Sociology-theory and methods-quantitative research methods

Question 1

What are the three types of issues in sociological research?

Answer 1

PET issues: practical, ethical and theoretical

Question 2

What are the practical issues?

Answer 2

Time, money, requirements of funding bodies, personal skills and characteristics of researchers, subject matter of the study, and the research opportunity

Question 3

What are the ethical issues?

Answer 3

Informed consent, confidentiality and privacy, harmful effects, vulnerable groups, and covert methods

Question 4

What are the theoretical issues?

Answer 4

Reliability, validity and representativeness (also methodological perspective)

Question 5

What are the two methodological perspectives?

Answer 5

Positivism and interpretivism

Question 6

What are interpretivists?

Answer 6

Those who take an interpretivist perspective prefer research methods that produce qualitative data-that is, information that gives us a ‘feel’ for what something is like. These methods include unstructured interviews, participant observation and the analysis of personal documents

Question 7

What are positivists?

Answer 7

Sociologists who adopt a positivist perspective prefer research methods that produce quantitative data-that is, information in numerical or statistical form

Question 8

What do positivists believe about sociology?

Answer 8

They believe that sociology can and should model its research methods on those of the natural sciences such as physics and chemistry. In their view, this will produce objective, true, scientific knowledge of society

Question 9

How do positivists see society?

Answer 9

As an objective reality made up of social facts that exist ‘out there’, just like the physical world that natural scientists study. Like physical reality, social reality is not random; rather, it follows patterns that can be observed and measured. For example, there are clear social patterns of educational achievement and underachievement

Question 10

In the view of positivists, why do patterns in society exist?

Answer 10

These patterns exist because society exerts an influence over its members, systematically shaping their behaviour in various ways. Positivists believe that through careful observation and measurement, they can discover laws of cause and effect that explain these social patterns, just as physicists and chemists have discovered laws that determine the patterns we find in nature, such as the law of gravity

Question 11

How do sociologists uncover and explain the patterns of behaviour and their causes?

Answer 11

Positivists use quantitative data. For example, quantitative data on exam results may show class differences in achievement. By correlating this with other quantitative data on class differences in income, we may be able to show that low income is a cause of underachievement

Question 12

What are the quantitative research methods?

Answer 12

Laboratory experiments, field experiments (+ the comparative method), questionnaires, structured interviews, official statistics

Question 13

When are laboratory experiments used?

Answer 13

In many of the natural sciences they are the main means by which scientists gather data, test theories and discover scientific laws of cause and effect. Similarly, positivist sociologists, who model their approach to research on the logic and methods of the natural sciences, may also occasionally use lab experiments. However, sociologists often also use two other kinds of experiment in their research: field experiments and the comparative method

Question 14

What are the key features of laboratory experiments?

Answer 14

Control, and cause and effect

Question 15

Why is control a key feature of lab experiments?

Answer 15

A lab experiment is a controlled experiment. The lab is an artificial environment in which the scientist can control different variables in order to discover what effect they have. In this way, the scientist can test hypotheses about the cause of a phenomenon, with the aim of discovering a causal law

Question 16

What happens in a lab experiment?

Answer 16

The researcher first takes a set of subjects. These must be identical in all relevant respects. They are then divided at random into two groups-an experimental group and a control group-these are both treated separately

Question 17

Why is cause and effect a key feature of lab experiments?

Answer 17

The condition of both groups is measured before the experiment starts and again at the end. If we discover a change in the experimental group but none in the control group, we may conclude that this was caused by the different treatments the two groups received. In other words, by following the logic of the experimental method, we can discover cause-and-effect relationships. This allows us to predict what will happen under the same conditions in the future

Question 18

How often are lab experiments used?

Answer 18

While laboratory experiments are the basic research method in most natural sciences, they are rarely used in sociology. There are a number of practical, ethical and theoretical reasons for this

Question 19

What are the practical issues of lab experiments?

