Class slides for SOCI 30

1. Community Data
Nicole Branch, Sociology Librarian
Santa Clara University Library
Image courtesy of Flickr user Rosa Menkman.

2. Today we will…
• Critically analyze data & data sources
• Find data relevant to your placement site
• Compare data from your placement site to
your home community

3. Finding Community Data & Statistics
Think about WHO might collect the data you are
interested and WHO might publish the results.
Government agencies
Non-government organizations
Academic institutions
Private sector

4. Finding Community Data & Statistics
Think about if the data/statistics you are looking
for will be made readily available.
Controversial/harmful data
Not broadly applicable data

5. Finding Community Data & Statistics
Think about your timeframe & geography
Lag time for publication
Sampling and geographic specificity

6. Critiquing Data & Data Sources
 Who is the source of the data?
 Does the source of the data have a bias/interest in
the data and how might this impact how the data
was collected or analyzed?
 What is the sample size and how was the data
collected?
 What is the larger context of the data?
 Correlations are not causations.

7. Example 1

8. Source

9. Methodology

10. Example 2

11. Causation vs. Correlation

12. Quiz
• Go to “Quiz” page on the guide and click on
the link
• Quiz questions will be presented
• Respond
• Review

13. Which of the following agencies
provide data & statistics about United
States veterans?
A. U.S. Department of Education
B. U.S. Department of Commerce
C. U.S. Census Bureau
D. B & C
E. All of these agencies

14. Which of the following is an example
of causation?
Select from the images displayed in the poll.

15. What would you MOST like to know more about
to understand these statistics?

16. • Why data from 2010 is not included
• The breakdown of police killings by year
• The definition of “unobserved”
• If there is overlap between these reports

17. What might be an issue with the
reliability of these statistics?
California Health Kids Survey, San Jose Unified Secondary, 2010.

18. Data Sources
• American Community Survey (ACS)
o Part of the U.S. Census Bureau surveys
o Estimates
o Detailed data
• DataQuest
o California Department of Education
o California Healthy Schools Survey
• School Accountability Report Cards (SARC)
o State data
o Required by California law for schools receiving public
funding.

19. School & Community Exercise
• For Arrupe placements in San Jose pick one of
these:
Overfelt
Independence
Lincoln
San Jose High
• For Arrupe placements in Santa Clara or
Cupertino pick one of these:
Santa Clara High
Wilcox High

20. School & Community Exercise
• Find a SARC for that school
• Use DataQuest to find more school data
• Find neighborhood data using the ACS:
Look up the address for the school and use the ACS
address search function to access census tract data
If that address does not work in ACS, find a residential
address near the school

21. Example

22. Next Up
• Exploring community assets
• Issue area data