Search

Supplementary_Material_PDF for Microclass immobility during industrialisation in the USA and Norway by Dave Griffiths, Paul S Lambert, Richard L Zijdeman, Marco HD van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas in Acta Sociologica

This working paper is concerned with the very practical aspects of organising and undertaking analyses of social surveys. The focus is directed towards the many tasks involved in making good analytical use of social survey data, and it provides practicable advice on the process of how to plan, organise, compute and document analyses of social surveys. Advice on data analysis software is provided and on how to work using syntax files to undertake data analysis. We also discuss the critical role of documentation and aspects of the workflow that are frequently overlooked (e.g. organising directory structures and file naming protocols). The overall goal of this working paper is to provide researchers with information that enables them to efficiently undertake accurate, transparent and reproducible research using social surveys.

This working paper is a review of issues associated with measuring education and using educational measures in social science research. The review is orientated towards researchers who undertake secondary analyses of large-scale micro-level social science datasets. The paper begins with an outline of important context which impinges upon the measurement of education. The UK is the focus of this review, but similar issues apply to other nation states. We provide a critical introduction to the main approaches to measuring education in social survey research, which include measuring years of education, using categorical qualification-based measures and scaling approaches. We advocate the use of established education measures to better facilitate comparability and replication. We conclude by making the recommendation that researchers place careful thought into which educational measure they select, and that researchers should routinely engage in appropriate sensitivity analyses.

This working paper is a review of issues associated with measuring occupations and using occupation-based socio-economic classifications in social science research. The review is orientated towards researchers who undertake secondary analyses of large scale micro-level social science datasets. The paper begins with an outline of how to handle raw occupational information. This is followed by an introduction to the two main approaches to measuring occupations, and a third lesser known but intellectually innovative approach. The three approaches are social class schemes, social stratification scales and the microclass approach. International comparisons are briefly described and a discussion of intersectionality with other key variables such as age and gender is provided. We are careful to emphasise that we are not advocating the uncritical adoption of any one particular socio-economic measure over and above other alternatives. Rather we are advocating that researchers should choose from the portfolio of existing socio-economic measures in an informed and empirically defensible way and we strongly advocate undertaking sensitivity analyses. We conclude that researchers should always use existing socio-economic measures that have agreed upon and well documented standards. We strongly advise researchers not to develop their own measures without strong justification, nor to use existing measures in an un-prescribed or ad hoc manner.

Der Verfasser macht auf drei signifikante Probleme bei der Analyse von Ethnizität im Rahmen internationaler Querschnittstudien aufmerksam: (1) Die Analyse von Ethnizität ist bisher im Quer- und Längsschnitt nicht konsistent. (2) Harmonisierte Querschnittstudien leiden unter einem Mangel an Information in Bezug auf Ethnizität. (3) Harmonisierte Kategorisierungen spiegeln die Realität des "ethnischen Mosaiks" weder quantitativ noch qualitativ adäquat wider. Der Verfasser diskutiert zwei Lösungsmöglichkeiten für diese Problematik. Ein "relativistischer" Ansatz zur Harmonisierung ethnischer Daten erfordert die Abbildung von Kategorisierungen auf einer Dimension ethnischer Ungleichheit und die Zuordnung quantitativer Werte, die ihre relative Position beschreiben. Ein "absolutistischer" Ansatz der Harmonisierung stellt sicher, dass für alle Ländern die selben Konzepte zur Differenzierung von Kategorien eingesetzt werden. (ICE)