28th October 1998

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Last month saw the launch of a major new survey of social attitudes in Northern Ireland carried out by researchers from the two universities here.

With the first few weeks of interviewing now complete, the survey seems to be arousing increasing interest and curiosity among those members of the public who have taken part in interviews.

The Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey was set up to provide a regular supply of information about social attitudes in Northern Ireland and is unique in that all results will be made publicly available on the Internet. Schools, journalists and voluntary groups will all be leafleted in the spring of 1999 to alert them to the availability of the findings.

The Project Director is Gillian Robinson:

"There is a strong commitment within the team to making these kinds of results available to the general public - whether we are looking at selection in our education system, the place of women in Northern Ireland society, or who we trust to tell us the truth about BSE. There are interests within the wider community that are not being served by current research, which is either carried out solely within the academic world, or for private clients by market research companies."

Apart from the use made of the findings by individuals and community groups, it is hoped that this annual exercise will feed into the work of the new assembly as it grapples with the many social problems facing Northern Ireland.

Almost 2000 adults and 500 young people will be interviewed annually in their own homes on a whole range of social issues - with the aim of placing on record the social attitudes of all groups within Northern Ireland during the late 1990s and into the millennium.

The 1998 round includes research on gender issues, political attitudes, housing, public understanding of science, crime, community relations and children's rights. In future years, the survey is likely to include questions on education, attitudes to genetic research and `grand parenting'. The views of 12 to 17 year olds are also to be sought in the Young Life and Times survey running alongside the adult version.

"It is curious that people always ask us what prompted us to extend the survey to this younger age group, when the question we should be asking ourselves is why we tend to automatically exclude this group of people from the vast majority of our opinion gathering exercises," explained Ms Robinson.

The survey is being carried out jointly by a team from Social Policy at the University of Ulster and the Centre for Social Research at The Queen's University of Belfast. The researchers include Gillian Robinson, Lizanne Dowds, Ann Marie Gray and Deirdre Heenan.

It has already attracted £350,000 from a variety of sources including the Central Community Relations Unit, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, Save the Children Fund, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Social Science Research Council of the Royal Irish Academy, the University of Ulster and the Department of Health and Social Services.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office Department of Communication and Development
Telephone: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk