Critical Review of Survey 2
a) Telephone interviews were used to conduct these surveys which present many different issues. Responses rates are likely to be low as respondents will often put the phone down before an explanation can be given. Long questions and surveys are not feasible as the respondent will lose interest quickly. Finally telephone surveys have intensive staff and facility needs which leads to increased costs particularly compared to other methods.
b) The first criticism for this survey is the use of informal language; an example of which is in question 1 with the use of the phrase 'these days'. Questions 1, 5, 8 and 9 all ask for the respondent to select their position but there is no 'undecided' option. Question 3 requires the participant to understand the definition of a recession, for many this could be misinterpreted. Throughout questions 5, 6 and 7 there are personal questions referring to the participants' financial situation which should be left until the end. Questions 8 and 9 will not truly represent the participants' opinion as their answers will be biased towards their political position.
c) I would recommend at least three of the following changes to be made to this survey. Firstly any questions forcing a positive or negative bias need to have an undecided option to avoid forcing an answer upon the respondent. Secondly questions 5, 6 and 7 needs moving to the end of the survey and finally any informal language needs replacing for example 'the national economy these days' could be changed to the current national economy'.
Critical Review of Survey 3
a) This survey is another example of a telephone survey which shares a number of the same issues discussed in survey 2. The response rate would have been increased by targeting weekday nights and weekend days as this is when people are most likely to be at home.
b) In questions 2, 3 and 7 the options available for the respondent are positively biased with only one negative choice. The only other criticism I can offer this survey is that question number 6 is very unclear and informal referring to 'things in the Central Valley'.
c) To improve this survey I would suggest that all questions should be spoken in a formal manner with clear meaning; this will allow the respondent to give an accurate answer and take the survey seriously and in confidence. The only other improvement I would recommend is to ensure any opinion questions are not biased by ensuring they are positively and negatively balanced with an undecided option.
Critical Review of Survey 4
a) This survey is a telephone survey but with a more sophisticated approach utilising the use of Computer assisted telephone interviewing which produces more accurate results. My only criticism to their method is minor; this is that there was a marginal difference between the number of respondents between a few of the countries.
b) One question focuses on topics most worrying in the respondent's country with eleven options; this presents an issue when conducted over the telephone as the response given can be influenced by the order in which they are read. Another question asks the respondent about their confidence in the British Government to deal with crime and violence; this requires knowledge of the British government for the respondent to give an accurate truthful answer.
c) I would recommend three improvements to this survey. Firstly to ensure that the same number of people participated in this survey from each country. Secondly I would suggest avoiding questions with many options when utilising the telephone survey method and finally not asking questions that require knowledge to answer to enable truthful, useful and accurate answers.
Review of Rae (2011)
Rae's article on Spatial Patterns of Labour Market Deprivation in Scotland has been written in response to the lack of progress made by policy interventions in poor areas, which struggle to link locations to their wider labour markets. The first argument put across by Rae is in support of the importance of this paper, highlighting that there is a gap in spatially focused labour market research. This research paper utilised data from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation from 2004, 2006 and 2009; this data was used alongside literature focused around local labour markets, spatial concentrations and neighbourhoods to not only identify concentrations of worklessness but also to understand their characteristics.
There are both pros and cons when using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation; the SIMD uses data from two years previous (except SIMD 2004 which uses data three years previous) therefore this creates a significant time lag which can produce out of date results, although SIMD data is often the best data available. On the other hand the data from the SIMD is produced for Data Zones which are calculated around an area of 800 people thus there is a high level of detail compared to other measures. Alongside this when comparing results from a number of years the use of periodical SIMD is useful as the method used to calculate it is consistent. The final criticism for the use of SIMD data is the weights given to the domains used to calculate multiple deprivation as these are often debated.
