Secondary Data

Question 1

Official statistics

Answer 1

Collected by government and agencies
- Registrations e.g. births, marriages, deaths
- Official surveys e.g. census
- Administrative records e.g. hospitals, schools prisons
- Can also be non - state organisations like charities and businesses

Question 2

Official statistics strengths

Answer 2

• Less time
• Reliable
• Free
• Can compare different social groups
• Show trends + patterns
• No ethical issues

Question 3

Official statistics limitations

Answer 3

• No context/meaning
• Might not be available for specific topic
• Data can be mis matched
• State may use different definitions e.g. truancy or definitions may changer over time e.g. hate crime definitions had changed

Question 4

Prior research

Answer 4

Research carried out by other sociologists, on the same area or topic - can be quantitative or qualitative

Question 5

Prior research strengths

Answer 5

• Cheap
• Easy to access
• Quick

Question 6

Prior research limitations

Answer 6

Might not be the same area the researcher is investigating

Question 7

Public documents

Answer 7

• Produced by government departments, schools, charities e.g. Ofsted reports
• Reports of public enquiries e.g. Macpherson report
• First person accounts of social events and personal experiences e.g. letters, diaries, photos

Question 8

Historical documents

Answer 8

A personal or public document created in the past
E.g. Aries using art to investigate the social construction of childhood

Question 9

Documents strengths

Answer 9

P - only source of information, cheap
E - public documents mean no ethical issues
T - used along side other methods to check validity

Question 10

Document limitations

Answer 10

P - hard to access for personal documents
E - can’t get consent from historical people who are potentially dead e.g. Anne Frank
T - can be open to interpretation, can be bias

Question 11

Content analysis

Answer 11

• Method for dealing systematically with the contents of documents
• Turns qualitative into quantitative data
• Identifying categories, study the source, tally in each category e.g. representation of women’s employment in TV programmes
  E.g. Lobban (1978): analysed gender roles roles in reading schemes - found women’s roles to be limited and stereotypes

Question 12

Example of official statistics

Answer 12

Registrations of death, marriage, birth

Question 13

Example of public documents

Answer 13

Macpherson report in police institutional racism

Question 14

Example of personal documents

Answer 14

Diaries, letter, social media