Secondary Sources

1
Secondary Sources

• This is data which already exists letters,
  diaries, novels, stats, newspapers, films etc etc
  It can be in either quantitative or qualitative
  form

2
Official Statistics

• This mainly refers to data already in existence
  having been collected by governments, for
  example, statistics relating to births,
  marriages, deaths, health, crime, the economy and
  so on.
• Official statistics are seen as scientific
  because they are collected in a highly
  standardised way. For example, births, marriages,
  divorces and deaths have to be registered, by
  law. Government surveys such as the Census, the
  General Household Survey and the British Crime
  Survey are viewed as highly reliable and
  objective in their design,

3
Official Statistics - Advantages

• They are readily available
• Sample sizes are large better
  representativeness
• Usually well planned and detailed questionnaires
• Their use saves time, effort and money.

4
Official Statistics - Advantages

• They have been scientifically collected.
• They give a wide-ranging picture of social
  phenomena.
• They have excellent comparative value in that
  they allow examination of trends over time.

5
Official Statistics - Disadvantages

• Sociologists must ask how they are created.
• Atkinson found coroners in different countries
  gave different verdicts to the same deaths.
• Stats are social creations (man/woman made)

6
Official Statistics - Disadvantages

• Official stats may have political bias
• The definition of unemployment has changed many
  times to make the figures look better.
• Stats dont always give the whole picture
• Crime figures dont tell us about the dark
  figure (unreported and unrecorded crime)

7
Official Statistics theoretical issues

• Positivists
• See them as providing essential quantitative
  data. Useful for looking at correlations.
  Durkheim used stats on suicide to help establish
  sociology as the science of society
• Interpretivists
• Stats are not facts but are social creations
  (man/woman made). They are not objective
  realities but constructed by people. E.g.
  Atkinson showed how suicide stats are the results
  of coroners decisions about death
  classifications these can vary from coroner to
  coroner and country to country.
• Marxists
• See stats as tools of the ruling class. They are
  used to justify the established order in
  capitalist systems.

8
Documents

• Covers a wide range of written material
  letters, diaries, memoirs, novels, newspapers,
  photos, music recordings etc
• Ray Pawson gives 3 main ways in which documents
  are analysed by sociologists
• Formal Content Analysis
• Thematic Analysis
• Textual Analysis

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Documents

• Formal Content Analysis
• Objective way of classifying and quantifying a
  documents contents
• e.g. how many female roles are displayed in a
  childs book
• These are simply counted and interpreted

10
Documents

• Formal Content Analysis
• Critics say it says little about the meaning of a
  document either what the producer intended or
  what the audience attaches to it

11
Documents

• Thematic Analysis
• This looks for motives behind the document
• Does a news report favour powerful groups in
  society?
• The Glasgow University Media Group looked at the
  reporting of strikes in the 1970-80s

12
Documents

• Thematic Analysis
• Critics ask whether the sociologists
  interpretation is correct.
• Even if it is does it matter?
• eg. Many Sun readers ignore or see through the
  right wing bias.

13
Documents

• Textual Analysis
• The text is closely examined to see if it gives a
  particular impression
• Gay footballer hands in transfer request
• what does this say?

14
Documents

• Textual Analysis
• Critics again point to the possibility of reading
  things into the text which may not be there

15
Audience Research

• Some researchers argue that the focus of research
  should be the audience and how they interact with
  the media and what they use it for!

16
Audience Research

• Kitzinger 1993
• She used The News Game
• Groups from different backgrounds were given 13
  photos of AIDS and asked to write a news report
• She found that they were able to select their own
  interpretations of the news
• i.e. people do read between the lines of the news
  they watch/read about

17
Audience Research

• Philo 2002
• Looked at BBC and ITN news reports of the
  Israel/Palestine conflict
• They showed the reports to 300 17-22 year olds
• The reports made little reference to the
  background of the conflict
• When asked why Palestinians distrust the USA
• 66 has no idea
• Most people watching the reports had little idea
  what it was all about.

