APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING
Arnold publishing are delighted to announce the publication of:
Statistics in Society edited by Daniel Dorling and Stephen Simpson on behalf
of the Radical Statistics Group.
ISBN 0 340 71994 X Paperback, 484 pages at just £16.99!
We are offering FREE desk copies of this book to academics who teach courses
with 15 or more students in relevant areas. If you wish to
see a copy simply e-mail [log in to unmask] with your name,
college address and course details, including no of students.
If you prefer to make a personal purchase - please see our web site
www.arnoldpublishers.com for an order form.
To follow is some further information on the book including a complete list
of chapters.
In today's society statistics are not neutral. They are shaped by politics,
policies and priorities of those that produce them. The 54 contributors to
the book turn the spotlight on statistics covering their collection, models
and theory, classifications, poverty, health, education, economics and
politics.
Whether hidden through privatisation as in the health service, by concerns
of confidentiality, statistics of society's development are never
straightforward. This book's subjects include the role of statistics in
educational assessment, the measurement of race and of homelessness, the
circular prediction of employment and of housing need, the misuse of
pensions statistics, and the poverty of statistics on poverty.
Many people are mystified by statistics, and therefore accept or dismiss
them without question. Social statistics are creations of public policy,
and at every stage from collection or design of a study right through to
publication, political concerns shape what is created. This book shows how
to understand and use public statistics, by knowing how they are created.
Statistical reasoning is as essential as literacy for the concerned citizen,
since it is central to public debates, whether on global warming, CJD, the
traffic down your street, or school re-organisations. But there is little
training to use statistics in everyday life.
>From the census, household surveys and administrative records, these authors
collected together by the Radical Statistics Group discuss statistical
discrimination by race and gender, the fixing of homelessness and
unemployment trends, the statistics of crime, poverty among disabled
children, health, the economy, educational standards, housing, food,
migration, the military, elections and other topical issues where public
debate is heavily influenced by official statistics.
In each case they expose the wealth of information that is available to
challenge government policy as well as the limitations of those data. The
book coincides with the government's consideration of options to reorganise
official statistics.
Statistics in Society is intended for students of statistics and the social
sciences, and the general reader interested in evidence for current and
alternative social policies.
Part I: Collecting Statistics / 2 The census - Ian Diamond / 3 Government
household surveys Charlie Owen / 4 Confidentiality of official statistics:
an excuse for secrecy - Angela Dale / 5 Who pays for research? The UK
statistical picture - Ian Miles / 6 Working with government to disseminate
official statistics - Michael Blakemore / Part II: Models and Theory / 7
Eugenics and the rise of mathematical statistics in Britain - Donald
MacKenzie / 8 Science, statistics and three 'psychologies' - Daniel B Wright
/ 9 Using statistics in everyday life: From barefoot statisticians to
critical citizenship - Jeff Evans and Ivan Rappaport / 10 Resources for lay
statisticians and critical citizens - Ivan Rappaport and Jeff Evans / 11
Qualitative data and the subjectivity of 'objective' facts - Ian Parker / 12
Untouched by statistics: representing and misrepresenting other cultures -
David Sibley / 13 Models are stories are not real life - Jane Elliott / Part
III: Classifying People / 14 Missing subjects? Searching for gender in
official statistics - Diane Perrons / 15 Playing politics with pensions:
legitimating privatisation - Jay Ginn / 16 Ethnic statistics: better than
nothing or worse than nothing? - Waqar Ahmad / 17 The religious question:
representing reality or compounding confusion? - Joanna Southworth / 18
Measuring eating habits: some problems with the National Food Survey - Mary
Shaw / 19 Measuring international migration: the tools aren't up to the job
- Ann Singleton / 20 Poverty and disabled children - David Gordon and
Pauline Heslop / 21 Where are the deprived? Measuring deprivation in cities
and regions - Peter Lee / 22 The limitations of official homelessness
statistics - Rebekah Widdowfeld / 23 The use and abuse of statistics on
homeless people - Walid Abdul-Hamid / 24 Are crime and fear of crime more
likely to be experienced by the 'poor'? - Christina Pantazis and David
Gordon / Part V: Valuing Health / 25 The racialisation of ethnic
inequalities in health - Jarnes Y Nazroo / 26 What do official health
statistics measure? - Alison Macfarlane and Jenny Head / 27 Making sense of
health inequality statistics - Mel Bartley, David Blane and George Davey
Smith / 28 Poverty and health Anthony Staines / 29 Statistics and the
privatisation of the National Health Service and social services - Alison
Macfarlane and Allyson Pollock / 30 Industrial injury statistics Theo
Nichols / Part VI: Assessing Education / 31 What's worth comparing in
education? - Ian Plewis / 32 Performance indicators in education - Harvey
Goldstein / 33 Can trends in reading standards be measured? - Pauline Davis
/ 34 Inspecting the inspection system - Nicola Brimblecombe / 35 Special
statistics for special education - Cecilie Mar Molinero / Part VII:
Measuring Employment / 36 Problems of measuring participation in the labour
market - Anne E Green / 37 The politics and reform of unemployment and
employment statistics - Ray Thomas / 38 Unemployment and permanent sickness
in Mid Glamorgan - Roy Davies / 39 Voodoo economics: 'art' and 'science' in
employment forecasting - Jamie Peck / 40 Working with historical statistics
on poverty and economic distress - Humphrey Southall / Part VIII Economics
and Politics / 41 Measuring the UK economy - Alan Freeman / 42 Household
projections: a sheep in wolf's clothing - Richard Bate / 43 The statistics
of militarism - Paul Dunne / 44 Counting computers - or why we are not well
informed about the information society - James Comford / 45 The British
electoral system and the British electorate - Ron Johnston, Charles Pattie
and David Rossiter/ 46 Illuminating social statistics - Graham Upton / 47
Conclusion: statistics and 'the truth' - Stephen Simpson and Daniel Dorling.
Caroline Wheeler
Product Manager - Arnold
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