Name: The School Study (Skolundersökningen) Period(s): 1966 (SMS) Code book: I

Information by Carl-Gunnar Janson (1980) The School Study. A code book. Project Metropolitan. Research Report No 3. Stockholm.

"The School Study" is part of Project Metropolitan (for summary description of the project, see research reports No. l and 2). In May, 1966, questionnaires were filled in at group interviews in the schools of Stockholm Metropolitan Area by pupils in sixth grade and by other pupils born in 1953 but not in sixth grade.

Two different questionnaires were used, and each participant filled in both of them. The first one was constructed by Professor Kjell Härnquist, Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, for his "Individual Statistics Project". There, the questionnaire was given to a national 10 per cent sample of pupi1s born in 1953. In the Stockholm area we extended the sample to 100 per cent and delivered the data required on Härnquist's sample to him.

The questionnaire contained a mental test, consisting of three sub-tests (verbal, spatial, and numerical), five orientations of interests, three attitudes towards school, and questions on leisure, educational plans etc. A second questionnaire was constructed within Project Metropolitan. Three pre-tests were used to reach the final version, which held three sociometric questions, questions on school, leisure, and plans for the future. Also, the respondents we re asked about their opinions on 56 occupations.

The group interviews were administered by the teachers in co-operation with specially trained interviewers from the National Central Bureau of Statistics. The teachers of all sixth grade classes were given written instructions. Also, they told their pupils they were going to be interviewed in a few days. In the morning of the day of interviewing in their school, the teachers met with an interviewer who was sent out to the school for further oral instructions and to bring the questionnaires.

Then, in his/her class, each teacher led the group tests and supervised the filling in of questionnaires, the first of which required a double lesson, whereas the second one took a separate lesson. The teacher also provided a list of pupils who were absent. Pupils not in sixth 5 grade but born in 1953 were interviewed in one group for each school of the interviewer. For them the sociometric questions were left out.

All schools in the area were visited during May 1966, except two schools with non-Swedish speaking pupils and a boarding school. In the latter, the group interviews were carried out during the fall semester, 1966. A few classes with retarded children were excepted, since these pupils could not read well enough to fill in the questionnaires. It was understood that participation was voluntary. Only very few among those present on the day of interviewing refused to take part or had notes from home that they must not be interviewed. The number of absent pupils was judged to be normal. In some cases a whole class was missing because it was scheduled for some activity outside the school or the teacher in charge had not been reached in time. In these cases and in schools which were large enough to have, for other reasons, a large total number of absent pupils during the day of the interviewing, a second visit was made during the fall or, exceptionally, next spring.

The total cohort, as defined in 1963, consists of 7,398 girls and 7,719 boys. Of them 137 girls and 151 boys had left the population by May, 1966. Five had died and the others had moved out of the Metropolitan area. Of the remaining population members, 613 girls and 740 boys, i.e. 8.4 and 9.7 per cent, respectively, did not participate in the study. In all, data are available on 6,648 girls and 6,828 boys. In addition to the external non-response just described there was an internal non-response which varied between questions.