Building social indicators: a review of the specialized literature
Authors
Ranulfo Parahos
UFAL – Universidade Federal de Alagoas. Instituto de Ciências Sociais. Maceió – AL – Brasil.
Dalson Britto Figueiredo Filho
UFPE – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Departamento de Ciência Política. Recife – PE – Brasil.
Enivaldo Carvalho da Rocha
UFPE – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Departamento de Ciência Política. Recife – PE – Brasil.
José Alexandre da Silva Júnior
UFAL – Universidade Federal de Alagoas. Instituto de Ciências Sociais. Maceió – AL – Brasil.
Romero Galvão Maia
IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Recife – PE – Brasil.
Keywords:
Multivariate data analysis, Quantitative methods, Political science,
Abstract
What is, which it does and how we do construct social indicators? The principal aim of this paper is to answer these questions. The focus relies on the intuitive comprehension of the main concepts, characteristics and measurement of social indicators. Our targeting audience is both undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in general. On methodological grounds, we use basic simulation and observed data to show how social indicators can be constructed using principal component analysis.
