PSRM

• Census block: territorial grouping that may include fewer than a hundred households. 
• Census tract


  a relatively small area generally containing a population of between 1500 and 800 persons. 
• Census breakdown:


  city, country, state, region, and nation. 
• Errors of coverage:


  counting mistakes made in the original collection of data (missed data, twice counted, etc.) 
• Classification errors: 


  false information about people’s attributes, such as education, income, and occupational levels. 
• Cross-cultural comparisons: 


  comparing one country to another 
• Problems with cross-cultural comparisons

  
  

  Identical data may not be collected in every country; Data may be incomplete; Inaccurate data; Errors in data collection will result in false findings, and therefore false conclusions 
• Development of social indicators:

  Aggregate analysis is necessary to develop yardstick for measuring and evaluating social conditions 
• Social indicators:


  measures of change in such conditions
• measures of change in such conditions as:

  poverty, public safety, education, health, physical planning, formulating public policy 
• Timeseries data:

  allows researchers to chart changes every time the analysis of numerical data arranged in time sequence, representing qualitative values of the same.....
• Disaggregation


  taking an existing unit of data and breaking it into finer or less comprehensive units. 
• Demographers: 


  researchers who study trends within a population 
• Ecological inference: 


  efforts to infer individual behavior from aggregate data-the process of inferring a relationship between characteristics of individuals based on group aggregate data 
• Ecological fallacy: 


  employing data collected from and about groups in order to make inferences to individuals-the fallacy of deducing a false relationship between attributes or behavior of individuals based on observing... 
• How to guard against an ecological fallacy: 

  The data level in a research study should respond with the unit of analysis referred to in the hypothesis in order to avoid committing ecological fallacy. 
• Ecological fallacy in reverse:

  Atomistic fallacy: making incorrect statements about groups on the basis of data from the individual. 
• Fallacies in the interpretation of aggregate data:

  Ecological Inference and ecological fallacy
• Comparative research: 


  a form of inquiry involuting the determination of differences and similarities between two or more units of analysis. 
• Sources that are commonly used in comparative research: Historical analysis, Fieldwork, Surveys, Aggregate data analysis 
• Modern comparative research dates back to the late 1800s
• Evolutionary theory: 


  views society as passing through a series of stages
• Karl Marx:

  ancient slavery – feudal serfdom – capitalism – communism. 
• Comparative research is usually either exclusively qualitative or quantitative in approach-but can be either: 


  Quantitive or qualitative
• What's the first reason to do comparison research?

  testing a theory to see if it holds up in a different setting with similar variables
• What's the second reason to do comparison research?

  2.) testing theory cross-culturally
• what is the third reason to do comparison research:

  3.) specifying the conditions under which theory applies 
• What is the fourth reason to do comparison research?

  discovering the relationships among macrolevel variables
• Data banks:


  repositories of stored data from survey research studies 
• Conceptual equivalence:


  the concepts used in cross-societal research much be similarly meaningful in all the cultures being compared 
• Measurement equivalence:

  operationalizing theoretical concepts so that the resulting measures are comparable across all societies 
• What is a problem with measurement equivalence:

  validity
• Cultural Surveys:

  The instrument check for validity
• Courtesy Bias:


  respondents may provide information that they feel will please the researcher.
• What is the first problem with interviewing?

  Fear that the interviewer might be a government agent 
• what is the second problem with interviewing?

  Cultural need for third party presence 
• What is the third problem with interviewing?

  Courtesy bias
• What is the fourth problem with interviewing?

  The nation as a unit of aggregation 
• What is the fifth problem with interviewing?


  Aggregate data is generally easy to acquire 
• Proxies:


  one or more available variables are used as indicators for the variable of actual theoretical interest (only acceptable if the data is very similar).