International Usage of Social Survey Data

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Cross-national research has attracted a growing number of social scientists. The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in large scale cross-national surveys involving Japan. At the same time, cross-national comparative statistics have come to play an increasingly important role in influencing public opinion and policy decisions on various issues. In contrast to increasing attention drawn to survey statistics, very limited attention has been given to how those statistics were generated. Indeed, while the statistics are usually accepted just as they are reported, the grounds for their validity, reliability or authenticity are not as solid as generally assumed. We found the sampling methods employed in Japanese social surveys are generally robust, but response sets commonly observed among Japanese respondents and the cultural validity of 'standardized' measures which were developed and tested in the United States, present an enormous challenge.Designing a cross-national survey involves a complicated network of trade-offs which must be weighed during the strategy formulation stage. We strongly feel a need for a theoretical model and practical guidelines for cross-national surveys. It is imperative to take into account an interdependent set of decisions, the design of sample, the nonresponse issue, the organizational structure of the collecting system, measurement validity and comparability as well as survey costs. Such a model is needed to guide the design of a total survey system to substitute the present intuitive approach that results in suboptimization of crucial elements of cross-national surveys.