Answer 19

Open systems, individuals are complex, studying the past, small samples, the Hawthorne effect, and the expectancy effect

Question 20

What is the ‘open systems’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 20

Sociologists such as Keat and Urry argue lab experiments are only suitable for studying closed systems where the researcher can control and measure all the relevant variables and make precise predictions, as in physics or chemistry. However, society is an open system where countless factors are at work in any given situation, interacting with each other in complex ways. This makes it impossible for the researcher even to identify, let alone control, all the relevant variables. This makes lab experiments unsuitable for studying social phenomena

Question 21

What is the ‘individuals are complex’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 21

Individuals are complex and therefore it is not really possible to ‘match’ the members of the control and experimental groups exactly. While we can find identical samples of chemicals, no two human beings are exactly alike

Question 22

What is the ‘studying the past’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 22

Lab experiments cannot be used to study an event in the past, since we cannot control variables that were acting in the past rather than the present. Nor can we keep people in lab conditions for long time periods so they can be studied

Question 23

What is the ‘small samples’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 23

Lab experiments can usually only study small samples making it very difficult to investigate large-scale social phenomena. Eg, we cannot study all or even a large sample of the members of a major religion. Small samples also bring the risk that a result that appears to show one variable causing another, may in fact just be a chance correlation between the two

Question 24

What is the ‘Hawthorne effect’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 24

A lab experiment is an artificial environment and any behaviour that occurs in it may also be artificial, in particular if the subjects know they are being experimented on. This may make them act differently. This is the experimental, or Hawthorne, effect, named after the experiments in 1920s at the Hawthorne factory where it was first observed. This ‘subject reactivity’ will of course ruin the experiment, as it reduces validity

Question 25

What is the ‘expectancy effect’ practical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 25

The expectancy effect is a form of experimenter bias. It refers to the fact that what a researcher expects to happen in the experiment can affect its actual outcome. This can occur by the experimenter consciously or unconsciously treating the subjects in such a way that it influences how they respond and produces the result in the experimenter expected

Question 26

What are the ethical issues of lab experiments?

Answer 26

Informed consent, and harm to subjects

Question 27

What is the ‘informed consent’ ethical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 27

Researcher needs informed consent of subjects of the experiment, meaning gathering their agreement to take part, having first explained to them in terms they can understand, the nature and purpose of the experiment, what risks and effects there may be, and the uses to which the findings will be put. However, sometimes explaining the aim beforehand will be self defeating, so for the experiment to work the subjects must be perceived to stop the Hawthorne effect

Question 28

What is the ‘harm to subjects’ ethical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 28

Research should not normally harm the participants. However, some argue minor or temporary harm may be justified ethically if the results yield significant social benefits. Research should also seek to do good. Where an experiment is seen to be benefiting the experimental group, there is an ethical case for halting the experiment and making the same treatment available to the control group. This is done in medical experiments, and also in sociological experiments eg in education with different teaching methods to see which is more effective

Question 29

What are the theoretical issues of lab experiments?

Answer 29

Reliability and hypothesis testing, representativeness, internal validity, and interpretivism and free will

Question 30

What are positivists view of lab experiments?

Answer 30

For positivists, lab experiments have a major theoretical strength-their reliability. However, in other respects they suffer from important limitations even from a positivist perspective

Question 31

What are interpretivists views of lab experiments?

Answer 31

They criticise lab experiments as lacking validity and as unsuitable for studying actors’ meanings

Question 32

What is a reliable method?

Answer 32

One that can be replicated-repeated exactly in every detail by other researchers to obtain the same results. Positivists see reliability as important because it enables us to check the work of other researchers by repeating it. If we can repeat the research and arrive at the same results, we can have more confidence that the original findings are true

Question 33

Why do positivists regard lab experiments as highly reliable?

Answer 33

The original experimenter can control the conditions and specify the precise steps that were followed in the original experiment, so others can easily repeat these steps to re-run it. It produces quantitative data so results can be easily compared to the original. It is a very detached and objective method; the researcher merely manipulates the variables and records the result, their subjective feelings and values have no effect on the conduct or outcome of the experiment

Question 34

Why are lab experiments good for hypothesis testing?

Answer 34

Because lab experiments can isolate and control any variable tat is of interest to the researcher, they are also an effective way to test hypotheses and predictions. If we believe a particular variable is the cause of a phenomenon, we simply set up an experiment where an experimental group is exposed to that variable and a control group is not, and then compare the outcomes

Question 35

What do positivists say about representativeness?

Answer 35

For positivists, representativeness is important because they aim to make generalisations about how the wider social structure shapes individuals’ behaviour. However, with lab experiments there is a danger that their findings lack external validity. That is, we cannot be confident they are true for the wider population-there are two reasons for this

Question 36

What is the first reason why lab experiments lack representativeness?

