ABSTRACT

This article outlines the value of administrative data for family justice research. Although socio-legal scholars have extended their research beyond purely theoretical or doctrinal analyses, studies using large-scale digital datasets remain few in number. As new opportunities arise to link large-scale administrative datasets across health, education, welfare and justice, it is vital that the community of family justice researchers and analysts are supported to deliver research based on entire service or family court populations. In this context, this article provides a definition of administrative data, before outlining the potential of single, linked or blended administrative data sets for family justice research. The remaining sections of the article speak to questions that are pertinent to this particular academic community, including the distinctive contribution of the socio-legal scholar to interdisciplinary teams and the place of data providers in collaborative research. Drawing on the sociological concept of ‘publics’, the final section considers the multiple interest groups whose social licence must be secured, when personal records are used to understand the relationship between law and family life.

摘要

本文概述了行政数据对家庭司法研究的价值。尽管社会法律学者已经将他们的研究扩展到纯粹的理论或教义分析之外，但使用大规模数字数据集的研究数量仍然很少。随着将跨越健康、教育、福利和司法的大规模行政数据集联系起来的新机会出现，支持家庭司法研究人员和分析人员社区提供基于整个服务或家庭法庭人口的研究至关重要。在此背景下，本文提供了行政数据的定义，然后概述了用于家庭司法研究的单一、链接或混合行政数据集的潜力。文章的其余部分讨论了与这个特定学术界相关的问题，包括社会法律学者对跨学科团队的独特贡献以及数据提供者在合作研究中的地位。借鉴“公众”的社会学概念，最后一部分考虑了必须获得社会许可的多个利益群体，当个人记录用于理解法律与家庭生活之间的关系时。