secondary sources Flashcards
what are official stats
data gathered by larger organisations, e,g gov, other official bodies
statistics on birth, divorce, marriage, deaths e.g 10 year UK census
why may the government carry out data
changes in law making policies Ofsted + Department for Education may use stats on exam success and the gov makes changes to support people
the two ways of collecting official statistics
registration - law requires parents to register births
official surveys - census / general household survey
practical advantages of official statistics
free + huge amounts of data is accessible the gov holds the power to make large scale studies that is accessible
- stats allow for comparison between groups
- data collected as specific time intervals, we can measure the changes in patterns + trend overtime to show cause + effect
practical disadvantages of official statistics
gov uses stats for own purpose so there may be non in the field that a sociologist is interested in
Durkheim found there were no stats on the religion on the suicide victims
- definitions that the state uses may be different in a sociologists perspective e.g poverty / truancy
- definitions may change overtime so it is hard to compare changes in history e.g definitions of unemployment changes over 30 times in the1980s
advantages of official stats being representative
they have the power to have a large sample size by funding + people more willing to participate or required by law to offer information
so they can make more generalisations
stats like deaths + education are already known by institutions legally required e.g recording baby
disadvantages of official stats being representative
some statistics less representable e.g those carried out by compulsory education provide a more representable sample
studies on specific groups e.g the General Household Survey only focuses crime groups which most sociolgists can conduct themselves
reliability and secondary scources of data
they are completed in a standardised way and so they will be reliable as all participants will be treated the same - we can make comparisons of different participants
why may official stats not be very reliable
census coders may be make errors or omit info when recording data from census forms/ members of public may fill in form incorrectly
hard and soft statistics in giving valid data
hard stats do succeed in validity e.g statistics on the nubmer of deaths, marriages, divorce generally give accurate measurement, some births may go unrecorded
soft data less likely to give valid data because some things may go unrecorded
positvism and official stats
Durkheim likes these stats because they provide social facts. objective measures of true rates
they develop a hypothesis to investigate causes and effects
interpretivism and official statistics
Atkinson regard official stats as lacking validity
stats do not represent true things in society. statistics are socially constructed
e.g suicide rates are just what are ruled as suicide when it may not be a suicide at all
what is the Marxist view of official stats according to this marxists
Irvine - do not regard official stats as merely the outcome of labels applied by officials. instead statistics meet the needs of capitalism e.g in unemployment statistics
they change the definition of unemployment so that they decrease the number of people who seem to be unemployed
what are public documents
documents produced by government organisations , schools, welfare, radio, media
e.g Ofsted inspections , council meetings , parliamentary debates
black report
1980 - looks at inequalities in health, which became a major source of information for sociologists
personal documents
letters, diaries, photos albums, autobiographies
include personal experiences + feelings + attitudes
Znaniecki + Thomas the polish peasant in America
study of migration + social change. interactionists interested in people personal experiences of events
personal meaning that show the experience of the life of someone who has migrated.
documents included 764 letters that explore experiences of people who have migrated
historical documents
personal / public document created in the past
good for studying the past
- Peter Laslett used parish records in his study of family structure in pre - industrial England
- Michael Anderson used parliamentary reports of child labour + stats from 1851 census to study changes to study changes in family structure
Aries - used historical info to analyse the changes if childhood + the concept of it as socially constructed
assessing documents
Scott - when assessing info of documentaries general principles same as for any sociological evidence
authentic, representativeness, and meaning
- Authenticity- is it what it claims to be?, missing pages? e.g Hitler diaries were proven to be fakes
- credibility- is it believable? was the author sincere? e.g politicians may write a diary that is for their own importance Thomas and Znanzinecki may have lied about how good the experience in the USA was
- representativeness - is the information typical
- not all documents survive are the surviving ones the typical ones
- not all surviving documents are available for use
person may die before diary is put in use
- certain groups may be unrepresented e.g in the past the literate were those of power, what about the poor population???? - meaning - may need specialist skills to understand a document e.g translation, words change meaning over time
different sociologists may interpret differently
advantages of documents
-personal documents - enable researcher to get close to social actors reality, giving insight to true meanings
- documents may be only source of information e.g studying the past
- by providing another source of data, documents may offer an extra check on results found by primary results
- cheap source of data, someone else has already gathered the info
what is content analysis
method of dealing systematically with the content of documents
how does content analysis work according to this sociologist
Gill - first we decide on categories we will use
next we study the source and place the characteristics in the category we have decided on
we can count the numbers in each category, comparing the difference in women’s roles
how did Lobban use content analysis
she used it to identify gender roles in childrens reading schemes
how did Tuchman use content analysis
to analyse televisions portrayal of women
advantages of content analysis
- cheap
- usually easy to find sources of material in the form of newspapers
- useful source of objective data