Answer 36

Because experiments can only study small samples, there is a greater risk that they are not a representative cross-section of the population the researcher is interested in. If so, the findings cannot be generalised beyond the experiment itself

Question 37

What is the second reason why lab experiments lack representativeness?

Answer 37

Lack of external validity arises out of the high level of control the experimenter has. Control over the conditions in the experiment is valuable, because it enables us to establish that a particular variable causes a particular effect. On the other hand, however, the higher the level of control we have over the experiment, the more unnatural the circumstances this creates-which may not be at all true of the world outside the lab

Question 38

What is the ‘internal validity’ theoretical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 38

Lab experiments may also lack internal validity. That is, their findings may not even be true for the subjects of the experiment itself, let alone the wider world. One reason for this is he artificiality of the lab environment. This may encourage the Hawthorne effect, where the subjects react simply to being studied, and do so in ways that produce invalid results

Question 39

What is the ‘interpretivism and free will’ theoretical issue of lab experiments?

Answer 39

Interpretivists argue human beings are fundamentally different from plants, rocks and other natural phenomena that natural scientists study. Unlike these objects, we have free will and choice. Our behaviour is not ‘caused’ by external forces, so it cannot be explained in terms of cause-and-effect statements, a positivists believe. Instead, our actions can only be understood in terms of the choices we freely make on the basis of the meanings we give to events. For interpretivists, therefore, the lab experiment, with its search for causes, is a fundamentally inappropriate method for studying human beings

Question 40

Why were lab experiments and the comparative method developed?

Answer 40

To seek to identify causes, but they aim to overcome the unnaturalness and lack of validity of lab experiments

Question 41

How do field experiments differ from lab experiments?

Answer 41

It takes place in the subject’s natural surroundings (rather than in an artificial lab environment). Those involved do not know they are the subjects (of an experiment, thereby avoiding the Hawthorne effect)

Question 42

What happens in a field experiment?

Answer 42

The researcher isolates and manipulates one or more of the variables in the situation to see what effect is has on the unwitting subjects of the experiment. Eg Rosenthal and Jacobson manipulated teachers’ expectations about pupils by giving them misleading information about the pupils’ abilities in order to discover what effects this had on the children’s achievement

Question 43

What are actor tests and correspondence tests?

Answer 43

They are also types of field experiment. Eg, to test the hypothesis that there is racial discrimination in employment, Brown and Gay sent a white actor and a black actor for interviews for the same posts, to see which one would be offered the job. The actors were of different ethnicity, but matched for age, gender, qualifications etc. Similarly, in a correspondence test, Wood et al sent closely matched job applications for almost 1000 vacancies, apparently from three applicants of different ethnicity

Question 44

What do studies such as Brown and Gay, and Wood et al show?

Answer 44

They show the value of field experiments. They are more natural and valid for real life, and they avoid the artificiality of lab experiments, however there is a trade-off between naturalism and control: the more natural and realistic the situation is made, the less control we have over the variables that might be operating. If so, we cannot be certain that we have identified the true cause. Eg while it may have been racism that resulted in the white actor getting more job offers, we cannot be certain, because Brown and Gay could not control (or even know) all the other variables in the situation

Question 45

What do critics argue about field experiments?

Answer 45

They argue they are unethical, since they involve carrying out an experiment on subjects without their knowledge or consent. However, it can be argued that in the case of Brown and Gay’s and Noon’s experiments, although the researchers did deceive their subjects (the employers), no harm was done, and something of value to society was learnt as a result

Question 46

What is the comparative method?

Answer 46

It is carried out only in the mind of the sociologist. It is a ‘thought experiment’-sometimes called a ‘natural experiment’. It does not involve the researcher actually experimenting on real people at all. Instead it usually relies on re-analysing secondary data that has already been collected. However, like the lab experiment, it too is designed to discover cause-and-effect relationships

Question 47

How are ‘thought experiment’s’ carried out?

Answer 47

Identify two groups that are alike in all major respects except for the one variable we are interested in, then compare the two groups to see if this one difference between them has any effect

Question 48

What is the most famous example of the comparative method?

