Playing Politics with Data

In the increasingly polarized political environment in the United States, it is hard to imagine policy-making becoming even more ideological and subjective.  This is the main concern of two associate professors from Columbia University Emi Nakamura and Jon Steinsson and assistant professor Nicolas Vincent from HEC Montreal in a recent Bloomberg View op-ed.


Sparked by recent legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in early May, the trio outlines a dangerous trend of conservative governments all over the world (Argentina, Greece, and Canada) playing politics with data collection that serves as objective voice in policy-making.  Most notably, Greece's misreporting of budget deficit statistics that resulted in an criminal investigation as the country faced total economic collapse.


According to the authors, "It’s hard to overstate how dangerous the destruction of high-quality, objective statistical information would be."  The three main statistical agencies in the United States - the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics - "account for less than 0.05 percent of President Barack Obama’s $3.7 trillion proposed budget." 


This issue is being played out in the media as the budget deficit and economy is the main concern on the minds of voters heading into the upcoming national elections.  Increasing awareness and educating the public about the importance of collecting reliable demographic data could swayvoters as they head to the polls this November.

Asian Americans and Identity

Data from the Pew Research Center demonstrate how different Asian American groups identify themselves.  Overall, 62% of all Asian Americans usually describe themselves by articulating their country of origin.  19% refer to themselves as Asians or Asian Americans, and 14% identify simply as Americans.  

Between Asian groups, however, there is some variation in the ways individuals identify.  About three quarters of both the Vietnamese and Korean populations identify with their country of origin.  Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Americans exhibit the smallest percentage of individuals who identify with their country of origin (six in ten).

Another way to look at the data is by distinguishing the foreign born population of Asian Americans from the native born population of Asian Americans.  Among the foreign born, seven in ten identify with their country of origin, while only four in ten in the native born population will do the same.  Conversely, a mere 9% of foreign born Asians describe themselves as American, but 28% of the native born call themselves as American.

Brookings Institution Finds Economic Recovery in Metro Areas to be Sluggish and Uneven

The Brookings Institution released its July Metro Monitor, in which the organization inspects key economic indicators from each of America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas in order to assess the national recovery.  The findings point towards a sluggish recovery.  Since the fourth quarter of the previous year, employment among the U.S.’s most populated regions rose 0.5%, unemployment fell 0.3%, GDP grew 0.6%, and housing prices decreased 2.1%.  Brookings points out diminishing GDP growth and meager job numbers as the most troubling indicators. 

Texas metro areas, due to a booming natural gas sector, experienced a more mild recession, and have thus pulled out of the downturn better than most regions.  High-tech metro areas such as Boston, Raleigh, San Jose, and Seattle have benefited from stabilization in housing prices, while on the other hand the majority of metro areas in the west have performed poorly.

U.S. Naturalization

The Economist's recent Daily Chart depicts the number of naturalizations that occurred over the past decade in a handful of countries.  The graph also displays the proportion of each country's population that is foreign born.


The nations that naturalized the most citizens were the United States, Russia, and Canada. With a figure of 6.6 million, the United States naturalized the most citizens from 2001-2010. Russia comes in second, with about half as many naturalizations at 3.1 million people, while Canada follows with just under 2 million naturalized citizens in just as many years. Other countries with more than a million naturalized immigrants are Britain, France, and Germany.

However, the countries that naturalized the most immigrants are not necessarily the ones whose populations have the greatest proportion of foreign born people.  For example, while the United States conferred citizenship on 6.6 million individuals in the past decade, immigrants only account for 13% of its total population.  On the other hand, Australia and Switzerland naturalized 1 million and about 0.4 million people, but both their foreign born populations constitute 27% of the total population, the most of any countries depicted in the graphic.  Countries with other high proportions of foreign born people are New Zealand (23%), Canada (20%), Spain (15%), and Sweden (15%).

