documents

Question 1

Public documents

Answer 1

• produced by government organisations such as gov departments, schools, welfare agencies - eg OFSTED inspections reports- official reports of public enquiries such as Black report into inequalities in health which became a major source of information for sociologists

Question 2

Personal documents

Answer 2

• first person accounts of social events and personal experiences - THOMAS and ZRANIECKI - studied migration and social change. As interactionists they were interested in peoples personal experiences of these events. They used personal documents to reveal the meanings that individuals gave to their experience of migration - T+Z also used public documents, with these they were able to explore the experiences of social change of some of the 1000s of people who migrated from rural Poland to the USA in early 20th century

Question 3

Historical documents

Answer 3

• personal or public documents created in the past. Usually the only source of information when someone wants to study the past unless people are still alive to speak to - PETER LASLETT used to parish records in his study of family structure in pre industrial England- MICHEAL ANDERSON used parliamentary reports on child labour as well as statistical material from the 1851 census to study changes in family structure in 19th century Preston

Question 4

Assessing documents - authenticity

Answer 4

• is the document what it claims to be?- are there any missing pages, and if it is a copy, is it free of errors?- who wrote the document? Eg the ‘hitler diaries’ were fake

Question 5

Assessing documents - credibility

Answer 5

• is the document believable?- was the author sincere?- politicians may write diaries intended for publication that inflate their own importance - is the document accurate?- was the account of an important event written soon after the event?

Question 6

Assessing documents - representativeness

Answer 6

• are the surviving documents typical of the ones that get destroyed or lost?- is the evidence in the document typical?- if we cannot answer this question, we cannot know whither it is safe to generalise from it - certain groups may be unrepresented - not all surviving documents are available for researchers to use

Question 7

Assessing documents - meaning

Answer 7

• the researcher may need special skills to understand a document - may have to be translated from a foreign language - we may have to interpret what the document actually means to the writer and the intended audience

Question 8

Documents - adv

Answer 8

• personal documents enable the researcher to get close to the social actors reality, giving insight through their richly detailed qualitative data - favoured by Interpretivists - sometimes documents are the only source of info- documents offer an extra check on the result obtained by primary methods - they are a cheap source of data because someone else has already gathered the information

Question 9

Documents - disadv

Answer 9

• authenticity - credibility - representativeness - meanings

Question 10

Content analysis

Answer 10

Only type of use of documents favoured by positivists because they can produce quantitive data - LOBBAN used context analysis to analyse gender roles in children’s reading schemes while TUCHMAN used it to analyse TV’s portrayal of women - newspaper tabloid vs broadsheet

Question 11

Content analysis - adv

Answer 11

• cheap - easy to find sources of material - positivists see it as a useful source of objective, quantitive, scientific data - a method for dealing systematically with the contents of documents - best known for its use in analysing documents produced by the mass media - you can the compose the results from from the source with official statistics to test if it was accurate

Question 12

Methods in context - education

Answer 12

Documents used to investigate education - ethnic, class and gender differences in achievement - the curriculum - gender stereotyping in school books - racist incidents at schools - special eduction needs

Question 13

Public documents

Answer 13

• school websites - school prospectus - government enquires - OFSTED inspection report - school textbooks - government guidance to schools and colleges

Question 14

Personal documents

Answer 14

• pupils written work - school reports on pupils - pupil + teachers diaries - letters from parents - text messages between pupils - notes passed between pupils in class

Question 15

Practical adv

Answer 15

• public documents on education are often easily accessible - GILLBORN in his study of racism in schools was able to access as wide range of school documents - GEWIRTZ eat al in their study of marketisation and education found that school prospectus’ were a useful free source of information

Question 16

Practical disadv

Answer 16

• personal documents can be difficult to access - HEY made use of notes girls passed to each other to understand girls friendship patterns. However, the notes weren’t always easy to obtain - teachers personal files and pupils disciplinary records are confidential

Question 17

Ethical adv

Answer 17

Few ethical concerns given they have been placed in the public domain by the organisation

Question 18

Ethical disadv

Answer 18

• more ethical issues with personal documents - HEY some girls offered their notes to her freely however in others he collected them from desks at the end of the lesson/ from the bin at the end of the lesson (no informed consent)

Question 19

Theoretical adv

Answer 19

• public documents are produced in a systematic format. This enables researchers to make direct comparisons of the absence rates of pupils in different schools - LOBBON examined 179 stories from 6 school reading schemes looking got using the same set of category. This can be easily replicated

Question 20

Theoretical disadv

Answer 20

Deliberate falsifications or accidental mistakes made when completing registers reduce their reliability

Question 21

Validity adv

Answer 21

• important insights into the meanings held by teachers and pupils - HEY initially examined girls friendships in schools through observation and interviews. Eventually she realised she was ignoring a useful source of insight into girls feelings and actions (notes passed)

Question 22

Validity disadv

Answer 22

• deliberate falsifications or accidental mistakes made when completing registers reduce their reliability - all documents are open to different interpretations - we cannot be sure that HEY’s interpretations of the notes as that of the girls

Question 23

Triangulation

Answer 23

In social science triangulation is defined as the mixing of data or methods so that diverse viewpoints so that diverse viewpoints or standpoints cast light upon a topic. The mixing of data types, known as data triangulation, is often thought to help in validating the claims that might arise from an initial pilot study

Question 24

Why would a researcher adopt triangulation

Answer 24

It allows help to different views as well as validity results further

Question 25

Example of overt triangulation

Answer 25

Eileen Barker - ‘ the making of a moonie’ - no ethical issues - psychological issues avoided - time and money so more info gained- trust and rapport built

Question 26

Longitudinal studies

Answer 26

Researchers repeatedly examine the same individuals to detect any changes that may occur over a period of time - type of correlational research in which researchers observe and collect data on a number or variables without trying to influence those variables

Question 27

Example of longitudinal study

Answer 27

The millennium cohort study - stretched from 2000 to 2011 with an initial sample of 19000 children. The study tracked children until the age of 11 and has provided an insight into how differences in early socialisation affect child development in terms of health and education outcomes. The study also allowed researchers to make comparisons in rates of development between children of different sexes and from different economic backgrounds

Question 28

Selected findings

Answer 28

• the survey found that children whose parents read to them everyday at the age of 3 were more likely to flourish in their 1st year of primary school - children who were read to on a daily basis were 2.4 months ahead of those whose parents never did - girls were consistently outperforming boys at the age of 5, when they were 9 months ahead in creative development - children from lower income families with parents who were less highly educated were less advanced in their development at age 5

Question 29

Strengths of longitudinal studies

Answer 29

• they allow researchers to trace developments over time, rather than just taking a one off ‘snapshot’ of one moment - by making comparisons over time, they can identify causes - the millennium cohort study suggests a clear correlation between poverty and its early impact on low educational achievement

Question 30

Limitations of longitudinal studies

Answer 30

• sample attrition - people dropping out of the study and the people who remain in the study may not end up being representative of the starting sample - people may start to act differently because they know they are part of the study - they take a long time so they are costly and time consuming- continuity over many years may be a problem - if a lead researcher retires (her replacement may not have same rapport with students)