The 8th European Sociological Association (ESA) Conference, Glasgow 3rd to 6th September 2007

The Research Network "RENCORE: Methods for Comparative Research on Europe" is planning four sessions and the biannual meeting for its members:

1st session: Standardizing Socio-Demographic Variables for Cross National Social Surveys 2nd session: Methods in European Survey Research 3rd session: Methodological Aspects in Comparative Survey Research 4th session: Comparative Analysis of European Data from Official Statistics

Call for papers

1st session: Standardizing Socio-Demographic Variables for Cross National Social Surveys organized by: Juergen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, GESIS-ZUMA, Mannheim/GER

For the measurement of socio-demographic variables, the knowledge of the various underlying concepts, the cultural and national structures of the variables and the usual national indicators are necessary. With this knowledge functional equivalence of socio-demographic variables can be reached by harmonizing the variables. The sessions have on the agenda the way from national concepts of variables to international comparable measurements and indicators, the progress in methods using comparative survey data and the methodological aspects of survey research analyzing cross national and cross cultural surveys.

2nd session: Methods in European Survey Research organized by: Uwe Warner, CEPS/INSTEAD, Differdange/LUX

European comparative survey researches hold all methodological problems which can be found also in national survey research. But in international survey research additional methodological problem appears based on different cultures. The second session has on the agenda methodological topics on European comparative survey research like national effects of sample designs, the scaling, the measurement of values, the translation and the functional equivalence, the data quality, etc. and the comparative exposure of these problems.

3rd session: Methodological Aspects in Comparative Survey Research organized by: Juergen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, GESIS-ZUMA, Mannheim/GER

Themes for the third session are: interview cultures and mode effects, particular target population groups (older workers, children, migrants, etc.); theme or objective oriented surveys (health, wealth, intergenerational relations, etc.), etc.

4th session: Comparative Analysis of European Data from Official Statistics organized by: Christof Wolf, GESIS-ZUMA, Mannheim/GER

This session focuses on data provided by either national statistical offices in Europe or Eurostat, e.g. national censuses, the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) or the European Study on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). These data sets offer several advantages for social-structural analysis: Sample sizes are usually very large making the identification of even small subgroups viable and non-response is usually very modest. Since more and more official data are directly or indirectly influenced by EU-regulations and more and more data of this kind is produced in several if not all countries of the EU researchers interested in analysing the social structure of their societies should pay more attention to this data source. Possible topics of presentations in this session include data availability, strategies for anonymising official micro data, strategies for harmonising these data over time or nation, meta data and documentation standards for these data.

Proposal for the RENCORE meeting at ESA conference should be submitted electronically by using the official conference web page: http://www.esa8thconference.com/abstractsubmission/submissionform.php

Please send also a copy to hoffmeyer-zlotnik@zuma-mannheim.de with: title, author's name, author's institution, e-mail-address, abstract and referring to the session number by deadline: February 15, 2007.