Census Predicts Hispanic Population Within U.S. to Grow to 132.9 Million by 2050

Roberto Ramirez, Chief of the Ancestry and Ethnicity branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, appeared on C-SPAN to discuss the current and future Hispanic population in America.  Currently, 52 million Hispanics reside in America, accounting for 16.7% of the entire U.S. population.  In the past decade, the U.S. population added 30.1 million residents, 16.7 million (55.5%) of whom were Hispanic. 

Births within the U.S. contributed to almost two thirds of the growth within the Hispanic population, with migration accounting for the other third.  Additionally, Hispanics predominantly originate from Mexico, with more than 31 million hailing from the nation.  Mr. Ramirez projects the Hispanic population within the U.S. to swell to over 132 million, 30.2% of Americans, by 2050.

UPDATE: Webinar on using Quantitative Data in the Classroom today at *1 pm*

On Wednesday, June 27, at *1 pm*, EDT, ICPSR and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) will host the third webinar in a series aimed at integrating quantitative data analysis into substantive undergraduate social sciences courses. This webinar will feature Dr. Jill Bouma, Associate Professor of Sociology at Berea College in Berea, KY, and Dr. Dana Greene, Research Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who will discuss how they challenge their students in lower-division courses to define and describe stratification in the U.S. and the world today.
Participants will learn how Dr. Bouma and Dr. Greene successfully lead their students through the investigation of topics such as income inequality, housing segregation, race, and gender using quantitative data and methods. In addition to promoting a deeper understanding of the content, students taught with these methods improve critical thinking skills and develop a greater appreciation of the social sciences. Viewers will also learn where they can access some of Dr. Bouma and Dr. Greene's teaching materials to adapt for their own use.
Pre-registration is not required. To view the webinar, visit https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/978777294 a few minutes before *1 p.m.* on Wednesday, June 27.

Homicides Up 38% In Chicago

Monica Davey of The New York Times examined homicides in some of America’s largest cities.  Chicago’s Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, ranked safer streets among his top three priorities when he first took office; however, homicides are up 38% from a year ago.  Killings have fallen in other cities like New York and Los Angeles, something Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg attributes in part to the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk program.  Philadelphia joins Chicago as a major city in which homicides have increased.  As of June 20, 173 homicides were reported in the City of Brotherly Love, up from 143 by the same time last year.  It is important to note that Chicago has experienced a drastic drop in killings since the early 1990s when more than 900 were killed annually.

Richy Rich: Income Inequality Infographics

Over the past year we have heard the media frequently use the term "99%."  It's a figure that Occupy Wall Street has been quick to employ to find common ground with the masses.  It's also a phrase that pundits have used to comment on the platforms of this year's presidential candidates.  But The Atlantic features a new way of looking at the 99% / 1% divide, by depicting incomes along a stacked bar chart that resembles the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The interesting chart comes from Scott Winship and is published on the Brookings Institution's website in an article about inequality within the top 1%.  The differences are striking.  If we take the poorest person in the top 1% of US incomes and put him on the 160th floor, then we would find the poorest person in the top 10% living on the 35th floor. Or, to put it another way, the disparity in earnings for these two individuals can be represented as a difference in 125 stories.  On the other hand, consider the median household income.  The poorest person in the top 50% of earners is separated from the poorest person in the top 10% by a mere 22 floors. The top one hundredth of incomes is separated from the poorest of the top 1% by 150 floors.  By contrast, the difference between the poorest individuals in the top 1% and those in the 2% is 67 floors

Over a Third of American Companies are Hiring

Gallup tracks the percentage of employed Americans who report their company is hiring or laying off workers.  The most recent tally displays an improving job market, in which 35% of companies are hiring compared to 16% that are letting go of employees.  These percentages have hardly changed since four years ago, when 37% of companies were hiring and 16% were laying off.  However, since bottoming out at 24% in late 2009, the percentage of companies that were seeking employees has risen steadily to its current level.  Conversely, the percentage of companies laying off its workforce peaked in early 2009, and has since fallen consistently.