Answer 48

Durkheim’s classic study of suicide, which relied on analysing official statistics

Question 49

In seeking to discover cause-and-effect relationships, what advantages does the comparative method have over lab experiments?

Answer 49

It avoids artificiality, it can be used to study past events, and it avoids the ethical problems of harming or deceiving subjects

Question 50

What are the disadvantages of the comparative method?

Answer 50

The researcher has even less control over variables than field experiments do, so we can be even less certain whether a thought experiment really has discovered the cause of something

Question 51

What are questionnaires?

Answer 51

They ask people to provide written answers to pre-set, written questions, which can be closed-ended or open-ended

Question 52

What are the practical strengths of questionnaires?

Answer 52

Quick and cheap way to gather large amounts of quantitative data from large numbers of people widely spread geographically. There is no need to recruit and train interviewers-respondents complete the questions themselves. Data is usually easy to quantify, particularly where pre-coded questions are used, and can be computer processed to reveal relationships between variables

Question 53

What are the limitations of questionnaires?

Answer 53

Data is often limited and superficial as questionnaires need to be fairly brief to increase completion rate. May be necessary to offer incentives to persuade completion which adds to costs. Cannot be sure who filled in questionnaire with postal or emailed questionnaires. Very low response rate-can be increased by sending follow-up questionnaires or by collecting them by hand but this adds cost and time. They are inflexible and questions can’t be changed. Questionnaire is drawn up in advance so researcher must have some knowledge of the subject already and a clear hypothesis to test. Also they are only snapshots that fail to capture the way people’s attitudes and behaviour change

Question 54

For positivists, what are the theoretical points for questionnaires?

Answer 54

Hypothesis testing, reliability, representativeness, and detachment and objectivity

Question 55

What do positivists believe about hypothesis testing and questionnaires?

Answer 55

They model their approach on natural sciences and seek to discover laws of cause and effect. Questionnaires are attractive to positivists because they enable them to test hypotheses and identify possible cause-and effect relationship between different factors/variables. For scientists to test the hypothesis that variable A causes variable B, they must first establish whether there is correlation between the two

Question 56

What are correlations?

Answer 56

A correlation is a pattern of relationship between variables-for example, between social class and educational achievement

Question 57

Why can questionnaires establish correlations?

Answer 57

Because they yield quantitative data about the links between different variables. For example, by correlating respondents’ answers to a question about their occupation and one about their level of education, we might be able to make the generalisation that working class people are less likely to go to university

Question 58

What happens once the correlation has been established?

Answer 58

We can construct a hypothesis about its possible cause, for example, working class people are less likely to go to university, because of material deprivation. In turn, this can be tested with a further questionnaire. In this way, laws of cause and effect can be discovered, just as in the natural sciences

Question 59

Why do positivists find reliability important?

Answer 59

Because it allows a scientist’s findings to be checked and confirmed or falsified by others. If others can repeat research and obtain the same results, we can have more confidence that its findings are true

Question 60

Why are questionnaires considered to be reliable?

Answer 60

They are regarded as a reliable method of collecting data because when we repeat someone’s research we can use a questionnaire that is identical to the original one, so new respondents are asked the exact same questions. It is a standardised measuring instrument. If we do find differences in answers we can assume these are the result of real differences between respondents and not because of different questions and so it allows us to make comparisons

Question 61

Why is representativeness important to positivist?

Answer 61

Because they are macro, structural theorists that aim to make generalisations about how the wider social structure shapes out behaviour

Question 62

Why are questionnaires more likely to yield representative data?

Answer 62

Because they are large scale (can be distributed quickly and cheaply by post or email over wide geographical areas and can collect informations from large samples of people so findings are more likely to represent the wider population) and they use representative samples (researchers using them tend to use more sophisticated sampling techniques designed to obtain a representative sample)

Question 63

Although questionnaires are representative, how can this be undermined?

Answer 63

Their representativeness can be undermined by low response rate, especially if those who do return their questionnaires are different in some ways from those who don’t (eg the better educated). If so, this will produce distorted and unrepresentative results, from which no accurate generalisations can be made

Question 64

Why is the detachment and objectivity of questionnaires important to positivists?

