Understanding Society User Support

Many thanks for your enquiry. The Understanding Society team is looking into it and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer

Dear Philipp,

We have checked the original data and there are no problems, and the data are consistent within instruments over time, so it may be a real attitudinal shift. There might have been an effect on responses as the adult interview had the additional response option “can’t choose”, which was not available to youth respondents. The answer formats for the other questions you mention are the same. There are no data issues which would stop you from analysing these responses.

It's possible that youths may not be overly familiar with the concepts of injustice underpinning the question and may have interpreted the question more factual as y/n instead of agree/disagree [Are there two different sets of law? No, hence I say that I strongly disagree]. The numbers are low, but it seems that 15 and 16 year-olds have slightly lower mean values which could suggest that these respondents have first-hand knowledge of injustice based on wealth/income or that the concept is as least more familiar to them. The only year where a direct comparison can be made is in BHPS Wave7 though, as this is the only wave where the question is in both the adult and youth questionnaires.

Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer