Methods of Sociological Inquiry: Sociology 357 Exercise Four
Using the web-based GSS analysis engine at the University of California-Berkeley (https://csa.berkeley.edu:7502/archive.htm), please provide written answers to each of the following questions, and attach copies of your output.
What proportion of the respondents observed in the 1990 GSS survey was born in year 1960? What proportion was born after year 1960? (Hint: COHORT is a valid variable in the database. There are many ways to find answers for this problem. One way is to request a sex by cohort crosstab, with filter that year=1990; then compute the numbers with a calculator ignoring sex.)
Using the verbal score variable (variable name = WORDSUM), compute the average verbal score by birth cohort. Describe the trend, and compare your results to the line denoted as "unadjusted" in Figure 1 of Wilson and Gove's article.
Extend the above analysis by considering both age and cohort. Since cell sizes for the age by cohort cross-classification are small, collapse cohort into 10-year intervals and age into five-year intervals except for 18-19. Compute the average verbal score by birth cohort (in 10 year groups) and age (in 5 year groups). How does the verbal score vary by cohort and age?