'I've always enjoyed reading the British Social Attitudes survey, which shows what the British people really think, as opposed to what journalists and politicians like to pretend they think' - John Pilger Britain is a well-documented nation. We know a lot about the characteristics of our society - who we are and what we do. We know much less about what we think and feel about our world and ourselves. The indispensable annual British Social Attitudes survey fills this gap. It compiles, describes and comments on a range of current social attitudes. The information is derived from interviews carried out by the National Centre for Social Research's own interviewers among a nationwide sample of around 3,500 people each year. The series seeks to chart changes in British social values over a period of time in relation to other changes in society, and is core-funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. A full report is published each year. The 17th Report summarizes and interprets data from the most recent survey, as well as making comparisons with findings from previous years. The data are publicly available through the ESRC Data Archive at the University of Essex.