White Americans Possess 22 Times More Wealth Than Black Americans

Tami Luhby, writing for CNN, highlighted the widening wealth gap between races.  In 2010, the median household net worth for whites was $110,729, whereas the median Hispanic and black household possessed a net worth of $7,424 and $4,955 respectively.  The median Asian household net worth was $69,590.  However, all three minorities were hit hard by the economic downturn, and from 2005 to 2010 the three minority groups saw their median household income decrease by about 60%.  On the other hand, the median white household experienced a drop in net worth of only 23%.  Today, white Americans possess 22 times more wealth than blacks, and that disparity has almost doubled since the recession.

Webinar on teaching quantitative data analysis to undergraduates set for June 27

On Wednesday, June 27, at 2 pm, EDT, ICPSR and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) will host the third webinar in a series aimed at integrating quantitative data analysis into substantive undergraduate social sciences courses. This webinar will feature Dr. Jill Bouma, Associate Professor of Sociology at Berea College in Berea, KY, and Dr. Dana Greene, Research Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who will discuss how they challenge their students in lower-division courses to define and describe stratification in the U.S. and the world today.


Participants will learn how Dr. Bouma and Dr. Greene successfully lead their students through the investigation of topics such as income inequality, housing segregation, race, and gender using quantitative data and methods. In addition to promoting a deeper understanding of the content, students taught with these methods improve critical thinking skills and develop a greater appreciation of the social sciences. Viewers will also learn where they can access some of Dr. Bouma and Dr. Greene's teaching materials to adapt for their own use.


Pre-registration is not required. To view the webinar, visit https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/978777294 a few minutes before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, June 27 to join in.

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Would Not Vote for a Mormon President

According to Gallup’s Frank Newport, the American public has not altered its views on the possibility of a Mormon president for the past 44 years. When asked if they would vote for their party's candidate if they were Mormon, 18 percent of respondents said they would not.  That response varies only slightly from the 17% who responded similarly in 1968. Additionally, of those who know Romney’s faith, 9% said they would not vote for a Mormon.  On the other hand, 29% of those who are unaware of Romney’s faith would not vote for a Mormon. With Mitt Romney ramping up his campaign for the upcoming presidential elections, it will be interesting to see how the electorate, which has never seen a Mormon major-party nominee, will respond. 

Americans Spend Less On Groceries

Lam Thuy Vo, writing for NPR, noted that Americans spend less money on groceries today than they spent 30 years ago. In 1982, citizens spent more than 12% of their money on groceries, compared to less than 9% today.  Why the decrease in spending?  Walter Falcon, a Stanford economist, attributes the trend to a “major restructuring in poultry, pork, and beef industries that has allowed efficiencies and brought down the cost.”  

Most notably, the cost of pork chops, chicken legs, butter, lettuce, and steak – adjusted for inflation – all fell by more than 30%.  For instance in 1982, a pound of pork chops (in 2012 dollars) cost Americans $6.00, but today, the price is only $3.72 per pound.  At the grocery store Americans also spend their money in a similar fashion, with two exceptions.  As to be expected, the share of money going towards meat goods fell from 31.3% in 1982 to 21.5% today, and while citizens spent 11.6% of their funds on processed foods and sweets in 1982, today that percentage has almost doubled to 22.9%. 

America's Largest Cities Still Growing

Marc Perry, chief of the Population Distribution Branch of the Census Bureau appeared on C-SPAN to discuss the population shifts and demographics of the most populous cities in America.  In 2010, there were 33 cities with 500,000 people or more, up from 29 in 2000.  In the past decade, Fort Worth experienced the greatest growth, with a 38.6% increase in population.   With a nearly 25 percent decrease in population, Detroit fell outside of the top ten most populous cities, replaced by San Jose, CA.  Most of the cities with the largest percentage increase are in the South or the West; these regions underwent a much greater population boom than the Northeast and Midwest.  Major population shifts however appear to be in decline.  From 1983 to 2011, the geographical mobility index has steadily dropped, falling to almost half of what it was in 1983.  So while population growth in these urban centers is still steadily increasing, the migration between large cities is falling significantly.

