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Social Indicators, Urban Deprivation and Positive Discrimination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

John Edwards
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Abstract

The use of social indicators in the implementation of area-specific positive discrimination programmes is increasing and is likely to continue to do so. It is important in this context that some of the unintended consequences of their use be appreciated.

It is argued that the concentration on the statistical niceties and technical details of social indicators especially as they are applied to the identification of areas of urban deprivation has been misplaced, and the concern for the ‘arithmetic of woe’ has diverted attention away from some of the more fundamental assumptions underlying their use.

As predominantly used, social indicators have assumed both that a value consensus exists about the nature and parameters of urban deprivation, when in fact this is an issue of value (and political) conflict, and, more specifically, that urban deprivation springs from social pathology. By default, urban deprivation has been assumed to be that which the indicators measure, when in fact they often reflect no more than existing levels of service provision and current social policies.

There is a need for a clear (even if arbitrary) definition of deprivation, and the derivation of indicators from such a definition. In the latter part of the article the author outlines an attempt to do this.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , July 1975 , pp. 275 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Carlisle, Elaine, ‘The Conceptual Structure of Social Indicators’ in Shonfield, Andrew and Shaw, Stellor (eds), Social Indicators and Social Policy, London: Heinemann for S.S.R.C., 1972.Google Scholar

2 Cazes, Bernard, ‘The Development of Social Indicators: A Survey’Google Scholar, ibid.

3 Examples of this type of indicator are the American publication, ‘Towards a Social Report’, US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, US Government Printing Office, 1969, and in Britain, the periodic issues of Social Trends, compiled by the Central Statistical Office.

4 See footnote 3.

5 A selected list of reports on social indicator work is attached as an appendix.

6 See reference 2 in Appendix.

7 See, for example, references 9 and 5 in Appendix.

8 A very simple and easily interpreted form of cluster analysis is that devised by McQuitty, L. L., ‘Elementary Linkage Analysis for Isolating Orthogonal and Oblique Types and Typal Relevancies’, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 17, 1957CrossRefGoogle Scholar (the title belies the simplicity).

9 The value-implications of social indicators (though higher magnitude indicators) are considered, among others, by the following: Gross, B. M., The State of the Nation, Social Science Paperbacks, London, 1966, pp. 136–7Google Scholar; Gazes, Bernard, op. cit., p. 19Google Scholar; Carlisle, Elaine, op. cit., pp. 24–5.Google Scholar

10 See the definitions on p. 277, above.

11 These are references 9, 13, 15, 7, 11, 10, 8(a), and 6 respectively in Appendix.