Answer 64

For positivists, scientific research is objective (unbiased) and detached. Scientists own subjective opinions and values must be kept separate from research and not allowed to ‘contaminate’ subject matter or findings in any way. Questionnaires are detached and scientific where personal involvement of sociologist are kept to a minimum, eg with postal questionnaires that are completed in a different location with little or no personal contact between respondent and researcher

Question 65

For interpretivists, what are the theoretical points for questionnaires?

Answer 65

detachment, lying, forgetting and trying to impress, and imposing the researcher’s meanings

Question 66

What do interpretivists believe about questionnaires and detachment?

Answer 66

They reject detachment and objectivity as it fails to produce a valid picture of actors’ meanings-for valid data we need to gain subjective understanding of meanings and see the world through the subjects’ eyes. Questionnaires fail to do this due to their detachment making it impossible to clarify understanding which can lead to invalid data, especially when there are cultural or language differences between researcher and respondent

Question 67

What do interpretivists believe about questionnaires and lying/forgetting/trying to impress?

Answer 67

Validity depends on willingness/ability of respondent to provide full/accurate answers. Lying/forgetting/lack of understanding decrease validity, eg Schofield’s research on sexual behaviour of teenagers where a girl answered ‘no, not yet’ to the question ‘are you a virgin?’. Similarly respondents may try to please/second-guess the researcher or impress them (social desirability) rather than being truthful. It is often impossible to confirm whether respondents are telling the truth or not which is why interpretivists often favour observation which show a true picture (at least, a truer picture)

Question 68

What do interpretivists believe about questionnaires and imposing the researchers’ meanings?

Answer 68

Interpretivists feel it’s important our research methods reveal meanings of social actors we are studying. Questionnaires are more likely to impose researchers’ framework of ideas on respondent than to reveal respondent’s meanings eg questions are chosen in advance so the researcher has already decided what is/isn’t important. Also whatever type of questions are used risk distorting the reality and undermining validity

Question 69

How do interpretivists see closed-ended questions, in relation to imposing researchers’ meanings?

Answer 69

They are a kind of straightjacket where respondents have to try and fir their views into the answers on offer. If they feel some other answer to be important, they have no opportunity to express it

Question 70

How do interpretivists see open-ended questions, in relation to imposing researchers’ meanings?

Answer 70

They allow respondents to give whatever answer they wish, but when the researcher codes them to produce quantitative data, non-identical answers may get put together. As Shipman says, when the researcher’s categories are not the respondent’s categories, ‘pruning and bending’ of the data is inevitable

Question 71

What are feminist views on questionnaires?

Answer 71

Some feminists are critical of the use of survey methods such as questionnaires and structured interviews

Question 72

What are the different types of interviews that can be carried out?

Answer 72

Structured, unstructured, or semi-structured

Question 73

How do structured interviews differ from questionnaires?

Answer 73

The main difference is that in a structured interview, the questions are read out and the answers are filled in by a trained interviewer, rather than by the interviewee. Interviews thus involve a social interaction between interviewer and interviewee, whereas with written questionnaires the respondent usually answers the questions without the researcher’s involvement

Question 74

What are the practical issues of structured interviews?

Answer 74

Large amount of people quick and cheap (Young and Willmott). Suitable for straightforward information. Results are easily quantified as they are closed-ended with pre-coded answers so they’re suitable for hypothesis testing. Less training needed (cheaper). Response rates are usually higher than questionnaires as it is face-to-face. Inflexible as schedule and questions are drawn up in advance. Researchers may need some knowledge and a hypothesis which makes them unsuitable for unfamiliar topics. Only snapshots of one moment in time and fail to capture the dynamic nature of social life

Question 75

For positivists, what are the theoretical issues with structured interviwes?

Answer 75

Hypothesis testing, reliability and representativeness

Question 76

What do positivists believe about hypothesis testing and structured interviews?

Answer 76

Structured interviews enable to test hypotheses and identify possible cause-and-effect relationships. They can establish correlations between variables by analysing interviewee’s answers allowing generalisations of behaviour patterns to be made. Once correlations are established, hypothesis about possible cause can be constructed and tested with further interviews to discover causal laws, just as in natural sciences

Question 77

What do positivists believe about reliability and structured interviews?

Answer 77

Interviewers can be trained to conduct interviews in precisely same way with same questions, wording, order, tone of voice etc. These procedures are easy to replicate as don’t depend on personal characteristics of researcher. Pre-coded answers to questions mean answers can be categorised in same way as original researcher. This means answers can be compared easily to identify similarities and differences

Question 78

What do positivists believe about representativeness and structured interviews?

