Organization for comparative social research

Data were collected from samples of school teachers at all levels of the educational system in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. The same questionnaires were used across all countries. France has 350 respondents, Norway 400, Germany 365, Sweden 443, The Netherlands 400, Belgium 400, and England 400. The questions asked were directly related to the respondents' roles as teachers: their satisfaction with their jobs, estimates of the prestige of their jobs, their comparisons of secondary and grammar school teachers and public and private school teachers, suggested educational reforms, their teaching experience, and the influence of teachers as professionals on political and international affairs. In addition, respondents were asked open-ended questions eliciting their tolerance of political differences, their attitudes toward war, national defense efforts, and world government, their optimism or pessimism regarding international events, perceptions of other nationalities and their government's relationship with other countries, their identification of interest groups with influence in the government, and their political identification.