Mastering the Basics: An Overview of Normalization Levels for Structured Social Science Data Management

Normalization

The gradual shift that makes a situation, idea, or behavior come to be more widely accepted or seen as “normal.” This term is sometimes used to describe how giving voice to prejudiced thoughts, which is generally regarded as unacceptable or outside the social norms of our polite, modern society, becomes more common and more accepted when authority figures such as business and political leaders do it. In the context of the article, though, the phrase “normalization of whiteness” refers to the way being white shifted from being a neutral fact to being the default, or “normal” race. That positioning relegating all non-white races to the category of “other,” which eventually became seen as “abnormal,” out of place, or less than. Over time, this creates the perception that there is something superior about white people. This phrase is used as a way to bring attention to one of the subtle processes that reinforces white privilege.

Normalization is the process of organizing data in a database to reduce redundancy and improve data integrity. The goal of normalization is to minimize data duplication and inconsistency, making data management more efficient and effective. There are several levels of normalization that ensure that a database is well-organized and structured.

The most commonly used normalization levels are:

1) First Normal Form (1NF): This level of normalization entails creating a table that has no repeating groups or arrays. In other words, every attribute in a table should have a single value.

2) Second Normal Form (2NF): This level of normalization ensures that the table has a primary key and all other attributes are dependent on the primary key. All attributes must be functionally dependent on the primary key to be in 2NF.

3) Third Normal Form (3NF): This level of normalization ensures that the table is in 2NF and that there are no transitive dependencies. This means that non-key attributes must not depend on other non-key attributes.

4) Fourth Normal Form (4NF): This level of normalization ensures that multiple or complex relationships between attributes in the table are removed.

It is essential to note that normalization is not always necessary or beneficial to a database. Each level of normalization has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to the database designer to decide whether or not to normalize their data based on their specific requirements.

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