Professorship for Methods and Social Structure Analysis

Research and Work Focus: Social Structure Analysis and Methods

  • Social Structure Analysis

     

  • Methods of Empirical Social Research

     

  • Statistics

  • Coordinated Training in Methods and Statistics at Faculty 6

    The methodological and statistical training of the various teaching units and institutes at the Department of Education and Social Sciences takes place in a coordinated manner. The central teaching content is combined into a pool of course types, which is accessed within the framework of the various study programmes. The students of the respective subjects or study programmes can attend the required methodological and statistical events of their choice; the acquired certificates are mutually recognised. The courses offered within the framework of coordinated method training can be found in the HISLSF at department level under the heading Coordinated Method and Statistical Training of the FB 6.

    Data Stores

    Secondary analyses with existing data sets are recommended for empirical term papers and final theses with a qualitative or quantitative focus. A distinction should be made between microdata, i.e. data relating to individuals, and aggregate data, i.e. data relating to the aggregation of individual data. An extended overview of quantitative and qualitative data sets can be found in this database. In addition to the courses in the field of quantitative social research, it is also possible to "experience" both simple and complex statistical methods with statistics:

    1. Survey Data

    SOEP

    The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) is a survey that provides microdata for basic social and economic research. It is a representative repeat survey of private households in Germany that has been conducted annually since 1984 among the same persons and families in Germany. The data can be ordered from DIW).

    ALLBUS

    The General Population Survey of the Social Sciences (Allbus) is a series of surveys on the attitudes, behaviour and social structure of the population in Germany. The surveys have been conducted every two years since 1980. The data can be downloaded free of charge for scientific research purposes by providing personal data.

    On the GESIS website you will find the ALLBUS, the Politbarometer, the Wohlfahrtssurvey, the European Value Survey, the Eurobarometer, Studies from Eastern Europe and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP).

    2. Qualitative Data

    agis

    Working Group on Interdisciplinary Social Structure Research at the University of Hanover The website presents various completed projects from the main research areas. The data (face-to-face interviews, group discussions) are available free of charge online at EQQS.

    Archive "Deutsches Gedächtnis“, Fernuniversität Hagen [de]

    The archive collects subjective memories of all kinds, including around 1,500 biographical interviews as well as autobiographical documents from the "Kempowski Archive". After consultation, the documents can be viewed on site in anonymous form.

    Archive für Lebenslaufforschung, University of Bremen

    With some 700 digitised and anonymised interview transcripts to date, the ALLF is probably the largest archive of qualitative interview data from the social sciences in Germany. Currently, further data sets from qualitative biography and life course research are being archived. Data and documents for scientific evaluations by academic research and teaching are made available upon application and after review of the research project.

    Interview archive POSOPA e.V.

    The POSOPA e.V. is a non-university non-profit institution which maintains a research library and a special archive with the focus on historical youth and socialisation research. The interview archive currently contains about 360 interviews. The archive can only be used to a limited extent (the holdings are not fully indexed).