Quantitative

• what types of data are statistics?

  • Secondary- data already collected by others used by sociologists for their research.
  • Quantitative
• Quantitative secondary sources

  • Official statistics.
  • Non-official statistics.
  • Existing sociological research.
• Qualitative secondary sources

  • Public documents.
  • Personal documents.
  • Historical documents.
  • Existing sociological research.
• How are quantitative statistics collected?

  • The Census.
  • Registration of births and deaths.
  • Government statistics.
  • Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, crime, suicide, unemployment, the dependency ratio, migration, exam results, healthcare etc.
• If official statistics are quantitative, they are:

  • Highly representative, but some are more representative than others.
  • Highly reliable.
  • Lacking validity.
• Quantitative statistics

  Practical issues

  Advantages

  • Usually free to access.
  • A huge amount of data is available.
  • Allows comparisons between groups.
  • Allows a hypothesis to be tested a link to be found between variables.
  • Collected regularly, allowing a comparison over time.
  • Longitudinal.
• Quantitative statistics

  Disadvantages

  • Official statistics may not be available on the subjects of study.
  • Definitions of words may differ, leading to omitting of data.
  • Definitions change over time, leading to changes in statistical trends.
• practical issues

  Disadvantages

  • Invalid
  • Quantitative data.
  • "the dark figure of statistics."- is every occasion of what is being studied reported?
  • 'hard' statistics give information which is considered extremely accurate, such as births, deaths, marriages, divorces.
  • 'soft' statistics give information which is not considered as accurate, such as crime rates.
  • Statistics as a social construct.
  • Interpretivists argue official statistics lack validity, and are merely socially constructed labels imposed by others.
  • Structuralists firmly disagree and argue official statistics are measurable social facts.
• Quantitative statistics

  Practical issues

  Disadvantages

  • Marxist criticisms
  • Irvine argues official statistics are controlled by the ruling class, who manipulate them to further achieve their aim of achieving total social control and exploiting the proletariat.
  • The definition of 'unemployment' has changed regularly. This is an example of the ways in which the true number of unemployed people is concealed to disguise the extent of working class exploitation.