Personal/historical documents

• Public documents

  Produced by government, businesses, charities
• Personal documents

  Letters, diaries, autobiographies
• Official documents

  School records, health records, social work records
• Aries

  • Explored experience of childhood in middle ages through paintings
  • Used portraits to show how childhood was socially constructed
• Scott

  Documents should be judged on 4 criteria

  1. Authenticity = extent to which documents are genuine
  2. Credibility = extent to which data is believed/ honest account
  3. Representativeness = extent to which document is typical or not
  4. Meaning = messages being sent through document that need to be explained
• Strengths

  • Good source of qualitative data, help understand meanings
  • Allows researchers to access the past
  • Enables researcher to see changes over time
• Weaknesses

  • Difficult to understand if old
  • May contain lies
  • Ethical issues = individuals don't intend for personal diary to be read by others