DOI: 10.3886/icpsr07510.v1
title: Youth and Development Survey, 1974
title: Version 1

description: This data collection presents the results of a survey of the members of six high school senior classes in the Atlanta, Georgia, area from December 1973-March 1974. The focus of the study was on social learning, peer group influence, parental influence on political socialization, and attitudes toward race relations and other social issues. An attempt was made to interview each senior in the selected schools in hour-long, face-to-face interviews. Topics probed in the student survey included: (1) support for country, government, and political system, (2) good citizenship, (3) active orientation to government and political affairs, (4) community virtues, (5) moral, ethical, and religious attributes and practices, (6) interpersonal relations and social behavior, (7) other personal attributes, (8) attitudes about the political system, (9) attitudes about national strength, world leadership, and the United States' image, (10) civil rights and race relations, including perceptions or race issues in the country, in Georgia, and in individual school, (11) other social problems, (12) opinions of which laws are important and why, (13) advocacy of social, economic, and political reform, (14) opinions of prominent individuals and groups in the United States, (15) interest in the 1972 political campaign, (16) participation in student protests, (17) feelings about Watergate and the Nixon Administration, (18) educational values, goals, and accomplishments, (19) feelings about integration, (20) relationship with mother and father, and (21) perceptions of peer cliques and leaders. Separate questionnaires also were administered to each student's mother and father, a sample of their teachers, and school principals. Data from parents were obtained by mail questionnaire and included responses to social and political attitude questions similar to those in the student questionnaires, as well as demographic information such as educational background, occupation, and political affiliation. Information on school attributes came from principal questionnaires (e.g., types of social studies courses required or offered to 10th-12th grade students) and teacher questionnaires (e.g., proportions of Black and white students in each class taught by each teacher, listed by course name and topic), as well as from public data sources. In addition, teachers responded to a number of attitude questions (e.g., whether teachers should encourage Black students toward jobs from which they have been traditionally excluded, the level of friction between races at school, the dominance of school cliques, and attitudes toward government and social issues). Dozens of derived variables are also available.
description: The purposive sample of schools included a total of six: two at least 95 percent white, two at least 95 percent Black, and two roughly two-thirds white. In each pair of schools with a similar racial mix, one was comprised of students of substantially different socioeconomic status than the other: the predominantly white schools split between upper- and lower-middle class, and the other pairs split between middle and working class.
description: Datasets: DS1: Youth and Development Survey, 1974
description: All members of six high school senior classes in the area of Atlanta, Georgia.
description: The data contained in each student's record include not only his/her responses to the survey, but those of mother and father, data supplied by the principal describing school attributes, the mean response for teachers by school, and the entire set of survey responses of up to five named peers in the student's senior class.A number of variables have been "grouped" or "bracketed" from the originally collected and coded form to protect the confidentiality of respondents.