Des catégories aux liens individuels : l'analyse statistique de l'espace social - article ; n°6 ; vol.45, pg 1365-1402

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations - Année 1990 - Volume 45 - Numéro 6 - Pages 1365-1402
From Categories to Individual Links : Statistical Analysis of Social Space.
The categories used for the analysis of social structures and mobility are marked by the ideologies that lead to the devising of statistical grids But the rigidity of these models and causal explanations against which major part of contemporary historio graphy has rebelled is above all due to the workings of traditional descriptive statistics themselves In the first section the authors describe the mechanisms by which these workings shape the objects of analysis By interpreting the same group of 19th century marriage certificates using variety of grids they highlight the different distorsions caused by the grouping of data into categories and by the successive formation of tables and cross tables In the second section the authors show that it is in fact possible to conceive more subtle forms of statistical description and analysis better adapted to the needs of the historian The formalisation of data using graphs allows them for example to isolate the specificity of the individual data to go beyond simple grouping and to break away from the traditional qualitative-quantative opposition In this way they suggest that it is possible to develop models for quantitative analysis capable of taking account of the mechanisms of micro-social determinations
38 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.