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
