Poverty in the UK: Advancing paradata analysis and open access

ESRC cross-investment project

Peter Townsend’s 1967-9 Poverty in the UK survey was a landmark study that laid the groundwork for contemporary understandings of poverty. Lessons from its research process have not been fully exploited, however.

This project brings together experts in historical comparative qualitative analysis, narrative analysis and researching poverty from the NCRM Hub, NOVELLA node of NCRM and the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research.

The project will:

• look at shifts and continuities in the social process of gathering household survey data about poverty through analysis of macro paradata from the historical Poverty in the UK survey, and compare this with equivalent paradata from the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey (2012);
• explore the potential of interviewer observations through comparative analysis of the micro paradata in the historical and recent studies; and
• provide unique insights into the process of the Poverty in the UK study through conducting video interviews with some of the original researchers and fieldworkers.
  

Open access to the data and contextual material will be promoted through:

• digitizing Poverty in the UK survey booklets for access through the UK Data Service; and
• posting of video interviews and digitized Poverty in the UK contextual material on the Poverty and Social Exclusion website.
  

The project will hold a day seminar on the open access material in 2014.

Staff

Professor Ros Edwards (NCRM Hub), Professor Ann Phoenix, Heather Elliott (NOVELLA node), Professor Dave Gordon, Dr Karen Bell, Dr Eldin Fahmy and Professor Hilary Land (Townsend Centre)