18
Historical Documents

• Historical documents such as government reports
  and White Papers, historical treatises, diaries
  and even novels from a particular period may add
  qualitative insight into the evolution of social
  phenomena and problems.
• For example, police documents from the 1930s and
  1940s may give us invaluable insight into modern
  policing methods.
• The novels of Dickens may give us insight into
  poverty in the nineteenth century whilst those of
  Jane Austen may help us understand gender
  relations in the early nineteenth century.

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Historical Documents

• Using Historical documents
• Often very subjective accounts
• Bias and prejudice mean that the sociologist must
  treat with care
• However they can provide a rich in depth view of
  what life was like in a bygone age.
• Anne Franks diary shows us a deep insight into
  life under Nazi rule in Holland
• Interpretations of such documents can differ
  according to the researchers views, background
  etc

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Assessing Historical Documents

• John Scott 1990
• Gives 4 quality controls for assessing the
  usefulness of historical documents
• 1. Authenticity
• Is it genuine?
• The Hitler diaries in the 1980s were found to be
  forgeries but fooled top historians at first.

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Assessing Historical Documents

• 2. Credibility
• Is the author sincere? Or does he/she distort
  things
• And how do you know?
• Check against other material from the same era

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Assessing Historical Documents

• 3. Representativeness
• Is it typical?
• Does it fit in with other accounts from the same
  time?
• This can be difficult to assess if few documents
  from the same era have survived

23
Assessing Historical Documents

• 4. Meaning
• Literal meaning of the text problems with
  language
• But also the meanings and significance are
  these clear?
• Often such meanings can never be settled and we
  rely on assumptions

24
Personal Documents

• These are documents used by sociologists which
  record part of an individuals life. Some of
  these documents may be in their own words, for
  example, in the form of a diary, letters or
  autobiography.
• They may be in the words of others, for example,
  biographies. The use of biographies by
  sociologists is further complicated by the fact
  that they are likely to be based on historical
  documents, with their potential drawbacks, as we
  have seen.
• Gordon Marshall notes that use of personal
  documents may even stretch to the analysis of
  photographs and gravestones.

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Personal Documents

• Some sociologists may ask people taking part in
  their research to keep a diary documenting their
  activities and feelings.
• For example, Ann Oakley asked women in her study
  of housework to report activities occupying each
  hour of the day. This is known as time-budgeting.
  
• This type of method is regarded as very
  comprehensive because it focuses on aspects of
  behaviour which are very difficult to anticipate
  in questionnaires and interviews.

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Personal Documents

• However, some sociologists suggest that this
  method is too subjective because it is
  over-dependent on the interpretation of the
  subjects. They may be more concerned with
  justifying their activities than with objectively
  recounting their experiences.
• Life histories or autobiographies may also be
  elicited through oral interviews. Survivors of
  particular historical and eras and events such as
  the First World War and the Holocaust may be able
  to give sociologists important first-hand
  information about their experience of such
  events. Older relatives may be able to give us
  insight into experience of social policies such
  as the tripartite education system which we are
  unable to glean from textbooks.

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Personal Documents

• However, life histories can be problematic. The
  people whose memories we use may not be
  representative of the population. Their recall of
  facts from the past may not be accurate or may be
  overly subjective and therefore biased.

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Other Types Of research

• Case Studies
• Case Studies look at a single example of
  something a workplace, an individual

• a school (like Willis)

• a religious group (Barker and The Moonies

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Case Studies

• Advantages
• By focusing on one case they provide rich
  detailed information
• Can help to provide info for larger research
  projects
• Theories can be tested to see if they apply in
  particular situations
• Eg. Labelling in schools, the degree of
  secularisation in a town

30
Case Studies

• Disdvantages
• Seen as limited and unrepresentative
• They are one offs and generalisations cant be
  made

31
Longitudinal studies

• These are studies over a period of time
  remember the 7UP progs though this is not a
  sociological study.