More Than 1 in 4 Fathers Live Apart From Their Children

Just in time for Father’s Day, the Pew Research Center released a study on children under the age of 18 living with their parents.  Since 1960, while the percentage of children living apart from their mothers has increased only marginally (from four to eight percent) the percentage of children living separately from their fathers has risen dramatically.  In 1960, 11% of children lived apart from their fathers, but in 2010, that figure has risen to more than 1 in 4 (27%).  Black and Hispanic fathers more likely to reside separately from their children at 44% and 35% respectively.  Educational attainment also plays a key role in predicting whether the father will live separately from the child, with only 7% of fathers with a college degree living apart from their children.  In the survey, 27% of fathers who live apart from their children say they had not seen their child once in the previous year, but 41% say they exchange calls and emails several times a week.

President Obama and Mitt Romney in Statistical Tie With 5 Months and Counting to Election Day

Gallup's Election 2012 poll has President Obama and Mitt Romney in a dead heat.  The President maintains only a one percentage point advantage with 46% of the vote to Romney's 45%.  However, the two are in a virtual tie, as the momentum has not quite shifted one way or the other over the past two months.  In fact, only rarely has the difference between the President Obama and Romney exceeded the margin of error.  Gallup also tracks the President's job approval rating at 47%.

Population Growth in U.S. Slows

Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, in a recent article, sought to answer the question, “What's driving the decline in U.S. population growth?”  While the U.S. added 2.9 million people from 2005 to 2006, the nation added only 2.3 million people from 2010 to 2011.  His findings pointed to a number of factors.  Firstly, the plunge in net immigration to the U.S. represents a major aspect of the decline.  Additionally, the U.S. has experienced a slower growth in Latino and Asian ethnicities.  At the turn of the century, percent annual change in U.S. population for Asian Americans and Latinos was over 4 percent, whereas today that rate is 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.  Mather also notes that the American population is aging.  While a decade ago, those under 18 contributed nearly 300,000 in population growth, but today, that age group fell by 190,000.  In combination with a rise in the over 65 age group, it is clear that the U.S. population is aging rapidly.  Finally, declining fertility rates are an incredibly important factor in the declining growth.  In 2005-2006, there were 4.2 million births, but today that figure stands at 4 million.  The total fertility rate (births per woman) was 2.1 in 2005-2006, and today it is 2.0.  However, recent statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics suggests that this rate could actually fall below 2.0.

American-Mexican Trade Becomes More Efficient

In June 12^th’s graphic detail, The Economist expounds upon a growing discrepancy in U.S.-Mexico trade relations.  While trade between the two countries (in manufactured goods mostly) has grown immensely since signing NAFTA in 1995, border traffic has remained relatively stagnant.  Almost 20 years ago, merchandise trade was valued at under $100 billion, but by 2011, that figure rose to more than $450 billion. In total, bilateral trade was worth over half a trillion dollars.  On the other hand, the number of trucks - the most significant transportation mechanism for America-Mexico trade - has actually fallen in the past decade, experiencing only a slight increase since ’95.  Why the inconsistency?  Christopher E. Wilson of the Border Research Partnership, whose study The Economist highlights, states, “there is an incentive to be as efficient as possible. Trucks are packing more value in the same space. As evidence, the number of loaded truck containers grew faster than the number of trucks crossings (since the 90s), and loaded containers increased much faster than the growth of empty truck containers."  No doubt, the heightened border security has impeded the growth in border crossings, but it appears trade is evolving correspondingly.

Webinar on "Teaching with Contingency Tables" set for Thursday, June 14

The Social Science Data Analysis Network, in partnership with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), will host a webinar at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, presented by SSDAN Director Bill Frey.


