Missing, Biased, and Unrepresentative: The Quantitative Analysis of Multisource Biographical Data

Abstract

Ahstract. With the gmwlh in inlcrest in collecti...e biography as II historical technique, many predominantly qualil31lve historialls find themi'>elves faced with large amounts of information. TheM: data. oollecud fmm a ...ariel)' of sources, are oflen highly ill't:¥u-1M, making U&liSlical analysis e:uremely problematic. Current pracli~is to ignore these problems and proceed with quantitative analysis suitable only (Of much more regular data. II is argued thai a mOfe satisfactory IIJl'PfUl'Ch is to ISI.-c:nain and direaly confl'Oflt the difficulties of analyzing such infonnalion. The three ccnlml problems are identified lIS missinlt wtll, systematic biu, and .he Jack of II; representlltive sllmph:. Using a practical example, the author explores the relationship bclwccn gender, the family, and political socialization within the Communist Party of Great Britain and~how! how each of the issues COJI be dealt with in tum. The author flU! distinguishe! truly missing datil from "negative informalion," which commonly appears to be missing ;n h;J;torical SOlIrcCIl. I-Ie then .stralifies the data to remove 5y~tematif; biltSCs relating to lhe issue al hand. Finally. he divides the~mple intodlffcrenl population.';, on the basis of the sources frolll which irttlividuuls life known, and compare~Ihe results otMained to cumint: whether his conclusions uppeW' to depend on quirh nf popuhuions contained in the sources. These idcas open a new range of sources to qU:lIllitalive analysis llnd l1IiSl: the possibility of allowing new type.~of evidence 10 count in historicul inquiry. Key,,-ords: Britain, Communist Pany, gendu. missing data. prosopogruphy I n 1998. almost 40 years after lhe much-heralded "quantitative revolution" in history began, the Jnrcrnotional Review of Social 1Jistory dedicated a supplement 10 introducing statistical and other social scientific techniques to an audience of social historians. lltis in itself is indicative of the foct that, outside of economic histOf)' and historical dcmogr'dphy. the anticipated torrelll of cliometric history had "simply failed to materialise" (Griffin

Migrant medical women: a case study of British medical graduates in twentieth-century Australia

“…Additionally, medical directory entries rely entirely on self-reported career information; similarly, biographical and autobiographical accounts include the author's own interpretations. 34 The reliability of each source was considered on inclusion in the database, and throughout this article, each source is individually reported where possible.…”

The Morphology of Resistance: Korean Resistance Networks 1895-1945

“…This chapter articulates the network methods that are used to reconstruct the hidden relational structure of the Korean resistance movement. Specifically, I use a prosopographical approach(Bradley and Short 2005;Cohen 2002;Stone 1971;Jones 2001) to depict a historically comprehensive picture of the Korean resistance movement structures. I map the relational structures and structural changes of the Korean resistance movements from the nascent stage to the closing moment.…”

Turning qualitative into quantitative evidence: a well‐used method made explicit1

“…The authors have also reached methodological conclusions remarkably similar to those set forth in this article; see G. Cohen, A. Flinn, and K. Morgan, ‘Toward a mixed‐method social history: combining quantitative and qualitative methods in the study of collective biography’, paper delivered at the European Social Science History conference, Berlin, March 2004. Cohen, ‘Missing, biased, and unrepresentative’, discusses some of the technical challenges peculiar to such an approach.…”