The primary objective of SASAS is to design, develop and implement a conceptually and methodologically robust study of changing social attitudes and values in South Africa to be able to carefully and consistently monitor and explain changes in attitudes amongst various socio-demographic groupings. The SASAS explores a wide range of value changes, including the distribution and shape of racial attitudes and aspirations, attitudes towards democratic and constitutional issues, and the redistribution of resources and power. Moreover, there is also an explicit interest in mapping changing attitudes towards some of the moral issues that confront and are fiercely debated in South Africa, such as gender issues, AIDS, crime and punishment, governance, and service delivery. The SASAS is intended to provide a unique long-term account of the social fabric of modern South Africa, and of how its changing political and institutional structures interact over time with changing social attitudes and values.