What is a sociometric analysis and how does it help understand impacts on social protection services?
When talking about network analysis, one might almost immediately think of studies on the virtual social networks that are so present in contemporary life. Indeed, studies in this area have become increasingly popular, identifying questions about the algorithms (lines of digital code) that structure the platforms we use so frequently, such as Instagram, Whatsapp, Youtube, Twitter and so many others. This type of research, however, is just an offshoot of sociometrics studies.
Sociometric analysis is a field of structural research of scientific rigor, used for almost a hundred years by researchers worldwide to investigate how individuals are perceived within a group, that is, how these people relate to each other. From this analysis, it is possible to identify possible leaders of a community, people who are rejected by it, or those who are most popular within the collective.
How is this done? Well, to conduct this analysis, the researcher follows a series of measures that serve as metrics in conducting the survey. In Brumacast #22, which you can listen to below, Professor Eduardo Moreira Silva didactically exemplifies the process.
Applying network analysis in Subproject 50 - Social protection services
In the Brumadinho UFMG Project, sociometric analysis - or network analysis - is being used in Subproject 50, to identify impacts that social protection services have suffered as a result of the collapse of Dam B1 of the Córrego do Feijão Mine. To this end, responses to a questionnaire (survey) online, which raised the data to enable the analysis of networks of actors and institutions formed around the policy of social assistance protection in the municipalities covered by the Project. Focus groups will also be conducted in the region to identify possible actors and institutions, which for some reason were not indicated in the survey.
From this point on, it will be possible to carry out the analysis in order to map the network of people and institutions related to social assistance services in the 19 municipalities surveyed, as well as the interactions among them. The goal of this process is to identify the type of connection existing between the equipment, services and organizations of the Network formed by the answers to the questionnaires and focus groups, in addition to mapping their dynamics, routines and interaction flows established between public and private equipment, programs and services of the Social Assistance Network in the municipalities in the period prior to the environmental disaster.
The sociometric analysis also intends to perform a diagnosis on the current routines and flows of the social assistance protection network, in order to evaluate, in the moment after the disaster, what were the changes in the services, in order to suggest improvement of the routines and interaction flows between actors and organizations of the Network of the municipalities.