***apologies for cross-postings*** Dear colleagues, we are looking forward to your abstract submission for the session "Measuring social structure in surveys" at the 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology (RC33 Conference 2016) in Leicester, UK 11-16 September 2016 Session Organizers: * Silke Schneider, silke.schneider@gesis.org<mailto:silke.schneider@gesis.org>, Senior Researcher and Consultant, Department Survey Design and Methodology, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany * Eric Harrison, Eric.Harrison.2@city.ac.uk<mailto:Eric.Harrison.2@city.ac.uk>, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, City University London, UK Session Abstract: The individuals’ position in in the social structure of a society is characterised by a number of concepts, such as socio-economic status, social class, educational attainment, employment status, ethnicity, migration background, marital status, and last but not least age and sex. Some of these are the most used variables in survey based research. Given that for most researchers these are ‘only’ control variables, they are often referred to as ‘background variables’. Measuring individuals’ position in society by means of survey research is of key interest for both academic and policy-related survey research at the national and international levels. Firstly, researchers often want to present descriptive data separately for specific socio-economic or demographic groupings of interest. Secondly, in multivariate analyses of relationships amongst other variables, they need to control for respondents’ socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Thirdly, they may even want to test hypotheses in the area of social stratification research, i.e. using elements of the individuals’ position in society as a ‘main’ variable of interest. In order to do this effectively and permit cumulating research results, surveys need to provide reliable, valid and comparable measures of respondents’ position in the social structure. Comparability can be over time (especially cohorts), space (especially countries), as well as survey projects. While there are only few standard data collection instruments and some coding frameworks for such measures, many survey projects and researchers have put a lot of effort and consideration into the measurement of individuals’ position in society. This session invites papers that reflect on the conceptualisation, data collection, harmonisation and coding of the individuals’ socio-structural position in mono-cultural and cross-cultural, longitudinal and cross-sectional surveys. We particularly welcome papers presenting critical appraisals and innovative solutions to problems of comparative conceptualisation, data collection, harmonisation and analysis. This session intends to bring together researchers and practitioners working with different surveys to facilitate a debate across survey programmes and between data producers and data users. How to submit a paper abstract ------------------------------ 1. To submit a paper abstract for the RC33 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology, you should visit: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/sociology/research/rc33-conference After landing on the homepage, navigate to "Abstract Submission", which appears on the top left hand column of the webpage. 2. Complete the form in full. You may wish to cut and paste your abstract into the Abstract field from another document. 3. Choose the relevant session for your stream. To do so you will need to select the relevant lead session organiser from the drop-down menu. To check you are submitting to the correct session, you can view a table of sessions and session convenors by clicking the link entitled "View the list of sessions and session convenors". Once complete, click submit. The submission deadline is January 21st. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Best wishes, Silke Schneider and Eric Harrison -- Dr. Silke Schneider Senior researcher and consultant GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Survey Design and Methodology P.O. Box 12 21 55 68072 Mannheim Germany silke.schneider@gesis.org<mailto:silke.schneider@gesis.org> Tel: +49 621 1246 556 Fax: +49 621 1246 100