Sociology and Criminal Justice

Sociologists use the term social construction to refer to the processes by which people as- sign meaning,to their world. This paper argues that numeracy,education needs to address social construction. In particular, thinking critically about the statistics the news media report regarding social issues requires understanding the competitive nature of the social problems marketplace, and the social forces that allow

Sociologists use the term social construction to refer to the processes by which people as- sign meaning,to their world. This paper argues that numeracy,education needs to address social construction. In particular, thinking critically about the statistics the news media report regarding social issues requires understanding the competitive nature of the social problems marketplace, and the social forces that allow

Media constructions of social problems usually rework the claims of activists and other primary claimsmakers. However, the news media acted as primary claimsmakers in discovering and reporting the 1987 Los Angeles freeway violence problem. The press drew upon cultural resources in constructing this problem, applying a conventional template for social problems stories and using familiar imagery to depict freeway shootings. The social organization of claimsmaking, as well as contingencies in the histories of individual campaigns, affect the choice of cultural resources used to construct social problems.

Campbell's Law warns that when measurements become consequential those whose performance is being measured may try to skew the results This case study examines the Trump administration's efforts to present COVID-19 statistics that would discourage restricting economic activities and encourage reopening the economy © 2021, National Numeracy Network All rights reserved

This paper examines the widespread belief that anonymous sadists give children dangerous treats on Halloween. A review of news stories about Halloween sadism from 1958 to 1983 suggests that the threat has been greatly exaggerated. Halloween sadism can be viewed as an ...

Sociologists use the term social construction to refer to the processes by which people assign meaning to their world. This paper argues that numeracy education needs to address social construction. In particular, thinking critically about the statistics the news media report regarding social issues requires understanding the competitive nature of the social problems marketplace, and the social forces that allow questionable numbers to receive widespread public attention. Such critiques must incorporate more than assessing how the numbers were calculated; they must consider the social construction of particular statistics. Two recent examples—claims about the number of birds killed flying into windows, and warnings about the threat of an avian flu pandemic—are presented to illustrate the need to incorporate social construction into numeracy education.

Movement across quintiles of household income has become a standard measure of social mobility. This choice of what to count (households rather than people) is consequential. Earlier, absolute measures of social mobility (such as the percentage of sons of blue-collar fathers gaining white-collar positions). However, measuring movement across quintiles conceptualizes social mobility as relative, as a zero-sum game (in that it seems obvious that for each person who moves to a higher quintile, another must fall). However, there are problems with using quintiles. First, each quintile contains a fifth of all households, rather than a fifth of all people. There are far more people in the top quintile than in the bottom. Second, while income inequality is increasing, the increase is not because the proportion of the population that is low-income is increasing, but because the upper-middle class is expanding (and now includes more than a fifth of all households). While choosing to measure mobility in terms of quintiles is not mathematically wrong, it shapes the way the data can be read. Understanding the consequences of such choices is relevant to understanding the numeracy of the measure.

Press coverage of a recent survey suggests that sexual harassment is nearly ubiquitous in the UK. Thinking critically about claims of nearly-ubiquitous social problems requires: (1) asking how the statistic was produced; (2) considering questions of measurement; and (3) recognizing that the the most severe forms that social problems take tend to be much less common than less serious forms

Quantitative efforts to understand the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be viewed through the lens of social construction. I begin by comparing the efforts to quantitatively measure the plague in London in 1665. Then I develop five propositions for studying the social construction of statistics: (1) facts are social constructions; (2) measuring involves making decisions, (3) counting is not straightforward; (4) all comparisons involve choices; and (5) social patterns shape numbers. After examining how these propositions affect what we know about COVID-19, I consider their implications for moving beyond mathematics when approaching numeracy.

The flagship newspaper for the state of Delaware, the News Journal, has been instrumental in disseminating information from state-generated reports of cancer clusters to its readers over the past 7 years. The stories provide colorful maps of census tracts designated as clusters, often on the front page, and detail the types of elevated cancers found in these tracts and the purported relationship of elevated cancer rates to local industry pollution. Though the News Journal also provided its readers with advice about interpreting these data with caution, it uncritically presented these data. Using the state's unusual definition and measurement of elevated cancer incidence as cancer clusters, it transformed questionable statistics into an alarming public issue. This article critically examines these news reports and the state-generated reports they utilized.

Andrew Hacker. The Math Myth, and Other STEM Delusions (New York, NY: The New Press). 256 pp. ISBN 978-1-62097-068-3 (also available as an e-book). The political scientist Andrew Hacker argues that calls for increasing proficiency in algebra and other higher mathematics are misguided, in that most occupations do not require higher math, even as math requirements account for the largest share of students failing to complete high school and college. He advocates numeracy instruction for improving students' ability to calculate and interpret numbers they will encounter in their lives.

Since 1985, I have been interviewed by dozens of reporters from television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. They often ask whether I have updated my research. Therefore, I am posting both my original data, supplemented by my efforts to bring the research up to date. I also list all of the cases that have come to my attention in which children’s deaths were initially attributed to Halloween sadism (in each of those cases, follow-up stories offered a different interpretation), and I am including a discussion of the medical literature’s treatment of Halloween sadism.

Peter Doyle. World War II in Numbers: An Infographic Guide to the Conflict, Its Conduct, and Its Casualties, illustrated by Lindsey Johns (Buffalo NY: Firefly Books, 2013). 224 pp. ISBN: 177085195X. Doyle's book contains dozens of graphs of statistical data dealing with World War II. Many of these graphs are visually striking. However, they often violate fundamental graphing principles, in that they distort quantitative relationships, use unidentified scales, and often make it difficult to compare quantities. Graphic software makes it easy to create imaginative images, but these can fail to communicate the very information that is the graph's purpose.

Darrell Huff's How to Lie with Statistics remains the best-known, nontechnical call for critical thinking about statistics. However, drawing a distinction between statistics and lying ignores the process by which statistics are socially constructed. For instance, bad statistics often are disseminated by sincere, albeit innumerate advocates (e.g., inflated estimates for the number of anorexia deaths) or through research findings selectively highlighted to attract media coverage (e.g., a recent study on the extent of bullying). Further, the spread of computers has made the production and dissemination of dubious statistics easier. While critics may agree on the desirability of increasing statistical literacy, it is unclear who might accept this responsibility.