The Blog at Quants Corner

Dr Francesca Romana Ammaturo and Dr Koen Slootmaeckers   In the first part of this series, we considered how maps (and associated data) can be used to create a new worldview. We discussed how and why maps operate as productive devices. We then reviewed the use of the Rainbow Map since its creation in 2008 to the present to highlight how its use by political elites can reinforce existing hierarchies and silence already marginalised voices. In this second part we will analyse the map in order to argue that there is a disconnect between the map and lived experiences, and that an uncritical reading of the map can lead to the projection of fictional queer utopias and dystopias.   Queer Utopias and Dystopias and the displacement of LGBTQI+ Lived experience Whereas arguments relating to the use of the Rainbow Map often remain within the conceptual arena, the almost simultaneous publication of the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map and the  EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) report on the...

Dr Francesca Romana Ammaturo and Dr Koen Slootmaeckers Every year, around the International Day Against Homo, Bi, and Transphobia, ILGA Europe, the biggest LGBTQI+ umbrella organisation in Europe working on LGBTQI+ rights, releases its  Rainbow Index and Rainbow Map  into the world. This moment generates a lot of media attention to the plight of LGBTQI+ rights in Europe and provides an important moment in the work of ILGA-Europe. Whilst we recognise the usefulness of this resource in advocacy work, we also see several issues with the mapping of LGBTQI+ rights in this way.  In this two-part long read, we explain how maps (and the mapping of data onto them) do not only depict a world, but also generate political narratives that do not always reflect reality. We will particularly demonstrate how the focus on LGBTQI+ rights from its legal perspective can lead to a misunderstanding and sometimes even misrepresentation of actual LGBTQI+ lived experiences. We present our argumen...

Aisha Shafi I had the pleasure of doing my internship at the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) as part of the Q-Step programme offered at City, University of London where I am currently an undergraduate studying Criminology (BSc).  Q-Step allows students studying social science degrees to develop their data analysis skills for employment. I was eager to participate in the programme because I knew it would give me more job opportunities when I graduate as I’d have analytical skills that many other graduates lack. As part of the programme I was expected to apply my knowledge and skill in quantitative methods in the workplace.  During my placement I worked closely with Tristram Hooley, who is the ISE’s Chief Research Officer. We worked together to analyse responses from the  Pulse Survey  and the  Student Development Survey .  In particular I worked with the tool  Tableau  to create interactive public data visualisations. You can see an example of...

Prof Jackie Carter This blog post follows on from Dr Eric Harrison’s, posted here on Oct 21 st . Like him I have been reflecting a lot about developing analytical and research skills as part of the undergraduate social science curriculum, in my case at the University of Manchester. My reflections have extended to thinking about what evidence employers want to see in those who graduate from social science degrees and apply for a career in applied social research, or career choices that require them to be competent in using and analysing quantitative data.  I have a book coming out in April next year, entitled ‘Work placements, Internships and Applied Social Research’ in which I devote two chapters to discussing skills. I deal both with analytical and research skills, and professional skills. In each chapter I present a framework on how you can ‘baseline’ (record where you are starting from) your skills, and then I provide worksheets to show you how you can develop and grow your skil...

Tamanna Rashid Immigration has been at the forefront of public and political debate in the UK as recent net migration to major international destinations reaches unprecedented levels. Yet hostility towards immigrants has historically featured in British public consciousness, shaping racial tensions that preexist in the UK today. This research highlights the dominance of immigration as a problem reinforced by British political elites and media. It investigates public attitudes towards immigration and immigrants during a period of increasing public interest. Using the latest round from the European Social Survey (ESS), it examines immigration attitudes in the UK context while disaggregating immigration attitudes contingent to the racial profile of immigrants; this approach has allowed comparisons between how white and non-white immigrants are received by host countries. Secondary analysis on data from the 2014 round of ESS including over 2000 UK respondents shows that optimists outnumber...

Dr Matt Barnes The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has acknowledged the ‘vital contribution’ that public sector workers have made during the coronavirus pandemic and awarded above-inflation pay rises for almost 900,000 of them, including teachers, doctors and police officers.  Our new research suggests key workers do face lower pay than the average worker. And many of them also suffer from lower job quality, particularly in terms of the amount and timing of hours worked.  To analyse this, we used data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to produce a dataset of 25,000 people working in key worker jobs. We compared salaries alongside individual job quality indicators of each key worker profession.  Indicators of job quality* included whether workers are permanent members of staff, on zero hour contracts, work weekends or anti-social hours, part of a trade union, how often they fall ill at work and whether they have been offered any training in the previous three months.  This...

Dr Eric Harrison As the new academic year has started in blended, or in places entirely online, format, I’ve been more pre-occupied than usual by the ‘skills’ development of first year students. Most social science departments either offer dedicated modules in academic skills, incorporate them into other introductory modules, and/or direct students to useful materials made available centrally by the institution’s educational developers. I recently did a search through the main skills textbooks and I noticed that their content is still hugely skewed towards working with words. There are exceptions which have a chapter or two on numeracy (what we might now call ‘data literacy’) but overall, they’re dominated by the three ‘Rs’ of academic life: reading, writing, and referencing.  From a quants perspective this makes me a bit uneasy, because while we’re teaching students the importance of arguments and evidence in social science, we’re only offering half the tools needed to evaluate th...