Southern Focus Poll, South Survey, Fall 1996

DOI

10.17605/OSF.IO/VF36P

Summary

Southerners tend to slip through the cracks between state surveys, which are unreliable for generalizing to the region, on the one hand, and national sample surveys, which usually contain too few Southerners to allow detailed examination, on the other. Moreover, few surveys routinely include questions specifically about the South.

To remedy this situation, the Institute for Research in Social Science and the Center for the Study of the American South sponsor a Southern regional survey, called the Southern Focus Poll. Respondents in both the South and Non-South are asked questions about economic conditions in their communities; cultural issues, (such as Southern accent and the Confederate flag), race relations, religious involvement, and characteristics of Southerners and Northerners.

All of the data sets from the Southern Focus Polls archived here are generously made available by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (IRSS).

The ARDA has added six additional variables to the original data set to enhance the users' experience on our site.

Data File

Cases: 800
Variables: 144
Weight Variable: WTVARS, TOTWT

Data Collection

September 22 - November 12, 1996

Funded By

The Odum Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Collection Procedures

Telephone interview surveys

Sampling Procedures

The target population for the telephone survey was adults age 18 or older, residing in households with telephones in the United States. IRSS purchased random-digit dialing samples of telephone numbers from Genesys Sampling Systems (GSS) of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. To give each residential telephone within each sample an approximately equal chance of being dialed, GSS first systematically stratified each sample to reflect each state's proportion of the appropriate region's population. For each state, GSS then estimated the proportion of telephone numbers beginning with each three-digit prefix in use in that state. This estimate was based on the proportion of numbers with each prefix listed in the telephone directories for the state.

The target respondent within each household was the person living in the household, aged 18 or over, with the next birthday. At least four call attempts were made to each telephone number, at least 24 hours apart.

The data sets for the Southern and non-Southern samples of the Southern Focus Poll are archived separately. If you want a national sample, combine the data sets, and use the weight variable, TOTWT, which not only adjusts for household size, but also for the oversample of the South. Weighting the data by this variable will allow you to create a single national sample.

Principal Investigators

The Odum Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (IRSS).