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Research Methods > Official Statistics and Documents > Flashcards

Official Statistics and Documents Flashcards

1
Q

What are official statistics?

A

quantitative data created by the gov or other official bodies

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2
Q

give an example of official statistics

A

the ten yearly census of the entire UK population

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3
Q

give an example of how the government use statistics for policy making

A

statistics on the age structure of the population help the government to plan pension provision

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4
Q

what are the 3 types of source for the information used to create official statistics

A
  • registration - e.g. laws requires births to be registered
  • official surveys
  • administrative records of state agencies like hospitals, courts and schools
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5
Q

non-state organisations create non-official statistics give an example

A

churches produce membership and attendance statistics

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6
Q

what are the practical advantages of official statistics?

A
  • free source of huge amounts of quantitative data, only the state has the resources to create surveys costing millions of pounds
  • results usually published so are easily accessible
  • only the state has the power to compel individuals to supply certain data e.g. heads of households must complete the census the refusal rate was only 5% for the last one
  • allow comparisons between groups - census covers whole population and uses the same questions so easy to compare
  • collected regularly to show patterns
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7
Q

what are the practical disadvantages of official statistics?

A
  • gov creates them for their own purposes which may be different from sociologists e.g. the french state don’t collect data on race or religion of citizens
  • mismatches between statistics, different statistics may cover slightly different areas making comparisons difficult
  • the state may change definitions over time and may define things differently so comparisons between times and countries difficult
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8
Q

why do positivists like official statistics?

A
  • objective facts about society so casual laws can be developed to explain the patterns of behaviour that statistics reveal
  • large scale so representative
  • reliable due to standardised categories and set procedures that can be easily replicated
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9
Q

what do interpretivists like Cicourel say about official statistics?

A

they reject that they are real, objective social facts, but merely social constructs representing the labels that officials attach to people. rather than taking them at face value we should research how they are socially constructed.

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10
Q

give an example of interpretivist deconstrunction of official statistics

A

mental illness statistics show those who have had many social interactions like pressure from family to see a doctor and consultations and psychiatrists so they are just recordings of decisions made by doctors to label people as mentally ill not the actual level of mental illness in society so more interested in studying social processes like labeling by which the statistics are constructed.

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11
Q

interpretivists don’t believe official statistics are equally invalid what are soft statistics and hard statistics?

A

soft statistics - less valid picture compiled from administrative records created by state agencies they represent decisions made by agencies and neglect the unknown figure
hard statistics - much more valid - statistics on births, deaths marriages etc, only a small number os these go unrecorded, we can trust these statistics as there is little dispute as how to define the categories

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12
Q

marxists believe official statistics serve capitalism as they are part of Althusser’s ideological state apparatus its function is to conceal or distort reality and maintain capitalist power, how do they do this?

A
  • conceal politically sensitive data that would reveal the exploitive nature of capitalism e.g. since 1980s census doesn’t contain class differences in death rates
  • definitions to conceal reality e.g. constantly changing the definition of unemployment
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13
Q

how can the idea all statistics benefit capitalism be disproved?

A

some statistics on differences in health show class inequality

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14
Q

how do Oakley and Graham see official statistics?

A

a form of patriarchal ideology legitimating/concealing gender equality, e.g. few statistics on women’s unpaid domestic labour and fulltime housewives are defined as economically inactive underestimating women’s contribution

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15
Q

how may we argue against Oakley and Graham’s point that statistics legitimate patriarchy?

A

families used to be defined by occupation of the male head but changed in 2001 to the person who owns or rents the home or earns the most

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16
Q

what are documents?

A

can be written texts like diaries, letters or other texts like drawings and tv

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17
Q

what are public documents?

A

produced by organisations like government departments or schools that are published

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18
Q

what are personal documents?

A

items such as letter or diaries, first person accounts of social events and personal experiences

19
Q

what are historical documents?

A

personal or public documents created in the past

20
Q

what are the practical issues of documents?

A
  • may be only way to study the past
  • free, cheap source with large amounts of data
  • not always possible to access them
  • individuals and organisations create them for their own purposes so may not answer sociologists questions
21
Q

what do interpretivists think about documents?

