Middletown III project records

Funded by the National Science Foundation from 1976 to 1981, the Middletown III project was a systematic replication and extension of the sociological research conducted by Robert and Helen Lynd in Muncie, Indiana in the 1920s and 1930s. The goal of the Middletown III research project was to identify patterns of social change that had occurred in Muncie during the forty years since the Lynds' last study through a combination of participant observation, examination of documentary material, compilation of statistics, questionnaire surveys, and in-depth interviews.

The principal investigators for the Middletown III project, Theodore Caplow of the University of Virginia and Howard M. Bahr of Brigham Young University, were assisted by numerous researchers including Bruce A. Chadwick of Brigham Young University, Reuben Hill of the University of Minnesota, and Dwight Hoover of Ball State University. The findings from the Middletown III research project were published in the books Middletown Families: Fifty Years of Change and Continuity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982) and All Faithful People: Change and Continuity in Middletown's Religion (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), as well as in numerous articles and conference presentations.

The following surveys were administered during the Middletown III project: American Family Roles Survey (1977), Community Survey (1978), Christmas Survey (1979), Family Dynamics Survey (1976-1977), Government Services Survey (1978), High School Survey (1977, 1989), Kinship Survey (1978), Men's Occupational Survey (1978), Ministers' Survey (1981) Neighborhood Survey (1978), Organization Survey (1977), Recreation and Leisure Survey (1982), Religion Survey (1978), and Women's Occupational Survey (1978).

The American Family Roles Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in the spring of 1977 and included questions about spouse role performance and expectations, marital satisfaction, and close friendships.

The Christmas Survey was an interview survey conducted in the spring of 1979 and included questions about how the respondents' families celebrated the Christmas holiday in 1978. This smaller survey was administer a year and a half after the closing of the project's field office in Muncie in an effort to obtain additional information about families that could be analyzed in conjunction with findings from the Kinship Survey and Family Dynamics Survey.

The Community Survey was an interview survey conducted in the summer of 1978. Respondents were asked about living in Muncie, their job history, reasons to work, and the advantages gained from working. The survey also included questions about spouse employment and vacation, household roles, activities, expenses, close friendships, important qualities in boys and girls, educational plans for their children, and opinions on other topics.

The Family Dynamics Survey consisted of in-depth interviews with individual husbands and wives (rather than couples interviewed together) conducted between December 1976 and June 1977. Most of the interviews lasted at least two hours and most respondents participated in at least two interview sessions. During the interviews, respondents were asked questions from the American Family Roles Survey and the Kinship Survey, as well as additional questions pertaining to marital satisfaction, desirable qualities in spouses, how the respondent's own situation compared with that of other couples, changing social expectations for lifetime partnerships, attitudes about various tasks associated with family life, sex-role stereotypes, and expectations and hopes for the future.

The Government Services Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in the spring of 1978. The survey asked respondents about their awareness and utilization of local, state, and federal governmental programs; their participation in the 1976 Presidential, 1974 Indiana Congressional, and 1975 Muncie city elections; service in the armed forces; and housing.

The High School Survey was an administered questionnaire survey conducted in the winter of 1977 and replicated in 1989. The survey queried respondents about the number of years they attended Muncie schools, membership in extra-curricular activities, sex education, curriculum, grades and schoolwork, books and magazines read that were not assigned, and future plans after high school. Respondents were also asked about close friendships, relationships with their parents, work outside of school, activities on Sunday, and their opinions about personal, political, and social issues.

The Kinship Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted between October 1976 and February 1977. The survey asked respondents to identify where and how long they had lived at a location in relation to Muncie. In addition, respondents were asked for demographic information about their spouse, mother and father (their own and their spouse's), siblings, cousins, and children, their relationship and interactions with them, including their participation in different types of activities together, giving or receiving of goods or services, and frequency of communication.

The Men's Occupational Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in the spring and summer of 1978 with adult working men about their work experiences. Respondents who were married were asked about the influence of their work experiences on their family life.

The Ministers' Survey was a mail questionnaire survey of the characteristics of Muncie's churches and their ministers conducted in the spring of 1978. Respondents were drawn from the 217 ministers listed in the Directory of Christian Ministers of Delaware County. The survey included questions about the social characteristics of the congregation, the church's religious activities, and the role of the minister in the church.

The Neighborhood Survey was an interview survey administered in seventeen Muncie neighborhoods between May and July 1977. The seventeen neighborhoods were delineated using US Census tracts for the city of Muncie and twenty-one households were selected for each neighborhood. Respondents were asked about their residence in the neighborhood and their intent to remain at or move from their current location, the extent of their contact with local friends and relatives, their involvement in community organizations, and the distance between their home and workplace.

The Organization Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in the spring and summer of 1977. The survey was sent to leaders of various business, civic, and social clubs and organizations in Muncie including labor unions and professional organizations, fraternal organizations, local 4-H clubs, and neighborhood associations. Respondents from each organization were asked about the size and characteristics of their membership, the organization's history and purpose, content of meetings, cost of membership, and the organization's ties to other organizations in the community.

The Recreation and Leisure Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in 1982. Respondents were queried about attendance at professional sporting events; participation in sports and household activities; visiting particular recreational locations; owning recreational, electronic, or entertainment equipment; and playing a musical instrument. In addition, the survey posed questions about membership in groups and organizations, vacations, religious behaviors, and books or magazines read.

The Religion Survey was a mail questionnaire survey of religious beliefs and practices conducted in the summer of 1978. Respondents were asked about their religious beliefs and values, religious behavior, attitudes toward various religious groups, and perceptions of religion in relation to family life.

The Women's Occupational Survey was a mail questionnaire survey conducted in the spring of 1978. The survey was sent to adult women including female heads of households, women living alone, and wives of male heads of households. Respondents were asked to provide a complete marital history including number of times and age married, status of the marriage, number of children born in each marriage, marital satisfaction, relationship with their spouse, causes of disagreements with their spouse, and household roles. The survey also included questions about job training and requirements, job satisfaction, job discrimination, and how work had affected their relationships with their children and spouse.



Sources:

Caplow, Theodore, Howard Bahr, Bruce Chadwick, Vaughn R.A. Call, and Louis Hicks. Compilation of Middletown III and Middletown IV Data, 1977-1999 [Muncie, Indiana]. ICPSR04604-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], October 16, 2007. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04604.v2 (last accessed June 29, 2016).

"The Middletown III Surveys" (Appendix B) in Caplow et al., Middletown Families: Fifty Years of Change and Continuity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 395-404.