5 issues secondary sources are used to investigate?
1.Ethnicity/class/gender & ed achievement 2.School attendance, truancy & inclusion 3.League tables, marketisation & school performance 4.Gender & subject choice 5.Education, work & training
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Practical issues with secondary sources for investigating education?
Save time & money. Allow sociologists to make comparisons between achievements of different social groups on ethnicity/gender/social class. Ed stats collected regularly, comparisons made over time. Govs gather stats to monitor ed pols=relevant
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Downside practical issues with secondary sources for investigating education?
Governments collect stats for own purposes & may not be same as sociologists. Definitions of key concepts may differ EG Official definitions of pupils social class based on parental occupation, whereas marxists define class in terms of property owned
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Representativeness of secondary sources for invetigating education?
Some official stats on education are highly representable EG All state school have to complete school census 3 times a year. As they cover virtually every pupil in country=highly representative
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Reliability of secondary sources for investigating education?
Positivists favour stats for reliability as they can be used to test/re test hypotheses/discover cause & effect. Govs may change definitions/categories EG Conservatives with league tables.
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Validity of secondary sources for investigating education?
Interprestivists question validity. Argue stats are socially constructed. See truancy stats as outcome of series of definitions/decisions made by social actors. Schools may manipulaate attendance figures=Distorts validity
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5 issues documents are used to investigate?
1.Ethnicity/class/gender & diff in achievement 2.Official curriculum 3.Gender stereotyping in school books 4.Racisit incidents in schools 5.Specialist educational needs
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Practical issues with using documents to investigate education?
Easily accesssible to researcher. Gillborn-Sutdy of racism/schooling, access to wide range of school docs like policy statements. Gave 'official' picture. Personal docs harder to access. Hey made use of notes girls passed, not easy to obtain
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Ethical ssues with using documents to investigate education?
Few ethical concerns. Placed in public domain by organisation that produced them, permisison for use no required. More ethical with personal docs. Hey collected notes-some offered freely, others she got from desk=informed consent not obtained
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Representativeness with using documents to investigate education?
Some official docs legally required of all schools & colleges EG Records of racist incidents=representative picture. But not all racist incidents may be documented. Personal docs less representative EG Hey collected 70 notes, but unsystematic=unrep
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Reliability with documents to investigate education?
Many public docs EG Attendance registers preoduced in systematic format. Allows direct comparisons. But deliberate falsifications/accidental mistakes reduces reliability as not consistent. Some ed docs also used in ways others can replicate
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Validity with documents to inestigate education?
Can provide important insights into meanings. High validity=Hey first examined girls friendships in schools via observation/interviews. Notes gave valuable insights into nature of girls friendships as spontaneous, open to diff interpretations, no val
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
Practical issues with secondary sources for investigating education?
Back
Save time & money. Allow sociologists to make comparisons between achievements of different social groups on ethnicity/gender/social class. Ed stats collected regularly, comparisons made over time. Govs gather stats to monitor ed pols=relevant
Card 3
Front
Downside practical issues with secondary sources for investigating education?
Back
Card 4
Front
Representativeness of secondary sources for invetigating education?
Back
Card 5
Front
Reliability of secondary sources for investigating education?
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