A
  • they give a valid picture of actors meanings - rich qualitative data gives insight into their world view
  • not written with the sociologist in mind so more likely to be authentic statements of actors views
  • contents may not be credibe e.g. politicians may right autobiographies for publication producing a self serving account
  • danger of misinterpretation
  • words may have changed meaning since written or have to convert into to different language
22
Q

what do positivists think about documents?

A
  • unreliable because not standardised so hard to compile and compare even if record same events
23
Q

who argues that some groups may not be represented in documents and which groups?

A

Scott

e.g. the illiterate and those without the time to keep diaries

24
Q

explain problems of availability with documents

A

not all survive or are available and the 30-year-rule prevents access to many official documents

25
Q

what is formal content analysis? and how does Gill describe how it works?

A

allows quantitative data to be produced
- if we want to measure how many female characters in the media are presented as being in paid work in magazine stories we select a representative sample of women’s magazine stories and decide on categories e.g. housewife, employee etc then study stories a place characters into categories, we can then quantify how women are categorised in the stories by counting up a number of times a category appears

26
Q

what do positivists think about content analysis?

A
  • they like it as it produces objective, representative, quantitative data from which generalisations can be made
  • reliable
  • can identify trends over time
27
Q

give an example of feminsts using content analysis?

A

Best analysed gender roles in children’s reading schemes and found women were presented in a range of different stereotypical roles

28
Q

why don’t interpretivists like content analysis?

A
  • lack validity - counting up how many time something appears tells us nothing of its meaning
  • not objective since drawing up categories and deciding where to place a case involves subjective value judgements of the sociologist
29
Q

what is Thematic analysis?

A

qualitative analysis of the content of media texts. usually involves selecting a small number of cases for in depth analysis, aim is to reveal underlying meanings that have been encoded in documents as a way of uncovering author’s ideological bias.

30
Q

give an example of the use of thematic analysis

A

Soothill and Walby on the way newspapers reported rape cases

31
Q

thematic analysis can be criticised for…

A
  • not being representative or generalisable to a wide range of documents
  • the tendency there is to select evidence that supports sociologists hypothesis
32
Q

what are the practical issues of content/thematic analysis?

A
  • cheap and easy to find sources

- analysing data can be very time consuming

33
Q

what are the ethical issues of secondary data?

A
  • few problems of confidentiality and privacy,
  • use of an organisations unpublished statistics may be unethical e.g. could affect a schools ability to attract pupils so in such cases consent and anonymity of organisation is important
  • before using any document containing information about a living individual the sociologist should obtai informed consent and ensure data doesn’t allow them to be identified
34
Q

how can government statistics help study crime?

A

annual publications for england and wales of crime, judicial and prison statistics e.g. British Crime survey

35
Q

there can be differences between official and sociological views of crime, what does Tombs point out?

A

that employer breaches of safety law are largely missed off official categories of violent crime

36
Q

counting offences can be problematic give an example of this

A

if a man assaults his wife multiple times how many crimes have been committed?

37
Q

British crime survey estimates police only record 60% of crimes reported to them why do the not report all?

A
  • too trivial

- didn’t believe victim

38
Q

once a crime is recorded it is categorised as cleared up why might this not be seen as cleared up for some people?

A

it includes crimes where the offender is below the age of criminal responsibility or the victim is unable to give evidence

39
Q

explain the practical issues of documents in relation to crime

A
  • criminal justice system creates huge quantity of official documents relating to crime
  • limited info on crimes of the powerful
  • some confidential
  • some crimes like suicide leave documentary evidence
  • documentary trail from fraud however extremely complex
40
Q

how did Vankatesh use documents?

A

was given access to gang accounts

41
Q

explain how Robb used documents to examine white collar crime

A

used reports of parliamentary committees, company records etc and found a huge range of accessible, relevant official documents

42
Q

explain the ethical issues concerning documents in relation to crime

A
  • may be subject to dispute as to whom an individuals criminal record belongs to
  • documentary evidence not standardised so not reliable
  • official documents may tilt study towards the perspective of law enforcement agencies
43
Q

how did Braithwaite study corporate crime with triangulation?

A

he used documents including reports from government investigations and conducted interviews with some of those involved in particular events

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