic Sciences convened a workshop on The General Social Survey (GSS): The Next Decade and Beyond at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Virginia. The Sociology Program funded and organized the workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to hold a conversation with the social science community about how best to maintain and enhance the GSS as NSF moves forward with plans for a recompetition for the conduct of the 2010 survey and beyond. Workshop participants were asked to assist the NSF in completing an assessment of the GSS as a major NSF infrastructure investment and to assure the best use of NSF funds for supporting research and education. The workshop brought together twenty-one experts in survey research methodology and scholars with intimate knowledge of the GSS.