Topic 7 Secondary Sources Flashcards
(18 cards)
what are the 2 types of statistics?
official and non official
who favours statistics?
- positivists
what are the practical advantages of official statistics?
- cheap and readily available
- collected at regular intervals so show patterns over time
what are the practical disadvantages of statistics?
- the government collect for their own purpose so many not exist in all research areas
- definitions change over time making it hard to compare
what are the ethical advantages of statistics?
- readily available so no need to get informed consent
- no physical or psychological harm
what is the ethical disadvantage of statistics?
anonymity and confidentiality, GDPR regulations must be followed
why do positivists favour statistics?
- representative - cover a very large scale, some cover whole population, allow for generalisations
- reliable - compiled in a standardised way by trained staff, allow for comparisons
why do interpretivists dislike statistics?
- lacks validity - crime stats aren’t always recorded which creates a dark figure of crime
- lacks verstehen - don’t get reasons behind the statistics
what examples are there for official statistics?
- crime statistics
- education statistics, league tables
- durkheim - suicide statistics
what was Durkheim’s study of suicide statistics?
- compared the suicides rates between catholics and protestants
what are the practical advantages of documents?
- cheap and readily available
- only source of information about events in the past
what are the practical disadvantages of documents?
- lack of access - personal document may have been damaged which makes it difficult to obtain
- difficult to interpret - contain old language so make it difficult to understand
what are the ethical advantages of documents?
- no need to get informed consent from data in the public sphere so its quicker and easier
- no physical or psychological harm
what are the ethical disadvantages of documents?
- people who wrote the documents may not be alive to consent, invasion of privacy
- sensitive personal data in diaries
why do interpretivists favour documents?
- valid - highly truthful
- verstehen - can give insight into personal experiences
why do positivists dislike documents?
- not reliable - may not be from a credible author, can easily edited
- not representative - documents can go missing
What was Thomas and Zanecki’s study using documents?
- 764 letters polish immigrants at the university of chicago received from home
- explored relations between individuals and society
- polish community was shaped by culture and social ties rather than government policies
how many letters did thomas and zanecki study?
764
