secondary sources

What are official statistics & example

Quantitative secondary source of data collected & published by government or other official agencies

Often used to track social trends, assess policy impacts and identify areas for further research

E.g. the Office for National Statistics

E.g. Durkheim’s suicide study 1897

What are ‘hard statistics’

Quantitative data collected by government or official bodies (such as birth & death rates and education attainment data) that is a legal requirement to be documented

What are ‘soft statistics’

Less reliable official stats that might not accurately represent real-world social phenomena

Validity may be questioned due to the way stats are labelled or interpreted

E.g. crime rates, data on domestic violence, unemployment rates

The actual scale of these and the extent of the problem might be underestimated

Practical evaluation of official statistics

• Readily available, cost effective, & provide large-scale without requiring direct research

• Definitions may change over time, making comparisons difficult (crime stats before and after legal reforms)

Ethical evaluation of official statistics

• Usually anonymous

• Some stats may be manipulated by governments to present a favourable image

Are official statistics reliable

• Use standardised methods making them highly consistent & easy to replicate

Are official statistics valid

• Hard - generally accurate & objective

• Soft - may be misleading due to underreporting or changes in classification

Are official statistics representative

• Often bases on large samples making them highly generalisable

Theoretical evaluation of official statistics

• Positivists - favour as they produce quantitative data that can be statistically analysed

• Interpretivists - criticise, they argue OS are social constructs rather than objective facts

What are documents & example

Any written text (such as personal diaries, newspapers, medical records), they can also include wider media products (such as paintings, photos, magazines, radio, films)

Anything that tells us something about the society we live in

E.g. Thomas & Znaniecki’s research on polish immigrants (personal letters)

What are the types of documents

• Public

• Personal

• Historical

What are public documents

Written or visual records created by organisations like governments, schools, companies that are often made available to the public

What are personal documents

Private writings or records created by individuals for their own use, such as diaries, letters, emails

What are historical documents

Personal records like dairies & letters, alongside public records like gov reports that allow sociologists to study the evolution of social structures and cultural norms over time

Practical evaluation of documents

• Often readily available

• Some may be difficult to access, especially private or classified records

Ethical evaluation of documents

• Some may contain sensitive or personal info which required careful handling

Are documents reliable

• Content analysis can be carried out, quantifying qualitative data within documents (+)

• Hard to replicate, interpretations may vary between researchers

Are documents valid

• Provide rich, qualitative insights into people’s thoughts, experiences, and social contexts

Are documents representative

• Can offer detailed perspectives on specific groups

• Micro scale - unrepresentative of a larger population

Theoretical evaluation of documents

• Interpretivists- favour as they allow researchers to explore meaning’s & motivations in depth

• Positivists- criticise, argue they lack objectivity & are difficult to quantify