Using Secondary Data

Question 1

Durkheim

Answer 1

Used official stats to identify patterns of suicide
Identified groups who were more likely to be victims of suicide and saw more common themes - they experienced high levels of anomie

Question 2

Anomie

Answer 2

Means the disappearance of norms / lack of usual social or ethical standards

Question 3

Hey

Answer 3

Analysed the notes of schoolgirls to investigate how girls make and maintain friendships.
At first they took them without permission but gave girls permission later.
Able to find out about invisible communications which girls used to build friendships

Question 4

Context analysis

Answer 4

Method of analysing data from a qualitative source

Question 5

Official statistics

Answer 5

Numerical data produced by the government, looking at a wide range of different aspects of social life

Question 6

Atkinson

Answer 6

Official stats about suicide are a reflection on the number of deaths coroner’s judge to be suicides based on their preconceptions of what a suicide is
E.g suicide note , mode of death

Question 7

Lobban

Answer 7

Completed a content analysis of reading schemes given to primary school children and analysed the roles of male and female characters.
- Saw roles heavily stereotyped
Quantified what she saw e.g counted up number of time women completed a typically “female” job - more objective

Question 8

Formal context analysis

Answer 8

Attempt to quantify data from a qualitative source ;

Researcher has predetermined things to look for and tallies up the number of times those things appear.

Question 9

Hard statistics

Answer 9

Numerical data which counts something that is factual

E.g number of births , deaths or GCSES awarded

Question 10

Higgins

Answer 10

Used statistics from the government which had collected data from school children about their attitudes to smoking
( to see if public health campaigns worked )
Same issues with questionnaires apply here e.g imposition problem

Question 11

Thomas and znanecki

Answer 11

Used letters of polish immigrants to the US to understand their experiences. Limited sample so no way of checking how representative it was.
Also - front stage people may have written what they wanted their families to know and ignored the darker side of their experiences.

Question 12

Thematic content analysis

Answer 12

Looking at qualitative source and identifying themes that appear within to uncover the ideology of the producer of the data

Question 13

Soft statistics

Answer 13

Numerical data shuck counts something that involves hums. Judgment e.g. number of schools classed as “outstanding”, number of deaths judged to be suicides.

Question 14

Census

Answer 14

Questionnaires filled in once every 10 years by every household in the UK. Large scale data which is readily available for sociologists but quickly out of date and may be some people missed e.g homeless

Question 15

Textual analysis

Answer 15

Looking at the language used in the data source and analysing what message is being conveyed by its author

Question 16

Shapiro and Humphreys

Answer 16

Compared blog of a US soldier today with letters and diaries of a US soldier in 1862. Found that despite the different means of communication, they had similar concerns but subjective Interpretation of texts used

Question 17

Political massaging

Answer 17

Manipulation of statistics by a government to make them look like they are doing a good job , managing the country in hopes of re - election