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The Predictive Postcode
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The Predictive Postcode
The Geodemographic Classification of British Society



April 2018 | 328 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

It is not lost on commercial organisations that where we live colours how we view ourselves and others.  That is why so many now place us into social groups on the basis of the type of postcode in which we live.  Social scientists call this practice “commercial sociology”.

Richard Webber originated Acorn and Mosaic, the two most successful geodemographic classifications. Roger Burrows is a critical interdisciplinary social scientist.  Together they chart the origins of this practice and explain the challenges it poses to long-established social scientific beliefs such as:

  • the role of the questionnaire in an era of “big data”
  • the primacy of theory
  • the relationship between qualitative and quantitative modes of understanding
  • the relevance of visual clues to lay understanding.

To help readers evaluate the validity of this form of classification, the book assesses how well geodemographic categories track the emergence of new types of residential neighbourhood and subject a number of key contemporary issues to geodemographic modes of analysis.


 
Part I: Neighbourhood Classification and the Analysis of Social Behaviour
 
Chapter 1: Neighbourhoods and their Classification
 
Chapter 2: The Precursors to Geodemographic Classification
 
Chapter 3: The Emergence of Contemporary Geodemographics
 
Chapter 4: The Wider Adoption of 'Commercial Sociology'
 
Chapter 5: Who Do They Think You Are? Capturing the Changing Face of British Society
 
Part II: A Geodemographic Account of Social Change
 
Chapter 6: The Liberal Metropolitan Elite: 'Citizens of Nowhere'?
 
Chapter 7: Municipal Overspill Estates: Educational Under-Achievement among the 'Left Behinds'?
 
Chapter 8: Minority Communities: Melting Pots or Parallel Lives?
 
Chapter 9: The British Countryside: Playgrounds for the Middle Classes?
 
Chapter 10: Coastal Communities: All Victims of Low-Cost Airline Travel?
 
Part III: Coda
 
Chapter 11: A Geodemographic Travelogue
 
Chapter 12: Geodemographics in the Future

Sample Materials & Chapters

Neighbourhoods and their Classification


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ISBN: 9781526448835

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ISBN: 9781526402332
$148.00

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ISBN: 9781526402349
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This title is also available on SAGE Knowledge, the ultimate social sciences online library. If your library doesn’t have access, ask your librarian to start a trial.