Answer 78

Structured interviews are relatively quick/cheap so large numbers can be surveyed increasing chances of obtaining representative sample. Relatively high response rates and sophisticated sampling techniques often used to help improve representativeness. Makes structured interviews attractive to positivists as representativeness means generalisations and cause and effect statements about wider population can be made-however those with time/willingness to be interviewed may be untypical making the findings unrepresentative and undermining validity of any generalisations made

Question 79

What do interpretivists believe about structured interviews?

Answer 79

Tend to produce a false picture due to often closed-ended questions (imposing researchers’ meanings), give interviewers little freedom to clarify and check understanding, people may lie or exaggerate (producing invalid findings), and the sociologist has to draw up interview schedule in advance and has to decide what is important (may be different to interviewee’s views, imposes researchers’ own meanings, and makes it harder to study unfamiliar topics) All interviews-structured or unstructured-are interaction situations and so interaction between interviewer and interviewee may undermined validity of the interview

Question 80

How do feminists feel about structured interviews?

Answer 80

Many reject survey methods such as structured interviews and questionnaires. Argue the relationship between researcher and researched reflects exploitative nature of gender relationships in patriarchal society

Question 81

What does Reinharz argue?

Answer 81

Goes so far as to call survey methods ‘research as rape’. “the researchers take, hit and run. They intrude into their subjects’ privacy…manipulate the relationships, and give little or nothing in return. When the needs of the researchers are satisfied, they break off contact with the subjects”

Question 82

What does Oakley argue about positivist approaches such as structured interviews?

Answer 82

Argues that this positivistic ‘masculine’ approach to research places a high value on objectivity, detachment and hierarchy, and regards ‘science’ as more important than furthering the interests of the people it researches. Therefore, interviews must remain detached and in control and avoid any personal involvement with interviewees, leading to a strict division of labour

Question 83

What is the strict division of labour in interviews?

Answer 83

The researcher takes the active role in asking the questions, and the interviewees have a passive role as mere objects of study, to be pushed for information by answering the questions-they have no role in deciding the subject or direction of the interview. This all mirrors the gender divisions and hierarchies of patriarchal society

Question 84

What does Graham argues about positivist approaches such as structured interviews?

Answer 84

Claims that questionnaires and structured interviews give distorted and invalid picture of women’s experience. They impose researchers’ own categories on women, making it difficult for them to express their experiences, and concealing the unequal power relationships between the sexes

Question 85

How do feminist views on positivism match interpretivist views?

Answer 85

Like interpretivists, Oakley and Graham argue that sociologists should use methods that allow the researcher to understand women’s experiences and viewpoint. For example, Graham advocates the use of direct observation, while Oakley argues for unstructured interviews

Question 86

What are official statistics?

Answer 86

Produced by government and similar official bodies, and are major source of quantitative secondary data, eg governments produce statistics on many areas of social life including births, marriages, deaths, exam results, school exclusions, crime, suicide, unemployment and health. The ten-yearly census of the entire UK population is a major source of statistics

Question 87

What are the several types of source for the information that is used to create official statistics?

Answer 87

Registration (eg law requires parents to register births). Official surveys (eg Census of General Household Survey). Administrative records (of state agencies such as hospitals, courts and schools. These include records of illnesses, convictions, truancy, etc)

Question 88

What are ‘non-official’ statistics?

Answer 88

As well as official statistics produced by government, various non-state organisations also produce ‘non-official’ statistics, eg churches produce membership and attendance statistics, while the charity Shelter produce statistics on homelessness

Question 89

What are the practical advantages of official statistics?

Answer 89

Free source of lots of quantitative data. Only state has resources and power to compel individuals to supply certain data. Allow comparisons between groups as everyone has to supply data for some statistics. Collected at regular intervals so can show trends and patterns over time

Question 90

What are the practical disadvantages of official statistics?

Answer 90

Government creates statistics for own purposes which may not benefit the sociologist. May be mismatches between sets of statistics eg stats on similar areas may cover slightly different areas. Definitions the state uses when collecting data may be different than sociologists (eg differing definitions of truancy/homelessness etc). Also the state may change their definitions over time and different states may define the same erm differently, making it difficult to compare across countries or over time

Question 91

What are positivists views on statistics?

