My specific interest lies in the subset of autistic people and families with an autistic member who
use mailing lists and web based fora At the moment I have no reason to suppose any reason that this
sample of the internet using population would not reflect the socio economomic and ethnic mix of the
general internet using population, which general internet using population might be skewed in favour
of higher status groups in comparison to the demographic make up of the UK in general.
It may well be that in terms of my research, socio economic background and ethicity has no bearing
on my experiment, on the other hand I need to consider that it might, and how would I ever find out
unless I try and balance my sample when it comes to selecting my research cohorts.
Let us suppose level of education as a variable for instance. It might be that there is a greater
difference between peoples response to video depending on literacy than there is between autistic
and non autistic respondents.
Larry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Disability-Research Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Tsitsi Chataika
> Sent: 29 November 2007 11:30
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Ethnic and socio economic make up of internet users
>
> I guess it depends on the e-mailing lists or internet links
> one explores, because I know some links where ethnic
> minorities are overly represented. So, what is important is
> to take note of the source of the relevant links. This is
> just like going to a gay club or social club for disabled
> people and conclude that there are more gay or disabled
> people in UK than straight or non-disabled people basing the
> analysis on where the data was collected. We need to be more
> analytical when dealing with such issues.
>
>
> Tsitsi
>
________________End of message________________
This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies).
Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask]
Archives and tools are located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.
|