Ethnostatistics is the study of the social activity of producing and using statistics. The premise of the area of study is that statistics are themselves not neutral facts, but are themselves influenced by the social biases of the persons involved in their production. The concept was suggested in

John Kitsuse John Itsuro Kitsuse (1923, Imperial Valley, California, US - 27 November 2003, Santa Cruz, California, US) was an American professor of sociology who contributed to the sociology of social problems, criminology Criminology (from Latin , "a ...

Aaron Cicourel Aaron Victor Cicourel, who is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, specializes in sociolinguistics, medical communication, decision-making, and child socialization. Early in his career, he was intellectually in ...

in their 1962 article, "A Note on Official Statistics", published in ''

Social Problems A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society and ones that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's cont ...

'', where they suggested that "criminal statistics" are indicative of the social organization of the agencies responsible for assembling them. The concept was developed by sociologist Robert Gephart in his 1988 book, ''Ethnostatistics''.Gordon Marshall, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology'' (1994), p. 160. The field of study "uses concepts from ethnomethodology to study sensemaking practices that social scientists employ in the production, interpretation, and display of statistics created in social research". Michael Lewis-Beck, Alan E Bryman, Tim Futing Liao, ''The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods'' (2003), p. 334. As of the early 2000s, there were three "levels" of ethnostatistics, the first examining the social production of statistics, the second using computer simulations to examine the degree to which methods of gathering statistics may distort data, and third examining the persuasive effect of statistics on their end consumer.

References

Ethnography Philosophy of statistics {{statistics-stub