Sociology - Official Statistics
- Created by: Iqra
- Created on: 17-12-12 18:28
View mindmap
- Official Statistics
- Quantifiable data produced by the government or other official bodies
- Governments use OS during policy making
- Created by registration, official surveys and administrative records
- Advantages
- Sociologists have access to expensive resources for free
- Reduced problem of non-response
- Can see trends or patterns
- Disadvantages
- May be no OS on the topic the sociologist is interested in
- Definitions may be different
- Def may change over time making it difficult to comapre
- Positvism
- Assume official stats are reliable, objective social facts
- Representativeness
- Large scale increases representativeness
- Stats from OS may be less representativedue to them only being based on a sample
- Great care is taken to ensure representativeness
- Reliablity
- Census etc reliable due to standardized measuring instrument
- Assume official stats are reliable, objective social facts
- Census etc reliable due to standardized measuring instrument
- Interpretivism
- Social Constructs
- Not the real rate ''mental illness''.
- Soft stats like crime are less valid due to them being compiled from courts or police reports
- ''Dark Figure''
- Hard stats are much more valid due to very few going unrecorded
- Social Constructs
- Quantifiable data produced by the government or other official bodies
Comments
No comments have yet been made