The findings detailed in this web site summarise the findings of an international quantitative public opinion survey conducted between 7 and 22 January 2008 by GlobeScan and IFF on behalf of the British Council. The survey was conducted in France, Germany, Poland, UK, USA, Turkey, Ireland, Canada and Spain.

Representative samples of at least 500 adults (2,001 in the USA, 1,019 in the UK) were interviewed by telephone in each country. Quotas were set in order to ensure correct representation of the population by region, gender and age. In the USA and UK certain regions/countries were over or under sampled in order to create sub-samples that could be analysed with confidence. In the UK Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were oversampled, and England undersampled. In the USA the North East and Mid West regions were oversampled, and the South and West undersampled.

When results are reported at the aggregate level within each country they are subject to a potential sampling error of +/- 4 per cent at the 95% confidence level; sampling error is greater when results from subsamples are compared.

Because of demographic response bias the unweighted sample profiles do not exactly match the targets, so weighting was employed by age and gender within country. Some weighting based on education was employed to make the sample more representative. In the UK and USA additional weighting addressed the imbalance between region/country and so made the datasets representative of each country.

In some instances results reported here may not sum to 100% - this may be because of rounding or the exclusion of ‘don’t knows’.

For media interviews with the participating pollsters, please contact:

Doug Miller, President
GlobeScan Incorporated, London
+44 20 7253 1425
(Mobile: +44 78 999 77 000)
doug.miller@GlobeScan.com

Steven Kull, Director
Program on International Policy Attitudes, Washington
+1 202 232 7500
(Mobile: +1 301 254 7500)
skull@pipa.org

GlobeScan Incorporated is a global public opinion and stakeholder research consultancy with offices in Toronto, London, and Washington. GlobeScan conducts custom research and annual tracking studies on global issues. With a research network spanning 50+ countries, GlobeScan works with global companies, multilateral agencies, national governments, and non-government organizations to deliver research-based insights for successful strategies.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) is a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. PIPA undertakes research on attitudes in publics around the world on a variety of international issues and publishes the website/webzine WorldPublicOpinion.org.