Documents Flashcards
1
Q
What are ‘Public Documents?’
A
- Produced by organisations E.g. Government
- Output that’s available for sociologists E.g. Ofsted reports
2
Q
What are ‘Personal Documents?’
A
- First-person accounts of social events + personal experiences
- Thomas + Znaniecki’s research on ‘The Polish Peasant in Europe and America’, used PD to gain insight into personal experiences of migration
3
Q
What are ‘Historical Documents?’
A
- Personal/Public documents
- Aries used paintings of children + child-rearing to study childhood
- Laslett used parish records to study family structures in pre-industrial England
4
Q
What is Scott’s ‘Four Criteria’ on evaluating documents?
A
- Authenticity; Is the document what it claims to be?
- Credibility; Is the document believable?
- Representativeness; Is the evidence in the document typical
- Meaning; Researcher needs special skills to interpret
5
Q
What are the ‘Advantages’ of documents?
A
- Personal documents are a detailed source of qualitative data
- Sometimes only source in studying the past
- Extra check on primary methods
- Cheap + time efficient
6
Q
What is ‘Content Analysis?’
A
- Method for dealing systematically with contents of documents
- Lobban used CA to analyse gender roles in children’s reading schemes
- Tuchman used CA fo analyse portrayal of women in television
7
Q
What are the advantages of ‘Content Analysis?’
A
- Cheap
- Easy to find sources of material
- Positivists see it as a useful source of Objective, Quantitative + Scientific data
