1.3.11
Official Statistics
Official Statistics
Official Statistics
Official statistics are quantitative data collected by national and local government or other official agencies.
Official statistics
Official statistics
- Official statistics are quantitative data collected by national and local government or other official agencies.
- Official statistics include data relating to births, deaths, and marriages/civil partnerships, unemployment figures, educational attainment data (e.g. GCSE results) and crime figures.
Advantages
Advantages
- Useful for evaluating social policy.
- Often, the only data available for a specific area of study.
- Cheap and easy to collect.
- Objective and reliable, as they are usually collected under strict guidelines.
Advantages cont.
Advantages cont.
- Can cover a very long time span and cover large samples and even the whole population (such as census information).
- Due to the large samples, they are likely to be representative and generalisable.
- Able to make before and after assumptions of changes over time, such as the number of people marrying, infant mortality rates or changes in academic attainment.
Advantages 3
Advantages 3
- Can provide useful background information and help researchers establish links between different data sets, such as the relationship between poverty and academic attainment.
- Because they are publicly available, there are unlikely to be any ethical issues.
Disadvantages
Disadvantages
- Because the data is collected for administrative and policy purposes (and specifically for sociological research) classification and definitions may vary or not be useful.
- Data produced by the state might have been presented in such a way as to make the government look better or avoid embarrassment.
Disadvantages cont.
Disadvantages cont.
- If they are inaccurate or incomplete, they may not provide a complete picture.
- Interpretivists claim that they are invalid because they represent social constructions; they are collected for a specific purpose (that of policy) and what is and is not collected is decided by the government.
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
Jump to other topics
1Theory & Methods
1.1Sociological Theories
1.2Sociological Methods
2Education with Methods in Context
2.1Role & Function of the Education System
2.2Educational Achievement
2.3Relationships & Processes Within Schools
3Option 1: Culture & Identity
3.1Conceptions of Culture
3.2Identity & Socialisation
3.3Social Identity
3.4Production, Consumption & Globalisation
4Option 1: Families & Households
4.1Families & Households
4.2Changing Patterns
4.3The Symmetrical Family
4.4Children & Childhood
5Option 1: Health
5.1Social Constructions
5.2Social Distribution of Healthcare
5.3Provision & Access to Healthcare
5.4Mental Health
6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare
6.1Poverty & Wealth
7Option 2: Beliefs in Society
7.1Ideology, Science & Religion
7.2Religious Movements
7.3Society & Religion
8Option 2: Global Development
8.1Development, Underdevelopment & Global Inequality
8.2Globalisation & Global Organisations
8.3Aid, Trade, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
9Option 2: The Media
9.1Contemporary Media
9.2Media Representations
10Crime & Deviance
10.1Crime & Society
10.2Social Distribution of Crime
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