National Survey of Children, 1981

Overview

National Survey of Children, 1981

Investigators: Child Trends, Inc.

Publication Date: March 23, 2016

About This Product

This is the second of the two waves of studies sponsored by the Foundation for Child Development and the National Institute of Mental Health. When weighted, the data constitute a national sample of children aged 12-16 in 1981. The information provided is based on reinterviews with a subsample of those originally studied in 1976 (documented separately as DAAPPP Data Set No. 37-38). The main purposes of the 1976 survey were to: assess physical, social, and psychological well-being of different groups of American children, and develop a national profile of the way children live and the care they receive. The sample was a multi-stage stratified probability sample of households in the continental U.S. containing at least one child in the age range of 7 through 11 years at that time (born between 1964 and 1969). Black households were oversampled. Data were gathered on 2,301 children, which represented 1,747 households. Interviews were conducted with the eligible child and the parent most capable of providing information about the child, usually the mother. A follow-up study of schools attended by the children was also carried out. In 1981, a reinterview survey was conducted with all of those children who were in a high conflict or disrupted family in 1976, and with a subsample of the others. A total of 1,423 children completed the 1981 reinterview, 1,036 whites and 337 blacks. At the time of this second interview, children in the sample were aged 11 to 16. Most of the background and outcome measures were repeated in the 1981 survey. In addition, new data were gathered on patterns of parent-child interaction and on outcome areas more relevant for teenage children, including dating and sexual activity, drinking, smoking, drug use, and delinquency. Users who want to conduct longitudinal analyses of the 1976 and 1981 data should order both DAAPPP Data Set Nos. 37-38 and 88-90. Note for users of DAAPPP Data Sets #01-B1DAAPPP data sets 01 through B1 are comprised of a User's Guide, SPSS syntax files (*.SPS or *.SPX) and raw data files only. Most of these datasets contain SPSS syntax files that use Job Control Language (JCL) from 1980s versions of SPSS-X. Because the syntax is old, the syntax files require editing to conform to the current syntax standards used by SPSS/Windows or SPSS/Unix. If you require technical assistance in using or editing these syntax files, please contact Sociometrics' Data Support Group at 800.846.3475 or socio@socio.com.

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