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Socially Inclusive Foundations of Statistics

An Autoethnography

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Handbook of Social Inclusion
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Abstract

Though distinct, the practice of statistics and the scientific worldview in which it is almost always practiced are so entwined that they are often taken to be the same. Feminist and decolonization scholars, among others, have noted that the scientific worldview is control-centered, irresponsible, and socially exclusionary. This chapter, written as an autoethnography, documents the author’s efforts as a statistician in creating a new alliance of statistical practice with an alternative, socially inclusive worldview. Aided by the concept of community elicitation, the author argues that Bayesian data-analysis methods hold promise for interfacing with socially inclusive research approaches that include a quantitative component, such as mixed methods research.

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Correspondence to Dan J. Spitzner .

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Spitzner, D.J. (2021). Socially Inclusive Foundations of Statistics. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Inclusion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_17-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_17-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-48277-0

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