This webinar, part of an ongoing series, will focus on "Teaching with Contingency Tables" in substantive undergraduate sociology courses using the DataCounts! Web site and WebCHIP software. If you have ever wondered how to easily teach students how to interpret and manipulate social data such as that from the U.S. Census, then you are encouraged to participate!


Bill Frey will lead attendees through several ways to introduce students to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey data with our WebCHIP software. Participants will be shown how students can easily learn to create cross tabulations, charts and graphs using specialized SSDAN datasets that have been repackaged for educational use. After the initial instruction, SSDAN team members will be on hand to provide individual attention to participants as they complete an exercise and navigate their way through WebCHIP.


To register, please go to goo.gl/Qzn9p and complete and submit the registration form.
 

Persistent URL: http://icpsr.blogspot.com/2012/06/webinar-on-teaching-with-contingency.html

Partisan Divide at 25-Year High

The Pew Research Center recently released a report on the growing partisan polarization in America.  Pew surveyed respondents for the past 25 years on 48 different political values measures.  Over the 48 questions, the average percentage-point difference between Republicans and Democrats was 18%, up from 10% a quarter-century ago.  Additionally, whereas other divides based on race, education, and income have remained stable, party differences have surged.  The issues that have contributed most to this increasing polarization are the social safety net, the environment, labor unions, equal opportunity, the scope and size of the government, and immigration.  The environment and the size of the government in particular have experienced the greatest shift in polarization; the percentage-point difference regarding the environment and size of government is 34% and 27% higher respectively than 25 years ago.  Perhaps this disparity is linked to another of Pew’s discoveries examining partisan identification.  When asked how they identify themselves, 68% of Republicans believed they were conservative, up from 60% in 2000. Additionally, 38% of Democrats felt they were liberal, up from 28% in 2000.

Homeless Veteran Population Declines



From the Homelessness Research Institute's
The State of Homelessness in America 2012

The Population Reference Bureau reports that the number of homeless veterans is in decline.  From 2009 to 2011, the number of homeless veterans dropped from 75,600 to 67,500 (11% drop), but the total homeless population only fell 1 percent from 643,000 to 636,000.  38 percent of homeless people lack shelters, and instead sleep on the streets, in abandoned properties, or in cars.  Additionally, while 21 in every 10,000 in the general population are homeless, 31 of every 10,000 veterans are homeless. Of sheltered homeless veterans, 92% are male and 8% female.  52.1% are white and 35.1% are black.  The vast majority are aged 31 to 61, and roughly one in two is disabled. 

Almost 1 in 4 American Children in Poverty

Saki Knafo, writing for the Huffington Post, focuses on UNICEF’s recent report on child poverty in developed countries.  The report displays the shockingly high child poverty rate in the U.S., along with many other first world nations.  America’s child poverty rate stands at 23.1%, second only to Romania with 25.5%.  The rate was also marked at above 15% in Italy, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, and Japan.  The report does acknowledge that the term “relative child poverty,” which refers to a child living in a household that possesses a disposable income of less than half the national median income, does have its weaknesses.  The term is less effective when comparing rates between countries, but when taking each country into account separately, the relative child poverty is quite accurate.  Additionally, UNICEF calculates how social welfare programs affect the rate.  While Canada and the U.S. have the exact same child poverty rate before taxes and transfers (25.1%), when taking into account benefits from social welfare programs and taxes, the poverty rate in Canada drops drastically to 13.1%, whereas the rate in the U.S. falls only to 23.1%.   

American Students More Than Twice as Likely to Use Illicit Drugs Than European Students

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) released its wide-ranging report on drug use amongst European teens.  The results can be compared to those of University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future surveys in America, due to similarities in the methods and measures of the two surveys.  Comparison of the results illustrates a serious disparity in alcohol and drug use between teens in the U.S. and in Europe.  While 27% of Americans drank alcohol during the 30 days before the survey, the average rate among the 36 European countries of the ESPAD was 57% in the same time period.  Additionally, while 12% of American students reported smoking cigarettes in the 30 days leading up to the survey, 28% of European teens smoked cigarettes in the month prior to the survey.  On the other hand, the use of illicit drugs is quite different.  18% of American teens reported smoking marijuana or hashish in the past 30 days, while the average among European countries was only 7%.  Additionally, the proportion of American students aged 15 to 16 who report the use of any illicit drug other than marijuana in their lifetime was 16%, compared to 6% of students in Europe. 

