Statistics

Statistics

1. info that is already gathered or created called 'Secondary data' In this case the government

   • Quantitive data
   • Examples ; births, exam results, unemployment

2. Practicality

   • Cost: only the government can afford a large scale survey on this scale however it's cheap once obtained as it has been collected for them
   • Time: Data already collected so saves time
   • Comparison between groups - trends and patterns
   • 'Cause' and 'effect' relationsihps'
   • government may operationalise concepts different to how the sociologist would

3. Ethics

   • Very few; anonymous, private and confidential - BSA would favour
   • Legally obtained

4. Representativeness

   • highly representative
   • generalisations can be made

5. Reliability

   • Very repeatable
   • Trained researcher will conduct research the same way and come to the same conclusions

6. Validity : The 'Dark Figure'

   • Invalid
     • 'Soft stats' provide a less valid image , e.g. smoking marijuana isn't officially recorded by authorities - less than 50% of crimes are not reported; people, situations and groups get left out of stats = untrue picture

7. Positivists

   • Comte / Durkheim - Favour stats: quantative 'social facts' that are true, objective measures of behaviour in society
   • Interpretivism
     • Atkinson - attempt to create a 'reality' but only provide a snapshot of reality
     • Functionlism
       • help the government to make functional policies
       • Marxists
         • Reflect the bourgeoisie and their ideologies - e.g. only include crimes committed by the proletariat, ignoring the ruling class
         • Femisits
           • stats are patriarchal that drown out the voices/experiences of women