Quantitative Approaches Workshop

31 May - 4 June 2010

This workshop aims to introduce participants to quantitative methods in the social sciences, and several of the leading data sets in US social science.

Workshops will consist of a seminar in quantitative methods each morning, each day focusing on a specific method (e.g., the analysis of categorical data, regression, statistical graphics, generalized linear models, writing quantitative research papers). In the afternoon, students will present their own research and receive feedback from the instructors and the seminar, and be introduced to key US data sets in the social sciences (e.g., the American National Election Studies, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth).

This workshop is best suited to post-graduate students, PhD students and early career researchers in political science, sociology, and related fields.

Pre-requisites: Introductory statistics class covering elementary data analysis, statistical inference and hypothesis testing (eg topics covered in such classes typically include inference for the sample mean, two-sample t tests, analysis of 2-by-2 tables, tests of association). Previous exposure to regression analysis will not be assumed nor required.

Presenters

Simon Jackman: Jackman is professor of political science and Director of the Methods of Analysis Program in the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His primary interests are in electoral politics in the United States and Australia and democratic political institutions. He has also published widely on methodological topics in the social science, including (most recently) the textbook Bayesian Analysis for the Social Sciences (Wiley, 2009). He is one of the principal investigators of the American National Election Studies, 2009-13. He lectures regularly at the Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models summer workshop (Washington University, St Louis) and the ECPR summer school in quantitative methods (University of Essex). He spent Jan-Aug 2009 as a visiting professor at the United States Studies Centre.

Bruce Western: Western is professor of sociology and Director of the Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University. He has published widely on quantitative methods, including a number of papers on the application of Bayesian methods to problems in comparative sociology. He has substantive interests in social stratification, political sociology, and public policy analysis. He is the author of Between Class and Market (Princeton, 1997) and Punishment and Inequality in America (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006). Western is a Jean Monnet fellow at the European University Institute, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.