Documents

• Documents

  Any written text, both public and personal.
• Accessible and Comparable

  In Gillborn's study of racism and schooling, they were able to access a wide range of documents which provided an official picture of racism and anti-racism. This could then be compared to observations and interviews.

  Gerwitz et al, in their study of marketisation and education, found that school brochures and prospectuses were a useful free source of information about how schools present themselves in the education 'marketplace'.
• Difficult to Obtain & Ethical Issues

  Hey used notes girls passed to each other to study friendship patterns; due to these documents being personal and confidential, they were difficult to obtain. This then resulted in ethical issues as Hey collected notes freely, some from bins, which then means there was a lack of informed consent. Though as the school takes place within a public domain, permission isn't fully required for public documents.
• Representativeness

  Schools are required to document all racist incidents, but this doesn't always happen- making the data held an underestimation.

  Hey collected 70 notes, but in an unsystematic way which then makes the data unrepresentative.

  Certain groups may be underrepresented: those who are illiterate, and those with limited leisure time are unlikely to keep diaries- making the educated classes perspectives overrepresented.
• Reliability

  Public documents are produced systematically- this enables direct comparison. Though deliberate falisification and accidental mistakes reduce their reliability.

  Some educational documents can be used in ways which other researchers can replicate. Lobban examined gender stereotyping, looking at 179 stories from 6 schools reading schemes. She analysed content for each story using the same categories, and counting the frequency these occurred in. Future researchers are then able to apply systematic content analysis to create comparable data using other educational documents.
• Value

  Provides insights into the meanings held by the writer- making them highly valid. Hey found that it offers valuable insights after initially studying girls' friendships through observation. These notes then highlighted the girls' true feelings and attitudes without researcher bias. However, all documents were open we open to Hey's interpretations, and we cannot be sure that her meanings and the girls meanings align- this then limits the validity of conclusions drawn.