Module Directory

This module is for curious students asking themselves why do we need a course in statistics? The answer is simple: to make complex information understandable using a common language to systematise and report results! Quantitative Research: Crime and Inequality Across the Life Course will help resolute minds who want to gain a basic understanding of the statistical methods used in the study of inequality, crime and its associated subjects.

The study of crime and inequalities is broad and occupies a central role in social science research, encompassing studies of crime and income and wealth inequality, occupational and class hierarchies, inequality of educational opportunity, poverty, social mobility between and within generations, gender and race-ethnic inequality, and the consequences of criminal trajectories and medical illnesses.

The aims of the module are:

• To provide students with a substantive understanding of fundamental principles to apply to different types of statistics in the field of social inequalities and criminological research.


• To enable students to develop an improved ability to take large bodies of information and summarize them critically and to interpret quantitative evidence.


• To provide students with experience in formulating research questions and testable hypotheses and applying these to real data

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Demonstrate a substantive understanding of key theoretical methodological work in the field of inequalities, crime and quantitative methods for research.


2. Have an improved ability to critically read scientific journal articles and to interpret quantitative evidence.


3. Demonstrate the ability to critically examine the link between theoretical framework, research questions, data choice, and modelling strategy.


4. Formulate research questions and testable hypotheses and apply these to real data.

In this module student will pay particular attention to social stratification and the life course perspective of criminal offenders, victims, and society. Social stratification is the unequal distribution of scarce resources, and of the processes by which these resources are allocated to individuals, groups, and social positions. We will be asking how experiences in early life influence later events and choices for offenders, victims, and other parties, affect their access to education, work opportunities, and long-term health conditions.

Students in this module will be exposed to a selective introduction to the study of statistics in aspects of stratification, crime and victimization, and also on the national institutions that engage in crime and sociodemographic reporting such as police, courts, and prison data collection systems. We will pay particular attention to the problem-solving perspective of dealing with quantitative data; in other words, how researchers approach statistics examining the logics behind it with as little fear as possible. 

The course will examine specific examples of quantitative research, covering the concepts, theories, facts, and methods of analysis used by social scientists to understand basic principles across statistical techniques. The examples are not meant to provide a comprehensive overview, but rather to illustrate prominent questions in the field and how researchers go about answering them.

In general, the module relies on a building-block approach, meaning that each teaching week helps to prepare the student for the sessions that follow. It also means that the level of sophistication of the course increases as the year progresses. In the teaching weeks that follow, students will examine three types of statistics used in criminological research: descriptive statistics, inferential or inductive statistics, and multivariate statistics.

After the introductory week, this course is divided into eight sections, each devoted to providing students with an accessible, yet sophisticated understanding of statistics that can be used to examine real-life social science problems with popular statistical software programs.

This module is part of the Q-Step pathway. Q-Step is an award which you can gain simply by enrolling on specific modules and will signal to employers your capability in quantitative research. Learn more about the Q-Step pathway and enhance your degree now.

This module will be delivered via;

• One 1-hour lecture each week.
• One 2-hour lab session each week.

