Qualitative_data_analysis

26 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
quantities and not the ‘qualities’ involved? Perhaps. But we are assuming that ‘years’
are of (sufficiently) equal length and therefore bear a consistent relation to the
length of a life. If our mother was an ancient Roman, the number of years lived
might bear no consistent relation to the length of her life. The Romans used a lunar
rather than a solar calendar, and had to continually adjust the year by adding in
extra days. The calendar was in such a mess by 47 BC that Caesar made the year
445 days long (Coveney and Highfield 1991:43)! The variable ‘years old’ in fact
expresses a quite sophisticated classification, one which is a cultural product
reflecting the culmination (to date) of a long and complex political and scientific
process. If this example seems obscure, then consider contemporary Japan, where
years of age are reckoned prospectively rather than retrospectively—a Japanese baby
during the first year is reckoned as a one-year-old. We can all tell (or lie about) how
many years old we are, but only because (and insofar as) the calendar has become
established as a standard measure of the passage of time.
What about the number of children? This too depends upon common, taken-forgranted
assumptions about what it means to ‘have children’. But with the growth of
single parent families and ‘step’ relationships, and technological advances in the
shape of artificial insemination and test tube babies, this has become problematic. In
this changing cultural context, our common understanding of what ‘having a child’
means has become less definite. It may be necessary, for example, to distinguish
clearly between biological and social relationships. For example, we might define
‘having children’ as ‘giving birth to a child’ (effectively excluding men from having
children!). But in some circumstances, even this may not be sufficient. Redmond
O’Hanlon (1988) recounts the story of a social scientist trying to establish for social
security purposes the number of child dependents in an Amazonian village. The
hapless researcher was confounded by two women claiming to have given birth to
the same child! Before we can determine how many children a mother has, we have
to achieve a common understanding of what this means. If we intend to make
quantitative comparisons, we must first make certain we are comparing ‘like with
like’ by achieving a consistent qualitative interpretation of what it means to ‘have a
child’.
We must therefore look behind the numbers, to what the information we have
means and how it can be used. In other words, we must identify the appropriate
level of measurement for the data. If we ignore the level of measurement, we can
easily think we know more about the data than we actually do. For example, in the
university where I work the grading and marking scale in Illustration 2.2 is in
operation.