Official Statistics Flashcards
What are stats
Quantitative data that is gathered by the government or other groups
What are the two main ways that official stats are collected
-registration e.g. the last requires births to be registered
-official surveys e.g. the census
What’s a hard statistic
Those that aren’t open to interpretation and are likely to be collected consistently making them more valid
What’s a soft statistic
Stats that reply on definitions made by individuals e.g. domestic violence ,crime and unemployment
What are the practical advantages of official stats
-The are useful as they are very representative as often gather data from lots of the population e.g. stats created by the census have data on all people living in the uk
-you are able to use data to make comparisons which also allows sociologists to identify a cause and effect relationship between 2 things
What are the practical disadvantages of using official stats
-The stats that a sociologist might want might not be available to as the govt doesn’t have the same interests as them limiting the access.
- differences in definitions may cause inconsistencies in result for example would one person considers to be working class might not be what another person does
What is the ethical advantage of official stats
No harm is done to ppts as there is no interactions with them for example when Durkheim studies suicide no harm was caused how other method may have e.g. interviewing family members or asking to see suicide notes would’ve been more distressing
What is an ethical disadvantage of official stats
It can be seen to be insensitive and dehumanising for example Durkheim took the humanity away from the suicide victims as he treated them all as numbers and not as people
What are the theoretical strengths of using official stats
-they are usually representative as they often cover very large numbers and sometimes even entire populations e.g. stats made by the census
- they are reliable as they are complied in a standardised way by trained staff following set procedure
What are the theoretical disadvantages of official stats
- dark figures of crime where crimes were never reported/ recorded could reduce the validity of any conclusions drawn from the official stats
- the intepretivist Atkinson rejects suicide stats as he suggests that they just tell us how the coroner labels a death e.g. a death may be recorded as an accidental overdose but is a murder or suicide
Compare the validity or hard stats to soft stats
Hard stats are more valid as the vast majority of birth rates for example are reported in compliance to the law. However soft stats are less valid a the definitions are often to interpretation.
What study links to official stats
DURKHIEM = he used stats to study suicide, he compared suicide rates of European countries and spotted trends and patterns such as marital status,childlessness and divorce. He concluded that levels of moral regulation and social integration determine suicide rates. He also suggested that religion was a big part catholic countries had lower rate due to higher levels of integration and Protestant countries had higher rates as less integrated. He took the stats at face value and assumed they were correct .
