rm - secondary sources

Question 1

What are official statics ?
what does include?

Answer 1

quantitative data gathered by government

• births, death, marriage and divorce ( hard stats - bc they are accurate)
• crime rate, exam results and unemployment ( soft stats)

Question 2

official statics
2 strengthen

2 weakness

Answer 2

1. useful for making comparison e.g between educational achievement and social class
2. free source of huge amount of quantitative data

weakness
1. government may use different language/words than sociologist this makes comparisons difficult

2.government collect data for their own purpose so might not be any data available for topic

Question 3

official statics in education
3 strengths
2 weakness

Answer 3

1. time and money = already published so they save their time and money

2.no ethical issues as they have already been gathered by schools so data is in numerical form

3.representative= schools have to complete the census around 3 times a year this means data gathered for every student

weakness
1. specific info they may need might not be available

2.not valid= schools may manipulate the data to make themselves look good for e.g they might no report the racist incidents or truancy.

Question 4

what are documents?

Answer 4

any written texts but also painting, photos and tv broadcast
documents can either be 3 things
1. personal documents = produced by private indivual such as letter, diaries and photographs
2. public documents = produced by gov such as meeting + reports
3. historical documents = documents that are created in past.

Question 5

Outline 2 advantages of using personal and historical documents

Answer 5

Using historical document, fewer ethical issues esp if it refers to someone who passed away
Personal documents are not written with a researcher in mind so they are an authentic statement of the writer’s views which makes it valid.

Question 6

Outline 2 advantage of using personal documents

Answer 6

Personal documents are not written with a researcher in mind so they are an authentic statement of the writer’s views which makes it valid.

Cheap and saves researcher time.

Question 7

Outline 2 problems of using personal documents in sociological research

Answer 7

If using personal documents from a living individual, their informed consent must be obtained and consent of anyone mentioned in the document.

Hard to get a hold of depending on the topic being studied personal documents are hard to get a hold of esp when studying a modern topic.

Question 8

outline 2 problems of using documents

Answer 8

It’s not always possible to access them gov reports can be classed as secret and may be difficult to obtain

Gov created the documents for their own use so may not include the specific information they need.

Question 9

documents in education
2 strengths
3 weakness

Answer 9

1. public documents are easily free and available often the via school website. when Gillborn was studying racism at school he used school policy documents. this gave him a insight on schools stance on racism

2.representaitve = can use wide range of documents from different schools

weakness
1. private docs are more difficult to access as students may not want to share their notes and diaries with the researcher

2. informed consent is also needed for using private docs

3.unreliable= both personal and public docs are gathered in different ways so research can not be replicated.

Question 10

using official statics to research education
4 strengths

Answer 10

1. saves time and money = official statics gather data from 1000 of schools and sociologist do not have the time to collect this sort of information.
2. able to make comparisons between different social groups
3. there are no ethical issues with this as data has already been gathered most of data is in stastical form so children , staff and parents confidentiality is maintained.
4. representative = schools have to consensus every 3 years therefore the data is gathered and available for researchers to use on every single school child.

Question 11

official statics
in education

2 weaknesses

Answer 11

gov carried out the data for their own needs which means specific information the sociologist need may not exist

• may not valid as schools may manipulate the data to make themselves look good for e.g they may higher truancy but do not record or the number of racist incidents are not recorded.

Question 12

using documents to research education

Answer 12

public docs are easily and freely available often via school website

public documents are available for anyone to see so there is no need to obtain informed consent

representative- documents have to be completed and by schools in the same way for e.g racist incidents can be collected from different schools making the data representative as have wider sample

Question 13

using documments in education
weaknesses

Answer 13

private documents are difficult to access and students may not want to share their notes or diaries with the researcher

informed consent is needed for personal documents.

unreliable = both public and personal gathered in different ways by the schools. schools may use a different system therefore research can not be replicated.