The ISSP 2017 social networks and social resources module

This special issue introduces the 2017 Social Networks and Social Resources module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). This module has been newly developed based on specific, up-to-date theoretical and methodological foundations. Within certain limits the designers of this module aimed at allowing comparisons with the previously fielded ISSP modules on Social Networks from 1986 and 2001. The module encompasses measures on social capital and social resources, assessed by both a position generator and questions on social resources coming from network members or formal organizations. They are complemented by other important social network dimensions capturing network structure and opportunities to access and mobilize social relationships. A strength of the new module is to assess multiple dimensions of social networks and social resources, which are crucial either for instrumental or expressive outcomes also introduced in the survey. The special issue includes first an introduction presenting the motivations behind the 2017 new module on Social Networks and Social Resources, the underlying model of the final questionnaire, a description focusing on the core of the social networks and resources measurement with some descriptive results on social capital, network support and sociability, and open the discussion toward some research questions it allows to examine in a comparative perspective.