This course reviews and discusses mathematical models and related theories and analysis of social action especially emphasizing the rational-choice perspective. Both behavioral models and analytical models, and related theories, are surveyed for the second topic. Introduction to basic and intermediate level loglinear and logbilinear models and methods for the analysis of categorical data with an emphasis on applications to social science analysis of categorical data with an emphasis to social science research. Students engage in a variety of directed analysis projects using techniques such as item response theory methods, hierarchical linear modeling, and network analyses. Projects focus on aspects of scholing and school organization in Chicago and use of extant CPS data.
Students conduct analyses and periodically present their results to the workshop.
It is intended to provide students with a general understand of the processeses that shape population size, structure, and dynamics and with the logical bases for the most frequent measures of these processeses. The emphasis will be on measurement issues in human population while making clear the broader relevance of demographic analysis to the study of any population or system.