7) Secondary sources

• Positivism – Durkheim sees stats as a valuable resource for sociologists. He put forward the idea that suicide is caused by a lack of integration.
• Interpretivism – Atkinson: regard social stats as lacking validity. Stats do not represent real things or ‘social facts’ that exist out there in the world.
• Marxists – Irvine takes a different view. See official stats because of capitalism.
• Public documents – Black Reports: into the inequalities of health, which became a major source of information for sociologists.
• Personal documents – Thomas and Znaniecki: study of migration and social change. Used personal documents and public documents. Newspaper articles and court and social work articles.
• Historical documents – Laslett: used parish records in his study of family structure in pre-industrial Britain.
• Historical documents – Anderson: used parliamentary records on child labour, as well as statistical material from 1851 Census to study changes in family structure.
• Assessing documents – Scott: when it comes to assessing documentary sources, the general principles are the same as those for any other type of sociological evidence.
• Credibility – Stein: documents on the internet are often not checked for accuracy before publication.
• Content analysis – Lobban: used content analysis to analyse gender roles in children’s reading schemes.
• Content analysis – Tuchman: used it to analyse TV’s portrayal of women. Found that females were portrayed in a range of roles that were both limited and stereotyped. Lobban: female characters normally played domestic roles.