2012 Presidential Election Exit Polls

If you are looking for information on how social categories influence voting patterns, exit polls are always a good source of information (as well as an interesting talking point in methods courses).

This NY Times interactive feature is a graphically pleasant way to look at some exit poll data.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls

Political Typology Quiz [Interactive Quiz]

The political typology quiz created by Pew Research consists of 23 paired statements.  Users select the statement that they most agree with it.  After responding to all 23 statements, PEW estimates the political ideology that best fits each user. The ideologies are PEW's categories of political viewpoints and NOT political parties.  Users can take the quiz individually or compare to colleagues.

Link to the Quiz: http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/

In addition to starting discussion about Political Sociology, this quiz would be useful in a methods class to take about operationalizing and measuring "ideology". Do students agree or disagree with the way Pew sorts people? Could they improve it anyhow?

Finding and Analyzing Arrest Data [Data] [Interactive Feature]

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has a pretty cool interactive tool that let you look at arrest statistics from 1980 onward.  The interactive tables also allow you to look at how certain arrest rates differ by race and gender.  You can see an example below.

In order to make this graph I clicked on the "National Estimates" and then selected "Trend Graphs by Sex".  The tool then gave me the option to choose Age Group, Sex, and Offense. If you want to see a trend line for both men and women (as I do above), make sure you select the check box for men and women. After I made all my selected, I click on "Make Rates Graph"

I like that it is easy to generate the graphs - giving  very visual representation of trends. You could ask them to hypothesize how certain offenses might vary by gender, race, or over time. After discussion, you can easily generate a graph to answer the question. They can also easily generate these graphs at home. In addition, you can download the data into Excel.

This would also be a great tool to start a discussion about this type of data.  Are "arrests" good measures of crime? How are rates different from counts?

UN Human Development Index [Data]

The UN Human Development Index measures the life expectancy, educational attainment, and income of most nations. "The breakthrough for the HDI was the creation of a single statistic which was to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development."

The site is a great way to have students look up differences between nations and regions on three major indicators. The data are also easy to sort on the spot- and so you could use this in class to start a discussion on global inequality.

UN Human Development Index

The site does a great job explaining how each data point was calculated, so this would also be a nice tool to use if you wanted to talk about measuring and operationalizing concepts.

Finding Polling Data Online [Data Downloads]

Sometimes you are interested in looking at polling data on social issues in order to make a point to class. Other times, students are looking for evidence to support their arguments.

Polling Report is a good place to grab some quick information on public opinion.
Link to Polling Report

 This stripped down site simply lists a number of topic areas. Click on each one to see recent polling data.

Once you click on a topic, you will see information of who conducted the poll, the polling dates, sample size, and margin of error. You can also see the exact question that was asked and the percentage of people who gave each response. (This is a great tool to use for talking about building survey questions). Occasionally, you will also see additional information that shows responses by demographics such as age, gender, or political party.

While this is a great way to get a pulse on some social issues, one downside is that you can't actually download any data from this site or delve further into the methods or responses. However once you see a poll that you are interested in, you can usually google that specific polling organization to get more some information on that particular poll.

Other Good Sites for Finding Polling Data

Gallup Poll

Measuring Social Class [Interactive Graphic]

This interactive graphic from the New York Times gives a number of ways to look at social class. It is a bit dated (uses 2001 and 2003 IPUMS Data), but still useful.To see the different possibilities, click on one of the four tabs at the top of the graphic.

Click here for NY Times Graphic : How Class Works

1. Components of Class:  This interactive breaks down social class by 4 measurable variables > Occupation, Education, Income, and Wealth.  Users can select different values of each variable to determine where someone falls on the social class spectrum. 
2. How Class Breaks Down - This interactive uses a 5x5 grid to display what class people are in based on occupation. In my opinion, the interpretation of this one is not as user friendly as the others.
3. Income Mobility -  There are four subsections here. Navigate using the titles on the top left.
1. How mobility works - This interactive gives you a sense of how people started out in 1988 and compares to where they wound up in 1998. Clicking on each social class helps illustrate that social mobility is not as easy as many think it is.
2. Overall Trends, Income Elasticity, and Country by Country are not interactive but they do have graphs that you may find useful.
4. A Nationwide Poll - These graphics are static but you could grab them and use them for presentations. There are five subsections of graphics - click on the titles to the far left in order to see them all. You can also download the complete poll results.

You can use this for talking about social class in a content class - or you can use it for talking about measurement in a methods class.