National Child Development Study: Age 11, Sweep 2, Sample of Essays, 1969
National Child Development Study, 1958 - Survey and Biomeasures Data
NCDS2
Creators: name: University Of London, Institute Of Education
Publisher: name: UK Data Service
Year: 2024

description: &lt;p&gt;The&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(NCDS) is a continuing longitudinal study that seeks to follow the lives of all those living in Great Britain who were born in one particular week in 1958. The aim of the study is to improve understanding of the factors affecting human development over the whole lifespan.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The NCDS has its origins in the&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Perinatal Mortality Survey&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(PMS) (the original PMS study is held at the UK Data Archive under SN 2137). This study was sponsored by the National Birthday Trust Fund and designed to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early infancy among the 17,000 children born in England, Scotland and Wales in that one week. Selected data from the PMS form NCDS sweep 0, held alongside NCDS sweeps 1-3, under SN 5565.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;br&gt;Survey and Biomeasures Data (GN 33004):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;To date there have been nine attempts to trace all members of the birth cohort in order to monitor their physical, educational and social development. The first three sweeps were carried out by the National Children's Bureau, in 1965, when respondents were aged 7, in 1969, aged 11, and in 1974, aged 16 (these sweeps form NCDS1-3, held together with NCDS0 under SN 5565). The fourth sweep, also carried out by the National Children's Bureau,&amp;nbsp;was conducted in 1981, when respondents were aged 23 (held under SN 5566). In 1985 the NCDS moved to the Social Statistics Research Unit (SSRU) - now known as the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS). The fifth sweep was carried out in 1991, when respondents were aged 33 (held under SN 5567). For the sixth sweep, conducted in 1999-2000, when respondents were aged 42 (NCDS6, held under SN 5578), fieldwork was combined with the 1999-2000 wave of the&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;1970 Birth Cohort Study&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(BCS70), which was also conducted by CLS (and held under GN 33229). The seventh sweep was conducted in 2004-2005 when the respondents were aged 46 (held under SN 5579), the eighth sweep was conducted in 2008-2009 when respondents were aged 50 (held under SN 6137) and the ninth sweep was conducted in 2013 when respondents were aged 55 (held under SN 7669).&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Four separate datasets covering responses to NCDS over all sweeps are available.&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Deaths Dataset: Special Licence Access&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(SN 7717) covers deaths;&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study Response and Outcomes Dataset&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(SN 5560) covers all other responses and outcomes;&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Partnership Histories&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(SN 6940) includes data on live-in relationships; and&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;National Child Development Study: Activity Histories&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(SN 6942) covers work and non-work activities. Users are advised to order these studies alongside the other waves of NCDS.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;From 2002-2004, a Biomedical Survey was completed and is available under&amp;nbsp;End User Licence (EUL) (SN 8731) and Special Licence (SL) (SN 5594).&amp;nbsp;Proteomics analyses of blood samples are available under SL SN 9254.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Geographical Data (GN 33497):&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of geographical variables are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Administrative Data (GN 33396):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;A number of linked administrative datasets are available, under more restrictive access conditions, which can be linked to the NCDS EUL and SL access studies. These include a&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Deaths&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;dataset (SN 7717) available under SL and the&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Linked Health Administrative Datasets&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;(SN 8697) available under Secure Access.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Additional Sub-Studies (GN 33562):&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;In addition to the main NCDS sweeps, further studies have also been conducted on a range of subjects such as parent migration, unemployment, behavioural studies and respondent essays. The full list of NCDS studies available from the UK Data Service can be found on the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/series/series?id=2000032#!/access-data" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;NCDS&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;series access data webpage.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For information on how to access biomedical data from NCDS that are not held at the UKDS, see the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/data-access-training/genetic-data-and-biological-samples/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;CLS Genetic data and biological samples&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Further information about the full NCDS series can be found on the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/1958-national-child-development-study/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Centre for Longitudinal Studies&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;website.&amp;nbsp;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;National Child Development Study&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;(NCDS) originated in the&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;Perinatal Mortality Survey&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;(see SN 5565), which examined social and obstetric factors associated with still birth and infant mortality among over 17,000 babies born in Britain in one week in March 1958. Surviving members of this birth cohort have been surveyed on eight further occasions in order to monitor their changing health, education, social and economic circumstances - in 1965 at age 7, 1969 at age 11, 1974 at age 16 (the first three sweeps are also held under SN 5565), 1981 (age 23 - SN 5566), 1991 (age 33 - SN 5567), 1999/2000 (age 41/2 - SN 5578), 2004-2005 (age 46/47 - SN 5579), 2008-2009 (age 50 - SN 6137) and 2013 (age 55 - SN 7669).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;There have also been surveys of sub-samples of the cohort, the most recent occurring in 1995 (age 37), when a 10% representative sub-sample was assessed for difficulties with basic skills (SN 4992). Finally, during 2002-2004, 9,340 NCDS cohort members participated in a bio-medical survey, carried out by qualified nurses (SN 5594, available under more restrictive Special Licence access conditions; see catalogue record for details). The bio-medical survey did not cover any of the topics included in the 2004/2005 survey. Further NCDS data separate to the main surveys include a response and deaths dataset, parent migration studies, employment, activity and partnership histories, behavioural studies and essays - see the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=2000032" title="NCDS series page" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;NCDS series page&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;for details.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Further information about the NCDS can be found on the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/" title="Centre for Longitudinal Studies" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Centre for Longitudinal Studies&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;website.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from a range of longitudinal surveys:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;A useful overview of the governance routes for applying for genetic and bio-medical sample data, which are not available through the UK Data Service, can be found at&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.metadac.ac.uk/data-access-through-metadac/" title="Governance of data and sample access" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Governance of data and sample access&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;on the METADAC (Managing Ethico-social, Technical and Administrative issues in Data Access) website.&lt;i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Sample of Essays (Sweep 2, Age 11), 1969&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;
When the children of the National Child Development Study (NCDS) were 11 years old, at the time of the NCDS 2 sweep, they were given a short questionnaire to complete at school about their interests outside school, the school subjects they enjoyed most, and what they thought they were most likely to do when they left secondary school. In addition, they were asked to write an essay about what they thought their life would be like at age 25. The instructions given were as follows:&lt;br&gt;
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'Imagine you are now 25 years old. Write about the life you are leading, your interests, your home life and your work at the age of 25. (You have 30 minutes to do this).'&lt;br&gt;
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Of the 14,757 children who participated in the age 11 sweep of the NCDS (representing 90.8% of the target sample of 16,253 (Plewis et al. 2004), a total of 13,669 (92.6%) completed an essay about their imagined life at age 25. From this a sub-sample of essays was extracted for deposit based on three key variables: gender of the cohort member, social class and family background, and the ability of the cohort member using a general ability test. The original spelling and grammar of the essays was preserved.&lt;br&gt;
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Users should note that a subset of 179 of these essays are also held with SN 6691, &lt;i&gt;Social Participation and Identity, 2007-2010&lt;/i&gt;, a subproject conducted by CLS with a sample of NCDS participants at age 50.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;February 2021 release&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;This study was withdrawn in 2020, and then reinstated in February 2021 at the depositor's request. The title of the study has changed, but data and documentation materials remain the same.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;