The preliminary results from Rae's research in this paper indicate concentrations of multiple and employment deprivation around urban areas. In addition to this Rae created a location quotient, used to represent an area's 'share' of Scotland's 10% most deprived which demonstrated patterns that show highly varied locations of concentrated deprivation. Progressing this further Rae uses Moran's I statistic which indicates the degree to which similar areas are clustered spatially. This did not produce significant results although it did highlight that, despite being highly concentrated, over time similar locations are becoming less spatially clustered. Rae argues that this is suggestive of urban 'sorting' which segregates different socio -economic groups.
Rae goes onto use the LISA statistical approach to identify where deprivation is most concentrated and how areas influence the global value. What this surprisingly uncovered is that a higher percentage of people in Glasgow and Edinburgh living in 'Low - Low' areas compared to those living in 'High-High' areas. Rae found that in Edinburgh the segregation of deprivation is due to the separateness of the areas opposed to their distance from more affluent areas whereas in Glasgow it is a case of both their geographical separation and isolation from other kinds of areas. A particular weakness in this paper is the real definition of the local labour markets as it is possible for jobs in close proximity to an area are still inaccessible for the local residents in that area.
Rae concludes with his argument that the examination of the data presented here indicates that labour market deprivation in Scotland is defined by its concentration and isolation. The data supporting this provides strong evidence that there are characteristics of high concentrations of isolated deprivation and isolated affluence. It is clear that this article identifies the need for clearer understanding of the true locality of labour markets and that both the spatial and temporal need to be considered simultaneously when looking to explore problems within longstanding policy particularly in relation to the concentration of deprivation.
Data Task 2 - see separate file
Data Task 2 - see separate file
Written reflection on the meaning of urban regeneration texts by Oatley (2000), the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2000) and the Social Exclusion Unit (2001) based on Jacobs (1999)
The theme that links the three papers is neighbourhood renewal, all of which take different perspectives. A subject can be seen to have a variety of meanings through different interpretations, influenced by a number of aspects. Jacobs (1999, 203) describes how different groups ascertain a particular interpretation in order to demonstrate and seek to fulfil their principles, which can be observed in all three papers. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) comments upon the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal are based upon numerous interpretations as the majority of sections covered are supported by commissioned research under their Area Regeneration Programme undertaken by different authors (JRF, 2000, 1). In New Labour's Approach to Age-old Problems Nick Oatley, academic and co-editor of Local Economy, comments upon the same subject, yet he takes a more economic perspective which is represented by the 56 times he uses the words 'economy' or 'economic' in the 12 page document. Comparing this to the JRF's comments, these words are only used 6 times in a similarly sized document and only 40 times in the Social Exclusion Unit's 127 page National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal document. Therefore it is clear how swayed Oatley's perspective is towards the economic aspects of the subject. Documents produced by agencies of the state also tend to have a hidden agenda to promote the actions of the state, for instance, in the aim of re-election. This can be witnessed through the discourse analysis of the document produced by the Social Exclusion Unit (2001) which demonstrates a separation between policy promises and government actions which is not unusual as this is also what was discovered of other state agencies presented by Jacobs (1999, 205). In Annex A of the Social exclusion unit's (2001, 68-73) document, which is a post consultation document on which the others commented, consultation responses addressed particularly those which support the national strategy. Those comments that claim area based approaches will not work, like Oatley (2000, 89) were not given response as they undermine the foundation of the strategy.
When using texts within planning research a researcher needs to consider a number qualities. The first is the authenticity, taking into consideration expectations of the document, who is responsible for its production, that it is from a reliable source and whether it is an original or a copy. This then leads to the second quality, credibility, where the researcher needs to consider the social context in which the document was constructed, how rigorous the author has been and if the document is free from error. Thirdly the representativeness of the document needs to be taken into consideration looking to see if it is part of a set, it's accessibility and if it represents documents of its type. The final quality to take into consideration is meaning, where there are three types: Intended meaning which is anticipated by the author, received meaning understood by the reader and finally intervening meaning discovered behind what is presented literally.
