Just as graphs can be used to manipulate statistics, maps can be used to manipulate data as well. Below I created two maps that show the minority student population in the Greater Hartford area during the 2009-2010 school year as a benchmark to check the progress of the Sheff settlement.
Map 1: Sharp Racial Differences
The map below shows sharp racial differences between the different towns surrounding Hartford. As you can see, Bloomfield, Windsor, Hartford, and Manchester are the only towns that appear to have a population of minority students. While the other towns appear to be heavily populated with whites.
Map 1: Sharp Racial Differences
To make the map above to appear to have sharp racial differences between the different towns in the Hartford area, I used the bucket option to highlight the differences. With the use of the bucket feature, I set the ranges from 0-50% percent and 50-100% as seen in the screenshot below. This scale limits a large number of towns that actually have a minority population because it is very rigid. This in turn, gives the illusion that none of these towns are meeting the Sheff goal of minority students in reduced isolated settings.
Sharp Racial Differences Scale
Map 2: Widespread Diversity
The map below shows widespread diversity between the different towns surrounding Hartford. As you can see, in comparison to the map 1 above (sharp racial differences) more towns appear to have a population of minority students and fewer towns appear to be heavily populated with whites.
Map 2: Widespread Diversity
To make the map above to appear to have widespread diversity between the different towns in the Hartford area, I used the bucket option to highlight the differences. With the use of the bucket feature, I set the ranges from 0-10% percent, 10-30%, and 30%-100% as seen in the screenshot below. This scale allows a large number of the towns that appeared to heavily populated with whites in map 1 to appear to have a minority population. This in turn, gives the illusion that the majority of the towns (even if the minority population is small) are meeting the Sheff goal of minority students in reduced isolated settings.
Widespread Diversity Scale
As with graphs, it is important to look at the scales that are used to represent data in maps. I have learned first hand different tricks that are used to manipulate results and I urge everyone to play close attention to details when analyzing different data in the future.