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Dear all,
Just picked up a video from a session in December at the Open University's
Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance (CCIG) on the re-use of
data. It's Peter Redman talking about the hazards and benefits of
re-examining the 1949 Mass Observation "Little Kinsey" survey material.
Much of what he says has been said before about MO and statistical
representativeness and indeed, much of what he says, re-framed more
historiographically, could be (and should be) said about all re-use of data.
Link:
<http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/media/peter-redman-on-mass-observation>
I hope he won't mind me saying that there is a slight tinge of "they were
so biased then but we know better now" to his presentation. Not that I
disagree with him entirely, but I feel he is very normative about how
so-called rigourous research should be done whereas I'd want to argue that
much of the pleasure and reward in reinterpreting social research data is
grasping the cultural and historical frames that have been used - whether
it was done in 1949 or in 2013. The evidence comes not just from the
replies to the survey questions themselves but from the whole contaxt of
the survey - and on those questions he is rather vague,. He was working
from the microform version in the British Library which must have been
quite restrictive.
Anyway if this is your field, take a look. Sociologists might find it
helpful. It's just under half an hour long.
Dorothy Sheridan
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