DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02867.v1
title: CBS News/New York Times Teen Poll, October 1999
title: Version 1

description: This special topic poll, fielded October 11-14, 1999, queried teen respondents on a variety of subjects. Respondents were asked how growing up today compared to when their parents grew up and what they felt was the biggest problem facing people their age today. They were also asked about how much importance they placed on community involvement, communicating their feelings, having a lot of friends, getting good grades, being physically attractive, and standing up for oneself. Those queried were asked who or what was most important in helping them learn right from wrong, who they lived with (parent, step-parent, guardian, etc.), whether they could talk to their parents, whom they admired most other than their parents, and how they felt about having and breaking parental rules regarding going out, watching TV, whom they could be friends with, computer usage, and what movies they could watch. A number of questions were school-related, focusing on the type of school they attended (public, private, parochial), how often an adult was home after school, what the biggest problem was at their school, how much pressure they got from parents to get good grades, and whether they expected to go to work, into the armed services, or to college directly from high school. Other questions queried respondents about whether their schools had security guards, metal detectors, locker searches, or security cameras, if these measures made the respondents feel safer, and whether they felt safer this year as compared to last year. Their opinions were also sought regarding the main reason for violence in schools, whether they felt violence could happen at their school, how many students at their school carried weapons, if they had ever been made fun of, physically threatened, or assaulted, and if there were any groups at their school prone to violence. Opinions were also elicited about premarital and same-sex sexual relations, copying someone else's test answers at school, telling a friend a lie, having a party at home when parents are gone, and excluding classmates because they are different. Respondents were asked if they had a close family member, friend, or classmate who was gay or lesbian, if gay or lesbian classmates were harassed at school, how often they worried about being the victim of a crime, what type of crime they might be the victim of, who might commit a crime against them, and if they knew anyone who has been shot in the last five years. Additional questions focused on whether and how much respondents smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and smoked marijuana, whether they believed in God or the devil, how important religion was in their lives, and how often they attended religious services. Other items covered whether they knew anyone their age who had attempted suicide, if anyone in their household owned a handgun, if they had had sex with anybody, and if they had done any volunteer work in the last 12 months. Those respondents who regularly used a computer were asked if they frequently accessed the Internet, had parental rules regarding computer usage, ever broke those rules, and if they had their own computer. All respondents were asked if they had their own telephone number, beeper, or cell phone and if they had a television in their room. Background information on respondents includes age, race, sex, grade, religious preference, number of siblings in the household, computer access, family financial situation, and parents' education, employment, and marital status.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: (1) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in essentially the same form in which they were received. When appropriate, hardcopy documentation has been converted to machine-readable form and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents' anonymity. (2) The codebook is provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.
The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.