ICPSR announces summer internships

ICPSR is pleased to announce the participants in the 8th year of the ICPSR Summer Internship Program for undergraduates, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. We received more than 250 applications for the program, and selected six interns:

• Jane Oliphant of the University of Portland (Ore.) will work with Sara Lazaroff of the ICPSR Education Archive
• Jeffrey Berg of Carleton College will work with Doctor Ashe in the Members Archive
• Joshua Goode of the University of Colorado-Denver and Red Rocks Community College will work with Tannaz Sabet in the Data Sharing for Demographic Research archive
• Rosa Rincon of California State University-Northridge and Pasadena City College will work with Justin Noble in the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
• Thomas Hegland of St. Olaf College will work with Kevin Kapalla in the Members Archive
• Tori Thomas of Georgia State University will work with Abayomi Israel of the Resource Center for Minority Data

The interns will spend 10 weeks at ICPSR in Ann Arbor, and will gain experience processing data and learning statistical software packages; complete a research project resulting in conference-ready posters; and attend courses in the ICPSR Summer Program.

The goal of the program is to promote the effective use of social science research data among undergraduate students, and to encourage participants to pursue a career in the social or behavioral sciences. Abayomi Israel and John Garcia of the Resource Center for Minority Data are the projct managers, and Lynette Hoelter, ICPSR's Director of Instructional Resources, serves as the Co-Principal Investigator.

Videos of last year's interns describing their projects can be viewed on the ICPSR YouTube channel.

More information on the student participants follows:

