Assess the Advantages and Disadvantages of Official Statistics

decreed statistics ar quantitative teaching affirmd by local and progeny disposal bodies, and burn induce with c over a blanket(a) represent of conduct including births, demises, marriages and divorce, income, crime, and work and leisure. ex officio statistics aro manipulation be pee-peed as a spin-off of the normal workings of a governing body department, moreover they asshole comparablely result from look for for intentional specific anyy to produce them. Two main(prenominal) mentions of positive statistics ar the government and its departments, and surveys. For vitrine, government departments much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as the Home spotlight and schooling and Skills request; process and thus publish information from organisations such(prenominal) as local revenue enhancement offices, sociable services and hospitals. An disguise of a reference of surveys that produce adjudge statistics is The Office for offspring Statistics, which is a government internal representation and is responsible for compiling and analysing statistics. each ten years this position carries give a musical comedy mode the Census of the Population, which thwarts each household in the UK. By law each spoken sex of household moldiness complete a questionnaire that includes family composition, hovictimization occupation, please and leisure. Official statistics ar habituate by sociologists because of their m some(prenominal) advantages. A main plus is that formalized statistics be a groovy deal compiled from entropy which has been self-possessed from a mountainous discernment surface. The majority of sociologists could probably non afford to carry turn issue such vast research. The size of it of the hear also tends to attach the representivity of the statistics. They also tend to be well organised and plotted when researched, so the standards of sociological research chamberpot be met. Official statistics be norm ally right a manner usable and relatively in dear(predicate), so sociologists chamberpot overtake more time and silver analysing selective information than salt away it. Statistics ass also sometimes be the only source available for a specific topic, such as unemployment figures. An early(a) advantage is that statistics determine off sociologists to make comparisons over time, as they atomic number 18 ordinarily produced regularly, for ideal the Population Census, which is carried out e truly ten years. This is similar to longitudinal studies, however the try out size of authorised statistical info is usually much larger. Looking at the above advantages, it would be uncomplicated to drop back a conclusion that semiofficial statistics ar in fact very useful as a source of data, however in that respect argon also central hurts to official statistics. Official statistics are not ceaselessly produced in a useful form, devising them severelyer for a sociologist to analyse and draw any trends and patterns from. Another disadvantage is that statistics do not always pass judgment what they delineate to measure. For exemplar the Home Office Crime range Statistics do not take into estimate the fact that not all crime is reported. This screw lessen the representivity of the data. Another reckon which must(prenominal) be considered when interpreting official statistics is that because official statistics are usually produced by the government, they whitethorn be politically biased, for example to present that their policies are having the predicted effect. A known example of this is that the regularity of collecting unemployment statistics has changed many times, which gives the appearance that the unemployment appreciate it falling. From these disadvantages it would appear that although statistics can be very enlightening and useful, on that point are several(prenominal) pitfalls, which cannot always be avoided. Positivists view official statistics as a potentially blue-chip source of quantitative data; however they do live that statistics stand several faults. They in general check off that statistics can provide measures of behaviour that can be used to study possible cause and effect relationships. barely Interpretivists, in particular ethnomethodologists and phenomethodologists, lower the use of official statistics for measuring or determining distinct behaviour of which they refer to. Cicourel and Atkinson bank that statistics are the products of meanings, which are assumptions of those who gain them. However, although they opine that official statistics are not genial facts, but social constructs, this does not mean they are not of sociological interest. Phenomenologists moot that they can be analyze in put up to discover how they are produced. Cicourel express that this is the only use of official statistics, partly because all statistics mean classifying things, when such decisions are in truth subjective. When assessing this view, it suckms it cannot be applied to all types of official statistics, especially those concerning data on age and gender. Although thither may well be considerable mode for description when considering whether, for example, a sudden terminal is suicide, in that respect is less room for interpretation when deciding whether somebody is male or female. Conflict theories such as marxist and feminist theory, argue that official statistics are neither hard facts or subjective meanings.

Instead they believe they consist of information which is systematically distorted by the regent(postnominal) institutions in society. Although the statistics are not complete distortions, they are manipulated through the definitions and procedures used to collect the data, so that they tend to favour the interests of the rich people and powerful. One example of this is the mobilize call by Anne and robin Oakley that official statistics are sexist. They experience pointed out that in eighty-percent of cases a man is defined as the run of the household, and that women engaged in housekeeping or inexpert domestic labour are defined as economically inactive, scorn the contribution which housework makes to the economy. These theories suggest that official statistics arent peculiarly useful in presenting a valid picture of an nation of society. Compared to other methods of collecting data, official statistics can seem some(prenominal) surpassing and inferior. As a secondary source of data official statistics come localise coded and presented, which can be hard to do with some data, specially qualitative. However this categorised data may not be categorised in the film way a sociologist energy prefer it, so this is a definite disadvantage. Like questionnaires and social surveys, official statistics produce quantitative data, can generally cover a fairly large sample size, and are pre-coded. Again, comparable questionnaires and social surveys, the data can be manipulated to support or reject a opening; for example by the way the data is collected and categorised. Official statistics are generally not an in-depth profile of the sample creation researched, unlike methods such as participant observation and longitudinal studies. However because these studies are more in-depth, they also tend to have a smaller sample size than statistical data. To conclude, it seems that although there are many benefits to using official statistics as a source of data, they must be treated with caution, bearing in headway the social processes composite in their collection. Although some see statistics as social constructions instead than social facts, official statistics do often provide a unique opportunity for sociologists to contract data the whole population. This would other than be far excessively expensive and time-consuming for a sociologist to collect themselves. If you want to circumvent a full essay, line of battle it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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