32
Longitudinal studies

• Parker 1999
• Looked at illegal drug use between 1991-5 in
  Merseyside Greater Manchester
• At the start they were 14 at the end they were 18
• This helped to look at drug experimenting over
  this key period of youth development
• Just in case u were wondering cannabis was the
  most used

33
Longitudinal studies

• Advantages
• Looks at events over time
• Changes in attitudes, behaviour even society
  itself can be observed

34
Longitudinal studies

• Disadvantages
• Time consuming and expensive
• Keeping the same sample is difficult
• People drop out
• National Child Development Study started in 1958
  with over 17000 children
• By 1999 this was down to 11000
• People die, emigrate, refuse to take part etc

35
The Comparative Method

• These simply make comparisons between different
  societies or between groups within the same
  society or within groups/societies over a
  period of time

36
The Comparative Method

• Durkheim Suicide
• Durkheim compared suicide rates across different
  European countries
• And between groups within countries
• This led him to conclude that Catholics have
  lower suicide rates than Protestants
• See Suicide notes
• Marx used the comparative approach in his
  research on Capitalism

37
The Comparative Method

• A Natural lab
• Although the variables cant be controlled
• This method allows use of natural labs
• e.g. Europe provided a natural lab for Durkheim

38
The Comparative Method

• Cross-cultural studies
• Comparing different countries, cultures,
  sub-cultures etc helps us to understand the
  nature/nurture debate
• e.g. Gender differences in different countries
  point to the importance of culture rather than
  nature

39
The Comparative Method

• The comparative method has its advantages but it
  does pose problems when comparing cross cultural
  factors.
• Was Durkheim comparing the same thing in
  different countries? Atkinson didnt think so
  when he compared English and Danish coroners

40
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Since the 1990s especially, sociologists have
  tended to use the terms triangulation or
  methodological pluralism to describe mixing
  different methods.
• Often these terms are used interchangeably.
  However, they do not mean exactly the same thing.

41
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Triangulation
• can be defined as the use of more than one method
  of research in order to assess the validity of
  ones research methods and especially of the data
  produced.
• Usually, it involves the use of a method which
  generates quantitative data this may be primary
  data from a survey or secondary data from
  official sources.
• More often than not, this is combined with a more
  interactive method such as unstructured
  interviews or observation, which generate
  qualitative data.

42
Triangulation
Observation
Interviews
Questionnaires
43
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Methodological pluralism
• refers to the employment by the social researcher
  of more than one method of research, but the
  emphasis here is not on the validity of the data,
  as with triangulation.
• Rather, it is to build up a fuller and more
  comprehensive picture of social life.

44
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• For example, I might be interested in the
  distinction between what people say they do and
  what they actually do. I can acquire information
  by using interviews to explore what people think,
  say and believe and then use observation to find
  out whether they put what they say into practice
  or not.

45
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• The two methods elicit different types of data
  and also act as a form of check on the
  reliability of the methods used. Such an approach
  is useful because the advantages of one method
  may help compensate for, and at least partially
  overcome, the limitations of another

46
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Advantages
• Gives a more complete picture of the group being
  studied
• Qualitative and Quantitative data can be used to
  check on the accuracy of the conclusion
• Reliability and validity are both covered
• Qual research can help to explain correlations
  found in quan research
• 2. Qual research can provide the hypothesis
• - quan research can check it

47
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Disdvantages
• Time consuming and expensive
• Can lead to conflicting evidence

48
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Eileen Barker
• Making Of A Moonie 1984
• In the 1970s Barker studied the Unification
  Church (Moonies)
• They had been accused of brainwashing and
  breaking up families

49
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Famous for mass weddings only 60,000 at this one

50
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• These intended spouses were 1000s of miles away
  so sent a pic instead!

51
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• Barker used 3 main methods
• In-depth interviews (6-8 hrs)
• Participant Observation (at several centres over
  the 7 years)
• 42 page questionnaire
• Her research lasted 7 years

52
Triangulation Methodological Pluralism

• She believed her approach gave her much fuller
  information than any one data source could have
  done.