• Jane Oliphant of the University of Portland is a triple major in Social Work, Psychology, and Sociology graduating in 2013. After graduation, she would like to attend graduate school in the social sciences or Public Policy and possibly pursue a career in research. Jane has experience working with SPSS and has already identified a number of datasets that she would like to work with this summer: the Head Start Family and Child Survey (Faces) Series, the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) Policies Database, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 2004 Panel, just to name a few. Since 2010, Jane has served as a Resident Assistant and has worked as the Service and Justice Coordinator at her university. In 2011, she gained experience as a Camp Counselor at the Cascades Camp and Conference Center. Jane is also very active in her campus community where she plays various intramural sports and volunteers in a number of committees. In 2010, Jane worked as a Social Justice Intern at the Macdonald Center - an organization that serves the low-income population in downtown Portland. Jane's most recent research project examined the relationship between self-concept and observer ratings. This summer she would like to focus on the question of how a person's access to resources in their childhood influenced their later life outcomes, more specifically, research that examines inner-generational poverty. 
• Jeffrey Berg of Carleton College is a double major in Political Science/International Relations and Psychology/Cognitive Science graduating in 2014. Jeffery is most interested in the evidential side of social science: specifically, data analysis, and survey design - with the hope to one day pursue a career in research. He has worked as a Research Assistant for his college's Political Science department where his work focused on the nature of political advertisements during the 2008 political campaigns. In addition, during the spring of 2012, Jeffery interned at the National Archives under the supervision of the External Affairs Liaison. Although only a sophomore, Jeffery has already gained experience with SPSS, TIBCO Spotfire, and S-plus. In addition, he has working knowledge in the Python programming language and is fluent in Spanish. Outside of the classroom, Jeffery has served as the General Editor of The Echo Newspaper and Chief Editor of the Literary Journal at Wheaton Academy, and is currently the Photographer and Editor for Media Relations at his college and Ice Hockey Statistician at the Advanced Ice Arenas.
• Joshua Goode of the University of Colorado is a Sociology major and Demography minor graduating in 2013 with an interest in becoming a Sociology professor one day. Specifically, he hope is to pursue a research career in the area of family demography. In 2011, Joshua worked as a Research Assistant for two different professors where he learned about working with both qualitative and quantitative data. In terms of experience with data, Joshua has worked with Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort (ECLSB) data, as well as the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) data from the United Kingdom. His senior thesis on the educational aspirations and expectations of minority youth utilizes the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and he has experience with SPSS, STATA and Mplus. In 2011, Joshua has also given two conference presentations; the first was at the National Council on Family Relations Meeting in Orlando Florida, and the other at the National Center for Family & Marriage Research Counting Couples, Counting Families Conference in Bethesda Maryland. Joshua serves as president of the Students of Sociology Club and vice-president of the Alpha Kappa Delta, the international Sociology honor society.
• Rosa of California State University-Northridge is a junior Sociology and Criminology major with an Associates of Arts Degree in Sociology from Pasadena City College. After graduation she plans to attend graduate school in either Sociology or Criminology with the hope of one of two career trajectories - an analyst in the criminal justice system for city or state government or a Sociology professor at a community college. Rosa has worked with a number of large data sets, including the General Social Survey and the National Longitudinal Surveys, and has experience in SPSS. She has worked as a Youth Leader at the Pasadena Unified School District, and has served as the Community Representative for Puente Club. Rosa is bilingual and uses her fluency in Spanish and English when volunteering as a tutor at the Senior Center and at El Centro de Accion Social. As a first-generation college student, Rosa hopes that the ICPSR Summer Internship will give her greater experience in statistical methods and social research as to prepare her for the next steps in her career.
• Thomas Hegland of St. Olaf College is a double major in Mathematics and Economics with an emphasis on Public Policy and a concentration in Statistics graduating in 2013. After graduation, Thomas plans on pursuing a graduate degree in Economics with the hope of one day becoming an economist. Through his wide range of experiences, Thomas has acquired a wide range of technical skills; this includes experience in the use of the R statistical computing language, Linux/Unix environments, SAS, STATA and EViews. He has also worked with a number of large data sets such as the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). His main research interest is urban poverty as he believes that it is tied to many other questions relating not just to Economics but also to the broader social structure. In addition, some of his academic achievements include studying Number Theory in Hungary in 2011, the Buntrock Academic Scholarship, a publication in the Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Sciences, and a number of presentations including his most recent at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. From 2010 to the present, Thomas has worked as an Undergraduate Research Fellow for the NSF supported Center for Interdisciplinary Research. He also serves as member and coach of the debate team, member of the Math team, class representative for the Mathematical Association of America and the vice president of his college's chapter of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the national Economics honor society. Currently he serves on the Student Government as the Chief Financial Officer of the political Awareness Committee.
• Tori Thomas of Georgia State University is a Sociology major and African American Studies minor graduating in 2013. After graduation, she would like to participate in the Teach for America Program with the ultimate goal of attending graduate school in either Sociology or Education. Tori is a Ronald McNair scholar and has been awarded a number of accolades including the Margaret Andersen Award for outstanding performance in Sociology. In addition, she has received the Georgia Hope scholarship, the Horatio Alger Scholarship and the Next Generation Award Scholarship. Tori has experience in both SPSS and SAS and has worked as a Research Assistant and Intern in the McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program and the NSF/NIH funded Public Housing Study respectively. Through these programs, Tori has developed an interest in studying how relocation out of public housing affected educational opportunities in minority communities. In 2010, Tori also served as the Statistics and Measurement Intern for The Georgia Center for Nonprofits and has continued to be a very active member of her community. She is currently a member of the Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority Incorporated, served as a First Year Mentor and Service Ambassador at her university and is a Junior Achievement Volunteer responsible for teaching financial literacy at elementary and middle schools.

Persistent URL: http://icpsr.blogspot.com/2012/05/icpsr-announces-summer-internships.html