230095 SE Official social statistics in practice: Introduction to implementation and weighting of surveys (2015W)

Whether unemployment, education, health, poverty or simply the population growth through migration or fertility - the social statistics is not only decision relevant for social policy, it also touches upon fields of eminently sociological research and application.

This course tries to start as directly as possible. This concerns on the one hand the perspective of application: Which surveys exist? Where can I find the results? On the other hand, the course tries - based on surveys (e.g. microsensus, EU-SILC) - to illustrate how survey methodology works: What should I consider when interpreting the results? How can the quality of social surveys be assessed? Finally, the course covers the basic census surveys (e.g. census register) and its role as the backbone of a social survey. This concerns in particular the question: when, why and how do I weight differences in a scientific survey as the European Social Survey, which is conducted outside the official statistics?

Participants are also invited to present their own questions, which can occur as part of a broader data research, secondary data analysis or an own survey project (for organizational reasons please tell us in advance).

Basic knowledge in data collection and analysis with SPSS syntax is required. The course prepares for another course on methods of surveys (planned for the summer semester.