REU Site: Undergraduate Research in Race, Ethnicity, and the Demography of Crime and Punishment

在成功举办了20多年的REU网站之后，这个项目将为德克萨斯大学人口研究中心继续进行三年。德州大学的项目保持每年8名学生的规模，这是理想的教学和研究目的。自1989年以来，少数群体人口统计一直是REU研究计划的组织原则。这个项目在接下来的三年里继续这个主题，但这一次特别关注社会背景在产生犯罪和刑事制裁中种族和民族差异方面的作用。这一主题重点反映了UT网站的两位新首席研究员David Kirk和Keith Robinson的专业知识（他们都是社会学系的教员）。德克萨斯大学REU网站的智力价值在于围绕一个对美国至关重要的话题，培养初级社会科学学者的学术和道德发展。目标是为德州大学的REU学生提供接触，经验和专业知识。为了实现这些目标，已经制定了精确的计划目标。接触社会人口学和社会学是通过正式的课程和研讨会完成的。本科社会学课程《犯罪与惩罚的人口学》占据了暑期的前半学期。此外，在夏季还举办了一系列专业化讲习班或研讨会。在这些研讨会上，REU的学生讨论诸如进入研究生院以及社会科学家在研究过程中面临的无数伦理问题等问题。REU的学生通过三种方式获得具体的经验。首先，通过正式的课程，他们学习有关种族和民族在犯罪和惩罚方面差异的实质性问题。其次，在Stata编程实验室和GIS空间数据分析研讨会上，向他们介绍了社会科学数据的统计分析。第三，他们将在人口研究中心（PRC）的研究生和教师附属机构的指导下，在暑期项目结束前完成一篇独立的可交付的学术论文。最后，REU学生以两种方式展示他们的专业知识。他们向中华人民共和国教师附属机构、研究生和其他受邀学者的聚会展示他们的研究，并在人口研究中心的旅费支持下，在美国犯罪学学会（ASC）年会上展示他们的REU研究论文。该计划的更广泛影响是影响社会科学高等教育的未来，特别关注未来学术劳动力的种族/民族和性别多样性。这个长期运行的REU项目的成功已经是显而易见的，包括最近获得博士学位的学生，已经被安排在领先的研究型大学，一些学生在全国领先的研究生项目中，还有一些学生最近完成了这个REU项目，将继续攻读研究生院。-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After more than 20 successful years of hosting an REU Site, this project continues for three more years for the Population Research Center at the University of Texas. The UT program retains the size of eight students per year, which is ideal for teaching and research purposes. Minority Group Demography has been the organizing principle for this REU research program since 1989. The program continues this general theme over the next three years, but this time focusing particularly on the role of social context in producing racial and ethnic differences in criminal offending and criminal sanctioning. This thematic focus reflects the expertise of the two new principal investigators of the UT site, David Kirk and Keith Robinson (both faculty members in the Department of Sociology). The intellectual merit of the REU Site at UT is the academic and ethical development of junior social science scholars around a topic of immense importance to the United States. The goals are to provide REU students at UT with exposure, experience, and expertise. Precise program objectives have been developed to accomplish these goals. Exposure to social demography and sociology is accomplished via formal coursework and seminars. An undergraduate sociology course, The Demography of Crime and Punishment, comprises the first half of the summer. In addition, a series of professionalization workshops, or seminars are conducted during the summer. In these seminars, REU students discuss issues such as getting into graduate school and the myriad ethical concerns that social scientists confront during research. REU students in this program gain concrete experience in three ways. First, through formal coursework, they learn about substantive issues concerning racial and ethnic differences in crime and punishment. Second, they are introduced to statistical analysis of social science data in a Stata programming lab and a GIS spatial data analysis workshop. Third, they experience intense mentoring from Population Research Center (PRC) graduate students and faculty affiliates as they work to produce a stand-alone deliverable scholarly paper by the end of the summer program. Finally, the REU students demonstrate their expertise in two ways. They present their research to a gathering of PRC faculty affiliates, graduate students, and other invited scholars, and with travel support from the Population Research Center they present their REU research papers at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). The broader impact of this 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 long-running REU program are already evident, including students who have recently earned their Ph.D.s and have been placed at leading research universities, a number of students who are in leading graduate programs around the country, and others who have recently completed this REU program and will be moving on to graduate school.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------