Answer 91

See them as reliable, objective social facts that are very important resource in scientific study of society. They are also representative, quantitative data allowing to find patterns, test hypotheses and develop causal laws

Question 92

How are official statistics representative?

Answer 92

Very large scale, often covering the entire population. Also great care is taken with sampling procedures. However they may be less representative when they are only based on a sample of the relevant population

Question 93

How are official statistics reliable?

Answer 93

Compiled by trained staff who use standardised categories and collection techniques, and follow set procedures that can be easily replicated by others. This is especially true of official surveys such as the Census, and statistics from registration data. However they may not always be wholly reliable, eg Census coders may make errors or omit information when recording data from Census forms, or members of the public may fill in the form incorrectly

Question 94

What are interpretivists views on official statistics?

Answer 94

Interpretivists, such as Cicourel reject they are real objective social facts that exist in the world. They are actually just social constructs that reflect the labels officials attach to people so should not be taken at face value (topic not resource) eg suicide statistics just show the labels that coroners attach to deaths. For this reason, interpretivists are interested in studying the social processes, such as labelling and stereotyping, by which official statistics are constructed

Question 95

What two types of statistics are there?

Answer 95

Hard and soft statistics

Question 96

What are soft statistics?

Answer 96

Tend to give much less valid picture of reality. Often compiled from administrative records created by state agencies such as health service, police, courts, schools etc. What they represent is a record of decisions made by these agencies, rather than a picture of the world ‘out there’ eg truancy statistics represent number of pupils the school have defined as truanting, not necessarily the same thing as the number who actually truanted. These stats often neglect the ‘dark figure’ of unrecorded cases eg schools may keep record of racist incidents but pupils don’ report every incident and teachers don’t report every incidence that is reported

Question 97

What are hard statistics?

Answer 97

By contrast, these provide a much more valid picture. Eg they include stats on births, deaths, marriages and divorces. While a small number of births/deaths go unrecorded, we can place high level of trust in the validity of hard statistics. This is because there is little dispute as to how to define the categories used to collect data (eg birth, death) and they are often created from registration data that has a legal requirement to be completed

Question 98

What are marxist views on statistics?

Answer 98

Like interpretivists, they reject positivist claim that they are objective facts. However unlike interpretivists they don’t see them as merely outcome of labels applied by officials. Instead they regard them as serving the interests of capitalism. They create part of the ideological state apparatus that produce ruling-class ideology. As ideology, the function of official stats is to conceal or distort reality and maintain capitalist class in power

Question 99

What are the ideological functions of official statistics?

Answer 99

Politically sensitive data that would reveal unequal, exploitative nature of capitalism may not be published eg since 1980s data derived from analysis of Census returns no longer includes class differences in death rates. Definitions used in creating official stats also conceal true reality of capitalism eg state frequently changes its definition of unemployment, reducing numbers officially defined as unemployed. Similarly, social class categories used in official stats are based on occupation, giving impression of gradual hierarchy of several classes rather than conflict between the two opposed classes. It also conceals existence of ruling class

Question 100

What do critics argue about the Marxist view of official statistics?

Answer 100

Critics argue that not all official statistics reflect the interests of capitalism, eg statistics on differences in illness and life expectancy show clear evidence of class inequality

Question 101

How do feminists view official statistics?

Answer 101

Criticise them for many reasons. Oakley and Graham reject ‘masculine’ and patriarchal quantitative survey methods. Also they are created by the state which feminists regard as maintaining patriarchal oppression, so their statistics are a form of patriarchal ideology that conceals/legitimates gender inequality and maintain women’s subordination. The stats underestimate women’s economic contribution and reflect the patriarchal nature of the state

Question 102

What do critics argue about the feminist view of official statistics?

Answer 102

Not all official stats can be seen as reflecting patriarchy, some such as those on earnings from paid work show evidence of gender inequality (it isn’t hidden). There have also been changes in definitions used in official statistics that may reveal women’s position more clearly eg definitions of a families class no longer based on occupation of the male head of household, however as men are still more likely both to be the homeowner and to earn more so official statistics continue to give a distorted picture of gender and social class, which is why many feminists argue official stats should allocate women and men to a social class as individuals, not as households