Finding Community Data

Community Data

Nicole Branch, Sociology LibrarianSanta Clara University Library

Image courtesy of Flickr user Rosa Menkman.

Today we will…

• Critically analyze data & data sources

• Find data relevant to your placement site

• Compare data from your placement site to your home community

Finding Community Data & Statistics

Think about WHO might collect the data you are interested and WHO might publish the results.

Government agenciesNon-government organizationsAcademic institutionsPrivate sector


Think about if the data/statistics you are looking for will be made readily available.

Controversial/harmful dataNot broadly applicable data


Think about your timeframe & geography

Lag time for publicationSampling and geographic specificity

Critiquing Data & Data Sources Who is the source of the data? Does the source of the data have a bias/interest in

the data and how might this impact how the data was collected or analyzed?

What is the sample size and how was the data collected?

What is the larger context of the data? Correlations are not causations.

Example 1

Source

Methodology

Example 2

Causation vs. Correlation

Quiz

• Go to “Quiz” page on the guide and click on the link

• Quiz questions will be presented

• Respond

• Review

Which of the following agencies provide data & statistics about

United States veterans? A. U.S. Department of EducationB. U.S. Department of CommerceC. U.S. Census BureauD. B & CE. All of these agencies

Which of the following is an example of causation?

Select from the images displayed in the poll.

What would you MOST like to know more about to understand these statistics?

• Why data from 2010 is not included• The breakdown of police killings by year• The definition of “unobserved”• If there is overlap between these reports

What might be an issue with the reliability of these statistics?

California Health Kids Survey, San Jose Unified Secondary, 2010.

Data Sources• American Community Survey (ACS)

o Part of the U.S. Census Bureau surveyso Estimateso Detailed data

• DataQuesto California Department of Educationo California Healthy Schools Survey

• School Accountability Report Cards (SARC)o State datao Required by California law for schools receiving public funding.

School & Community Exercise

• For Arrupe placements in San Jose pick one of these: OverfeltIndependenceLincolnSan Jose High

• For Arrupe placements in Santa Clara or Cupertino pick one of these:Santa Clara HighWilcox High

School & Community Exercise

• Find a SARC for that school

• Use DataQuest to find more school data

• Find neighborhood data using the ACS:Look up the address for the school and use the ACS

address search function to access census tract data If that address does not work in ACS, find a

residential address near the school

Example

Next Up

• Exploring community assets

• Issue area data