You may have heard of (if not read) Anne Frank's famous diary, which has been published as a book in many languages. What is the value of such a diary? How has it educated and informed people about the experiences of Jewish people during the Holocaust?
When studying history, you most likely came across documents as a way to find out more about a particular event or issue. For example, many personal letters and diary entries from the World Wars were used to understand more about them from the soldiers' perspectives.
In sociology, analysing documents is also an important method of conducting research to find out more about social issues and events.
- Firstly, we will consider how documents are used in sociological research.
- Next, we will consider official documents, how they are used in sociology and their advantages and disadvantages.
- We will consider the advantages and disadvantages of personal documents in sociology.
- Lastly, we will evaluate the use of historical documents in sociology before considering the general advantages and disadvantages of using documents.
There's plenty to cover, so let's begin.
Documents: definition in sociology
When conducting research, sociologists sometimes utilise documents.
Documents are a form of secondary qualitative data which can provide a wide variety of information for sociological analysis, depending on the type of document.
Documents are secondary data because they were created by someone else (not the researcher) and therefore already exist. They are qualitative because they provide written information as opposed to numerical data.
Document analysis in sociology
It is important to note that document analysis is a method of social research, often used as part of triangulation.
Document analysis is a systematic review and/or evaluation of documents. Depending on the objective of the research, this can include newspaper clippings, transcripts, agendas, surveys, reports and diaries (among many others).
Documents can be used to inform researchers' understanding from other sources of data, such as interviews.
Types of documents in sociology
As mentioned above, there are different types of documents. They will all have different uses and limitations depending on the type of information the researchers need and the nature of the document itself.
The types of documents we will be looking at are:
Official
Personal
Historical documents
We will go through each of these in turn and consider their advantages and disadvantages.
Public documents in sociology
Public or official documents are documents created by organisations such as government departments, businesses, and charities. They are usually in the form of reports and are available for public inspection by anyone who is interested.
You can refer to them as "public" or "official" documents.
Examples of public/official documents include:
Government inquiries
Company reports on policies, practices, and corporate governance
Reports by charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
Reports about public bodies, such as schools and hospitals
The UK Government issued a public inquiry into the Grenfell fire of 2017 in London. The inquiry is ongoing (as of 2022); however, phase 1 of the report is available online for public viewing.
Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (OFSTED) inspection reports in the UK regularly assess the standards of educational institutions. Reports can be publicly viewed online.
Many organisations produce public/official documents that can be used by sociologists in their research.
Advantages of public documents
They can be easily and freely accessed by researchers.
There are a wide variety of public documents available.
They are produced by reliable sources.
Public documents can be very in-depth.
They may be representative of a wider population e.g. a government inquiry into the standard of prisons is likely to represent the prison population.
There are few ethical issues as the documents are publicly accessible.
Disadvantages of public documents
Researchers have to work with existing data, and so they may not find what they need.
It may take a lot of time to go through the documents if they are in-depth.
Public documents may also include quantitative data.
Personal documents in sociological research
These are written documents that were created with the intention of keeping them to oneself or to show to certain trusted individuals. Personal documents generally express personal thoughts and feelings and thus are not intended for public viewing.
Personal documents can also be referred to as life documents.
Types of personal documents
Types and examples of personal documents include:
- Diary entries
- Letters to friends or family
- Photos
- Memorabilia (such as tickets)
Fig. 1 - Diary or journal entries are good examples of personal documents.
Personal documents can be helpful to understand complex and individual experiences through written thoughts and feelings.
Jack Douglas, in his 1967 study of suicide, examined suicide notes and diary entries to understand suicidal individuals' thoughts and intentions. He argued that doing this gave a better insight into the topic than Durkheim's study of suicide, where Durkheim simply examined suicide statistics.
Advantages of personal documents in sociology
As they are written to express thoughts and feelings, they give in-depth insights into the authors' perspectives. They are therefore high in validity.
They can provide information that may not be covered in official documents.
They can be easy to access if the owner(s) are willing to reveal them.
Disadvantages of personal documents in sociology
The subjective nature of personal documents means there is likely to be interpretational bias when considering the meaning of the documents.
Personal documents may not always contain the truth; this undermines their validity.
There are access issues as those with personal documents may not be willing to share them.
Personal documents may lack credibility if they have incorrect or incomplete information e.g. wrong names or dates.
Going through personal documents may be time-consuming.
Personal documents are generally unrepresentative as they are one individual's thoughts
As they were not intended for public viewing (or in the case of diaries, anyone at all), there are ethical issues in studying personal documents.
Historical documents in sociology
Historical documents are documents from the past. They are categorised mainly by their time of creation; as such, they can include official documents (such as past government inquiries), or personal documents (such as letters).
Examples of historical documents include:
- Birth, death and marriage records
- Letters and diary entries
- Old census records
- Old photos
Fig. 2 - Historical documents can help us look into the past.
Sometimes, using historical documents may be the only (or main) way of conducting sociological research. In these cases, sociologists may have to rely on what is available in public records or documents kept by individuals.
Research into the quality and standards of hospitals in the 1800s is likely to require a large focus on historical documents. Official documents such as hospital reports and records, and personal documents e.g. the diary entries of a hospital patient, may be useful in this.
Advantages of historical documents in sociology
Historical documents can offer useful insights into the past, and in some cases, they may be the only way of studying past events.
Public historical documents, such as records and reports, may be easily accessible.
They can help researchers draw comparisons to current issues and identify changes over time.
Disadvantages of historical documents
It may be difficult to verify the authenticity of some historical documents. For example, the author or the purpose of the document may be unknown.
Words and meanings change over time; this can affect the interpretation of the information.
Some documents may be missing, damaged or kept private. This can distort the information that is available and may prevent researchers from reaching a full conclusion.
It can be difficult to find or access some historical documents.
General advantages and disadvantages of documents
As well as the specific advantages and disadvantages of each type of document outlined above, there are many general advantages and disadvantages of using documents in sociological research. Let us look at these from the interpretivist and positivist perspectives.
The interpretivist perspective
Interpretivists are partial to using documents in sociological research as they contain qualitative, in-depth information.
They can decipher meanings through documents, especially through personal documents, as they reveal the author's perspective and interpretation of reality.
Documents are highly valid.
Documents are a source of readily available data that has already been collected, so there is no issue with data collection.
The positivist perspective
Positivists do not like using documents in sociological research as they cannot be cross-checked, and are therefore unreliable.
Documents are not always representative; conclusions cannot be drawn from personal documents because they contain individual insights only.
However, official and historical documents can be useful as they are often structured (for example, birth records). They are standardised and therefore reliable.
Documents - Key takeaways
- Documents are an important research method for sociological researchers to find out more about social issues and events.
- Documents are a form of secondary qualitative data.
- Public documents are created by organisations and made available for public inspection.
- Personal documents are created with the intention of keeping them private, or to show to certain close individuals.
- Historical documents are documents from the past and can be both official and personal.
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