Historical Social Research/ Historische Sozialforschung
HSR Vol. 34 (2009) No. 3 – Special Issue: Social Bookkeeping Data

Special Issue:
Nina Baur (Ed.): «Social Bookkeeping Data: Data Quality and Data Management» / «Soziale Buchführungsdaten: Datenqualität und Datenmanagement»
&
Focus:
Ingvill C. Mochmann, Sabine Lee & Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Eds.): «Children Born of War: Second World War and Beyond» / «Kinder des Krieges: Zweiter Weltkrieg und danach»

HSR Vol. 34 (2009) 3, 376 pages.

HSR Vol. 34 (2009) 3, Part I: Special Issue
Nina Baur (Ed.): «Social Bookkeeping Data: Data Quality and Data Management» / «Soziale Buchführungsdaten: Datenqualität und Datenmanagement»

Social bookkeeping data (also called public administrational data, quantitative/standardized process-produced/process-generated data, mass data or mass files) are one of the oldest sources of information used both in historical and in social research. While they resemble survey data in many ways, they also raise specific methodological problems: In contrast to research-elicited data, data production is not controlled by the researcher. Instead, societal and institutional filters influence a) which data are produced and how they are produced (production bias), and b) if and how data are stored (selection bias).
Accordingly, in the 1970s and 1980s, there has been an intense discussion on data quality and data management of public administrational data in German historical social research, namely in HSR. While the use of mass data has increased in recent years due to paradigm shifts both in methodology and theory, due to new developments in IT and due to increased accessibility of these data types, the methodological debate strangely lacks behind this development. This special issue thus aims at re-opening the discussion on social bookkeeping data and linking it to modern methodological discourse (particularly in survey and mixed methods research).
Starting from different stages of the research process, authors ask, what can happen there with and to data and samples? Which problems can arise? Can they be avoided? If not, how should they be properly handled? Do these problems arise for all sources, or are they specific to some sources? Major methodological issues to be tackled are (a) data lore and measurement quality; (b) data selection and sampling problems; (c) archiving and statistical programmes and (d) data preparation.

HSR Vol. 34 (2009) 3, Part II: Focus
Ingvill C. Mochmann, Sabine Lee & Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Eds.): «Children Born of War: Second World War and Beyond» / «Kinder des Krieges: Zweiter Weltkrieg und danach»

As in every other war, during and after WWII children were born whose parents belonged to opposite sides of the conflict. Being the child of the “enemy” or of occupation forces, be they friendly or adversarial, has influenced the lives of the children born of war and occupation up until now. Many have been exposed to stigmatisation and discrimination. Now in their fifties and sixties, some have started looking for their roots only recently, thus trying to break the wall of silence that has surrounded them for several decades. Most of them have been concerned with this “stain” of their mixed parentage for their whole lives, often without being able to exchange their experiences with others of similar background. This holds not only for enemy children, but also for children from allied forces such as American soldiers in Britain or Soviet soldiers in Austria and Germany, all of whom seem to have experienced similar difficulties and have been exposed to comparable discrimination.
Regardless of the dimension and social impact of the tens of thousands of children born of war, this topic has so far found little attention in academia, particularly when compared to other aspects of WWII research. Even in German speaking countries with their greater exposure the phenomenon of children born of war, the interest in the topic has been limited. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were serving in the Wehrmacht all over Europe during WWII and in the post-war decade American, British Soviet and French troops were occupying Germany and Austria.
As a result the German dimension of this topic is significant. In order to make the contributions accessible to the broader German speaking audience, who may again be important knowledge providers, the contributions in this HSR focus are in German except for a summary article on children born of war during the Second World War and beyond. Two articles examine the situation of the children fathered by German soldiers and local women in occupied territories, in Denmark and the Netherlands. The other two articles analyse the situation of children fathered by American soldiers and local women in Germany and Britain and children of Soviet soldiers and local women in Germany and Austria.

Allen Abonnentinnen und Abonnenten von H-Soz-u-Kult bieten wir die neu erschienene HSR-Ausgabe Vol. 34 (2009) No. 3 zu einem Sonderpreis von € 12,- an.

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Sandra Schulz
GESIS
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50931 Köln
Fon +49 / 221 / 476 94 - 96
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Links zur HSR:
<www.gesis.org/hsr>
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<www.hsr-retro.de/>

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