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Mass Observation’s ‘Little Kinsey’ and the British Sex Survey Tradition

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Part of the book series: Explorations in Sociology ((EIS))

Abstract

‘Little Kinsey’, from which these quotations derive, was Britain’s first national random sample survey of sexual attitudes and sexual behaviour. It thus has considerable historical importance for understanding the development of random sampling and the associated post-war development in Britain of a ‘sex survey tradition’, something which isdiscussed in detail in Stanley (1995). However, ‘Little Kinsey’ also has importance in its own right, as the source of information about sexual behaviour, sexual attitude and sexual change in Britain in this crucial post-war period, as a still-fascinating piece of writing, and as research carried out at the cusp of great change in the organisation which carried it out, and this is the concern of this present discussion.

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References

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© 1996 British Sociological Association

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Stanley, L. (1996). Mass Observation’s ‘Little Kinsey’ and the British Sex Survey Tradition. In: Weeks, J., Holland, J. (eds) Sexual Cultures. Explorations in Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24518-5_6

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