Re-presenting population science data in the context of shifting demographic dynamics, climate change and alternative epistemologies

该奖项支持一项以数据为中心的研究，这些数据被用来支持其他理论，比如关于人口统计变化和政治收益的理论。最近的民意调查显示，这种理论在美国越来越流行。该项目的结果将有助于学术书籍的发展，并为本科课堂制作课程材料。这些产出的目的是帮助科学家和其他人了解科学数据的使用和滥用，并帮助一些人解决这些问题，消除对人口的误解，提高公众的科学素养和对人口趋势的其他解释的认识。这些教学工具将用于多个学科的大学课程，以及非营利研讨会和培训。通过一所大学和一个全国性非营利组织之间的跨部门合作，这项定性研究将着眼于如何将人口科学转化为美国人口趋势的流行概念。出现在社会、大众、新闻和智库媒体上的有关当前人口趋势的信息，解释了出生率放缓、人口老龄化、种族和民族人口构成变化以及移民率等数据。这些信息表达了对导致气候变化的人口变化、不断变化的国家选民或对劳动力和经济的负面影响的担忧。这项研究将分析替代理论和它们重新解释的科学，以及产生和使用这些数据的科学家之间关于其意义的辩论。通过召集一个多学科、跨部门的咨询委员会，为项目研究提供专家反馈，并以学生为最终用户试用结果材料，该研究将有助于就在全国人口种族、民族和年龄构成不断变化的背景下，成为美国人意味着什么进行知情对话。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a study that centers on the data that is being used to support alternative theories, such as a theory about changing population demographics and political gains. Recent polls have documented the increasing popularization of such theories in the US. The results of this project will contribute to the development of a scholarly book, and to the production of curricular materials for undergraduate classrooms. These outputs are intended to help scientists and others to understand, and for some to address, the use and misuse of scientific data and to counter population misperceptions and increase public scientific literacy and awareness of alternative interpretations of demographic trends. The teaching tools will be slated for use in university courses in multiple disciplines, as well as in non-profit workshops and trainings.Through a cross-sector partnership between a university and a national non-profit organization this qualitative study will look at how population science is translated into popular notions of population trends in the US. Messages about current population trends that appear in social, popular, news, and think tank media account for slowing birth rates, population aging, changing racial and ethnic population composition, and immigration rates among other data. The messages express anxieties about changes in population that contribute to climate change, a changing national electorate, or negative impacts on labor and economies. The study will analyze alternative theories and the science they re-interpret as well as debates among scientists who produce and use that data about its meaning. By convening a multi-disciplinary, cross-sector advisory board to provide expert feedback on project research and piloting resulting materials with students as end-users, the study will contribute to informed dialogue about what it means to be American in the context of the shifting racial, ethnic and age composition of the national population.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.