• Jackson, Michelle; Erikson, Robert; Goldthorpe, John H.; Yaish, Meir. (2007-09) 'Primary and Secondary Effects in Class Differentials in Educational Attainment', in Acta Sociologica. vol. 50 (3) , pp.211-229
• Treiman, Donald J. (c2009) Quantitative data analysis: doing social research to test ideas, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Heckman, J. J. (2006-06-30) 'Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children', in Science. vol. 312 (5782) , pp.1900-1902
• Field, Andy P. (2018) Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics, London: SAGE.
• Bryman, Alan. (2016) Social research methods, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• De Vries, Robert. (2019) Critical statistics: seeing beyond the headlines, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Abendroth, Anja-Kristin; Huffman, Matt L.; Treas, Judith. (2014-10) 'The Parity Penalty in Life Course Perspective', in American Sociological Review. vol. 79 (5) , pp.993-1014
• Becker, Birgit. (2011-03) 'Social disparities in children's vocabulary in early childhood. Does pre-school education help to close the gap?', in The British Journal of Sociology. vol. 62 (1) , pp.69-88
• Gibson, Jason; SRMO; Sage Research Methods. (2014) Central limit theorem: Part 1, Texas, USA: Math Tutor DVD LLC.
• (no date) The Correlation Coefficient Explained - YouTubeThe Correlation Coefficient Explained.
• Gibson, Jason; SRMO; Sage Research Methods. (2013) Populations and samples, Texas, USA: Math Tutor DVD LLC.
• Lynch, J.W.; Kaplan, G.A.; Salonen, J.T. (1997-3) 'Why do poor people behave poorly? Variation in adult health behaviours and psychosocial characteristics by stages of the socioeconomic lifecourse', in Social Science & Medicine. vol. 44 (6) , pp.809-819
• Grusky, David B.; Weisshaar, Katherine R. (2014) Social stratification: class, race, and gender in sociological perspective, Boulder: Westview Press.
• Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald; Thomas, Melvin; Johnson, Kecia. (2005-07) 'Race and the Accumulation of Human Capital across the Career: A Theoretical Model and Fixed-Effects Application', in American Journal of Sociology. vol. 111 (1) , pp.58-89
• Kathryn, Edin. (2014) 'Low income urban fathers and the “package deal” of family life', in Social stratification: class, race, and gender in sociological perspective, Boulder: Westview Press.
• A House Divided - How Unaffordable Housing Drives UK Inequality | The Equality Trust, https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/house-divided-how-unaffordable-housing-drives-uk-inequality
• Elder, Glen H. (1998-02) 'The Life Course as Developmental Theory', in Child Development. vol. 69 (1) , pp.1-12
• MacInnes, John. (2017) An introduction to secondary data analysis with IBM SPSS statistics, London: Sage Publications Ltd.
• Sullivan, Alice; Joshi, Heather; Leonard, Diana. (2010-03) 'Single-Sex Schooling and Academic Attainment at School and Through the Lifecourse', in American Educational Research Journal. vol. 47 (1) , pp.6-36
• Field, Andy P. (©2018) Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics, London: SAGE.
• (no date) Introduction to Statistics.
• Hout, Michael. (2012-08-11) 'Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States', in Annual Review of Sociology. vol. 38 (1) , pp.379-400
• MACMILLAN, LINDSEY; TYLER, CLAIRE; VIGNOLES, ANNA. (2015-07) 'Who Gets the Top Jobs? The Role of Family Background and Networks in Recent Graduates' Access to High-status Professions', in Journal of Social Policy. vol. 44 (03) , pp.487-515
• Steele, Claude. (2014) 'Stereotype threat and African American student achievement', in Social stratification: class, race, and gender in sociological perspective, Boulder: Westview Press.
• Gibson, Jason; SRMO; Sage Research Methods. (2014) Sampling distributions, Texas, USA: Math Tutor DVD LLC.
• Gibson, Jason; SRMO; Sage Research Methods. (2013) Population and sample standard deviation, Texas, USA: Math Tutor DVD LLC.
• Geronimus, Arline T. (1996-2) 'Black/white differences in the relationship of maternal age to birthweight: A population-based test of the weathering hypothesis', in Social Science & Medicine. vol. 42 (4) , pp.589-597
• Gibson, Jason; SRMO; Sage Research Methods. (2013) The frequency distribution, Texas, USA: Math Tutor DVD LLC.
• Vikki Boliver. (2011) 'Expansion, differentiation, and the persistence of social class inequalities in British higher education', in Higher Education: Springer. vol. 61 (3)
• Lareau, Annette. (2011) Unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life, Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Zaidi, Batool; Morgan, S. Philip. (2017-08-30) 'The Second Demographic Transition: A Review and Appraisal', in Annual Review of Sociology. vol. 43 (1)
• (no date) An Introduction to Correlation & Regression.
• SAGE Research Methods, http://0-methods.sagepub.com.serlib0.essex.ac.uk/