ISSP is a continuous programme of cross-national collaboration on social science surveys. It is based on annual, internationally integrated surveys carried out in all participating countries. A self-financed consortium of various research institutions is in charge of the programme. The ISSP data collection started in 1985, and in Finland in 2000, along with the national membership.
The GESIS in Germany is responsible for archiving the ISSP data. Country-specific codebooks and questionnaires can be found on the GESIS ISSP web pages. ZACAT, the data portal of the GESIS, offers information on ISSP surveys, with online retrieval, analysis and download. Their Data Catalogue DBK allows retrieval and download of data and questionnaires. Both services are free of charge but downloading requires registration. The ZACAT registration is valid for DBK and vice versa.
In Finland, ISSP surveys are carried out in collaboration by three institutions: Finnish Social Science Data Archive, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tampere, and the Interview and Survey Services of Statistics Finland.
The data consist of the Finnish contribution to the international ISSP survey in 2000. The survey studies Finnish environmental attitudes and views on various environmental issues. There are also a few questions that were asked only in Finland and are not included in the international comparison material (questions 5, 6, 29, 38 and 52).
The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with a number of statements about environmental protection, economic growth, laboratory tests on animals, sanctity of nature, our present way of life, the greenhouse effect, medicine, the current state of the world and distribution of income. In addition, the respondents were asked to estimate how willing they themselves would be to make sacrifices for the sake of the environment, and how dangerous they regarded pollution of air caused by industry, toxic substances used in agriculture, the greenhouse effect, genetic manipulation, nuclear power plants, and the pollution of Finnish lakes and rivers. The respondents were also asked whether the government should force people to protect the environment, whether Finland was acting to promote global protection of the environment, whether there should exist international treaties to deal with environmental problems and whether the economic growth in Finland would slow down if we would not look better after our own environment. Respondent trust in information on the causes of pollution provided by various bodies like the business community, environmental organisations, ministries, the European Union, research organisations and various media. With the respondents' own behaviour in mind, some questions asked how often they limited their use of their own car because of environmental reasons, how often they sorted garbage, and whether they were members in some nature protection or environmental movement, and whether they had during the past five years participated in a demonstration for some environmental issue, or donated money to some environmental organisation.
Respondent's views on God and opinion on their own standard of living were charted. The survey also contained a few questions focusing on the society in general. The respondents were asked whether whether the government should reduce income disparity, what are the most important functions of the state, and whether science is the source of good or evil.
Background variables included the respondents' basic education, economic activity, weekly working hours, occupation, industry of employment, marital status, membership in trade unions, religiosity, education, age, gender, party affiliation, voting pattern in the previous elections, size of work place, form of dwelling, area of residence, social class, household income, household size and composition, and the education, economic activity, industry of employment, and occupation of the spouse.
Systematic random sample from the population central register. Sorting order: municipality code and birthday. Sample size 2,500 of which Finnish speaking 2,364 (94.6%) and Swedish speaking 136 (5.4%). Two reminders were seht.
Completed questionnaires returned: 1,528. Non-response: did not respond 907, language problem 1, address unknown 5, refused 13, sick 5, returned a blank questionnaire 35, abroad 4. In all, 972.