Why is it important to study general social attitudes? To compare social attitudes across nations? To conduct such research longitudinally? The answers reveal the significance of such social research under unprecedented globalization, which creates imperatives for mutual international understanding.
Though principally focused on Japanese social attitudes, these attitudes must be compared across nations and time, one means being cross-national attitude surveys, encompassing special methodologies and data analytic techniques. In 1953, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics began nationwide, longitudinal surveys of the Japanese way of thinking. All of the work described in this book stems from this research.
This book is intended as a learning tool for those engaged in or contemplating social scientific research. At both national and international levels, survey and analytic methodologies are explored, explicated and applied to real world data.
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Masamichi Sasaki, Ph.D., Princeton University, is Professor of Sociology at Hyogo Kyoiku University in Japan and President of the International Institute of Sociology. He also was editor of
Values and Attitudes Across Nations and Cultures (Brill, 1998) and with Alex Inkeles
Comparing Nations and Cultures (Prentice Hall, 1996).
Tatsuzo Suzuki, B.S., University of Tokyo, is Professor at the Department of Information Science at Teikyou Heisei University. He also wrote with C. Hayashi and M. Sasaki
Data Analysis for Comparative Social Research (North-Holland, 1992).
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By far, this is the best and most reliable book available on the subject in English, and most highly recommended for all libraries, both public and academic.'
M.Y. Runn,
Choice, 2001.
For all those interested in Japan, social attitudes, longitudinal research, and social survey methodologies.