(1) Technical and Professional Workers and Clerical Workers

It was decided to select samples of workers aged under thirty in technical and professional and in clerical occupations as these might have the types of education that would make them eligible for the Executive and Clerical Classes of the Civil Service respectively.

Little was known about the populations to be sampled as no separate statistics relating to workers aged under thirty were available.

“Technical and professional workers” presented a problem of definition. Certain occupation groups which seemed suitable were selected from the list of occupation given in the Census. These were classified in two main groups, those needing technical and scientific qualifications, and those professions in which workers normally qualify as they go along, e.g. articled clerks and librarians.

It was decided to exclude people with university degrees because these would be more likely to aim at the Administrative Class of the Civil Service with which this inquiry was not concerned.

The method by which informants were selected is shown best by the instructions given to investigators which are given on page 37. It should be noted that there is a general Social Survey instruction to investigators when quota sampling is used to choose informants as far as possible at random and on no account to allow managers or other officials at places of work to choose informants for them.

Clerical workers are more easily defined but no information was available as to the ratio of men to women aged under thirty in clerical occupations. It was decided therefore to deal with men and women separately and to interview equal numbers of each.

It was thought that samples of 400 technical and professional workers, 300 male clerical workers and 300 female clerical workers would be sufficient. The numbers actually included in the samples are 333, 243 and 312 respectively. Investigators experienced difficulty in finding professional and technical workers in the age group required who had not university degrees but yet had the education or training that would qualify them for inclusion in the population as it was defined. The forms sent in by investigators were carefully scrutinised with respect to the exact occupation, the education and the training of the informant, all of which were recorded, and doubtful cases were rejected. The sample achieved is thus somewhat smaller than the sample set.

Difficulty was also experienced in finding young men in clerical occupations as many of the firms visited said that their employees in this age group were still in the Forces. This sample is therefore also rather smaller than was intended.

Some analyses of the samples are shown below.

(2) Schoolchildren

A sample of schoolchildren in the School Certificate and post-School Certificate forms of secondary schools was selected in the following way. A sample of 100 schools was selected from the Board of Education’s lists of secondary schools in England and Wales, and the equivalent list for Scotland. Appropriate proportions of boys’, girls’ and mixed schools, and of council, foundation, Roman Catholic and non-aided schools, were included, and the schools were chosen in towns of different sizes distributed over the whole country roughly as the whole population is distributed.

A rough estimate was made of the number of pupils in the forms concerned in all schools, and a sampling factor calculated which would result in obtaining a sample of about 1,000 pupils.

The principals of the schools selected were written to and their co-operation was asked. It may be noted that many of them showed great interest in the inquiry and nearly all were willing to allow their pupils to be interviewed. It was not however possible in all cases for a date to be arranged during the few weeks when the inquiry was taking place. Interviews were made at altogether 82 schools. 79 of these were schools on the original list and 3 were substitutes for schools at which it was not possible to make arrangements. Unfortunately there was not time to get in touch with new schools to act as substitutes in other cases as it was necessary to complete the inquiry by a fixed date and principals did not always reply promptly.

The number of children interviewed was 971, and some analyses of the sample are shown below.

543 or 56% of the children were boys, and 428 or 44% were girls.

(3) Parents

A sample of parents of children in the School Certificate and Post-School Certificate forms of secondary schools was wanted.

It was decided that parents of children interviewed in the sample of schoolchildren should not be included as they might be influenced by discussing the subject of recruitment to the Civil Service with their children after the children had been interviewed and before being interviewed themselves. Also, as a comparison between the answers given by mothers and fathers independently was wanted, it was decided not to interview pairs of parents.

Accordingly, when the sample of schoolchildren was selected the name on the school register next to that of the child selected was also written down. The address of this child was provided by the school and the interviewer called to see one of the parents. Fathers and mothers were interviewed alternately at the different addresses on the list.

A sample of at least 600 parents was required. It was known from previous experience that it is not always possible to make contact with people selected in this way. The number of addresses written down was to be the same as the number of schoolchildren interviewed, and interviewers were instructed to make contact with as many of the parents on their lists as was possible, calling back in the evening if necessary. Parents of children at boarding schools were not included in the sample. The proportion of children in the group concerned attending boarding schools is of course very small. Altogether 718 parents were interviewed, 322 of these (44%) being fathers and 396 (54%) mothers.

Economic group was classified according to the basic wage rate or salary

of the chief earner in the family.