REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Minority Group Demography

德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的人口研究中心在过去的16年里一直主持着一个夏季REU网站。 该计划的组织主题是少数民族人口。 多年来，该网站通过人口统计学方法的课堂研究和指导的独立研究向REU学生介绍了研究过程。 大多数前REU的学生已经进入研究生院。 值得注意的是，该项目仍然由大约60%的代表性不足的少数族裔学生和约70%的女学生组成。 REU网站的智力价值涉及初级社会科学学者的学术和道德发展，围绕着对美国未来至关重要的主题。该计划为REU学生提供（1）曝光，（2）经验和（3）专业知识。具体而言，本科生接触到的技术工具和专业文化的社会科学通过社会人口。 REU的学生亲身体验了严谨的学习过程和科学研究过程的强度。最后，学生展示他们的专业知识作为学院的初级成员。 REU网站的组织原则是对美国少数民族的调查。社会 人口统计学关注所有群体共同的人口过程-生育率、死亡率、迁移-为调查这些过程中的群体差异以及财富、贫困、家庭组成、教育程度和劳动力经验等相关条件的群体差异提供了有力的工具。在美国，许多群体在科学的最高层次上的代表性明显不足。鉴于我们的学生在这个程序的组成，对少数群体的经验学术浓度是相关的学生和国家。 该计划的更广泛的影响是影响社会科学高等教育的未来，特别关注未来学术队伍的种族/民族和性别多样性。这个REU计划的成功已经很明显，包括最近获得博士学位并被安置在全国领先的研究型大学的学生，在全国领先的研究生课程中的学生，以及最近完成REU计划并将很快进入研究生院的其他学生。

The Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin has hosted a summer REU Site for the past 16 years. The organizing theme of the program is Minority Group Demography. Over the years, the site has introduced REU students to the research process through classroom study of demographic methods and mentored, independent research. A majority of the former REU students have gone on to graduate school. Notably, the program continues to be comprised of roughly 60% under-represented minority group students and about 70% female students. The intellectual merit of the REU Site involves the academic and ethical development of junior social science scholars around a topic of immense importance to the future of the United States. The program provides REU students with (1) exposure, (2) experience, and (3) expertise. Specifically, undergraduates are exposed to both the technical tools and professional culture of social science through social demography. REU students experience the rigorous course of study and intensity of the scientific research process firsthand. Finally, students demonstrate their expertise as junior members of the academy. The REU Site uses, as its organizing principle, the investigation of minority groups inU.S. society. Demography, with its focus on those population processes common to all groups--fertility, mortality, migration--provides powerful tools for investigating group differences in these processes, as well as group differences in such related conditions as wealth, poverty, family composition, education attainment, and labor force experience. In the United States, numerous groups are significantly underrepresented at the highest levels in the sciences. Given the composition of our students in this program, a scholarly concentration on minority group experience is relevant to both the students and the nation. The broader impact of the program is to influence the future of higher education in the social sciences, with special attention to the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of the future academic workforce. The successes of this REU program are already evident, including students who have recently earned their Ph.D.s and have been placed at leading research universities around the country, a host of students who are in leading graduate programs around the country, and others who have recently completed the REU program and will soon be moving on to graduate school.