Teaching Quantitative Methods in Social Science

Royal Statistical Society, Errol St, London.

Wednesday 27^th October 2010

This workshop style meeting takes advantage of the visit to the UK by Professor Chris Wild (Univ. of Auckland) and colleagues who have undertaken pathbreaking work in using visual methods to teaching key statistical concepts to new learners. Chris will be joined by colleagues from Lancaster Postgraduate Statistics Centre and the Economic and Social Data Service who will showcase some of the web resources available to help in teaching QM, and the challenge of developing statistical literacy in students. There will also be a presentation on the forthcoming ESRC web portal for QM teaching. ESRC’s new Chief Executive, Professor Paul Boyle, will start the day off with a review of ESRC’s efforts in quantitative methods.

This event is free to staff in higher education teaching quantitative methods in social science, but places are limited and prior registration required. A light buffet lunch will be provided.

To register for this event send an email with ‘QM Teaching workshop’ in the subject of the email to the address below. Please indicate your name, subject area and institution.

john.macinnes@ed.ac.uk

PhD studentship opportunity at University College London in migration statistics and modelling.

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PHD Studentship – (ENFOLD-ing – Explaining, Modelling and Forecasting Global Dynamics), –

UCL Department / Division

Department of Geography

Specific unit / Sub department

Migration Research Unit/CASA

Duration of Studentship

3 Years

Stipend

£15,290 plus £3,390 tuition fees per annum

Vacancy Information

ENFOLD is a multidisciplinary, five year modelling project funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC: £2.9 million FEC) spanning seven UCL departments. It will develop new forms of complexity science to address the most difficult of human problems: those involving global change where there is no organised constituency and whose agencies are largely regarded as being ineffective. ENFOLD addresses problems arising from the fact that that global systems tend to be treated in isolation from one another. Their characteristically unexpected dynamics are thus due to the aspects of coupling and integration between them that are all too often ignored. To demonstrate these dynamics and develop appropriate policy responses, ENFOLD will study four related global systems: trade, migration, security and development aid. Integrated and coupled models will be developed, whose dynamics can be described in the language of complexity theory, including chaos, turbulence, bifurcations, catastrophes, and phase transition. The programme will apply spatial interaction models to trade and migration; reaction diffusion to conflicts and terrorism; and network models to international trade, migration and crime. These models will be extended to incorporate new events, such as the emergence of new entities, including countries, coupling them together in diverse ways. A generic framework will ultimately be developed for a coupled global dynamics spanning many spatial and temporal scales, pertaining to different systems whose behaviours can be both quantitatively and qualitatively simulated. Models will be developed which incorporate all these ideas into a global intelligence system to inform global policy makers about future events. Several UK government departments as well as global businesses are partners in this project.

Studentship Description

The role of the Migration PhD studentship within ENFOLD will be:

1. To review and engage with the literature on general theories of migration and more specifically that on migration forecasting models

2. To identify, collect, systematise and analyse relevant international migration statistics as required by the project

3. To assist in the programming and database effort for the migration model in ENFOLD

4. To develop and test several models of global migration dynamics

Person Specification

The applicants should possess a good honours degree (1st Class or 2:1 minimum) in any of the following disciplines: Economics, Statistics, Physics, Mathematics, Finance, or in any social science program with a strong quantitative component within Geography, Sociology, Epidemiology/ Public Health, GIS, Spatial Analysis or any other closely relevant subject area. An MSc in one of these areas or/and knowledge in econometric and statistical analysis is highly desirable. They should also have excellent quantitative research skills in social sciences including a good command of statistical analysis and programming knowledge of relevant packages (R, SAS,SPSS). As well as strong motivation to conduct independent research on the field of migration and basic knowledge of contemporary issues on migration.

Eligibility

The studentship is subject to funding restrictions please refer to the following link:http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/students/Pages/eligibility.aspx.

Candidates should submit an application for graduate study to UCL Registry (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/admission/graduate-study/application-admission/) and should send a duplicate, along with a CV and cover letter, to Dr Pablo Mateos via email top.mateos@ucl.ac.uk.

Contact name

Dr Pablo Mateos

Contact details

p.mateos@ucl.ac.uk

UCL Taking Action for Equality

Closing Date

30 Jun 2010

Latest time for the submission of applications

30th June 2010

Interview date

Mid July 2010

Studentship Start Date

1st October 2010

The annual Radical Statistics Conference will be held this year on Saturday, February 27th 2010 at Friends House Euston, London NW1 2BJ.

The conference promises discussions regarding radical application of statistics as well as chance for socialising.

More details, booking etc can be found here: http://www.radstats.org.uk/conf2010/

DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, LOUGHBOROUGH  UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE (Fixed term for 12 months)
(ref: GY/13339)

Department: Geography
Role Type: Research
Vacancy Posted: Friday 15 May 2009
Closing Date: Monday 01 June 2009
Salary/Benefits: £27,183 per annum

A creative social statistician is required to work on an ESRC-funded project “Benchmarking the world city network: city connectivities on the eve of the current financial crisis”.

The successful candidate will have a PhD (or be near completion) and have an interest in imaginative data analysis particularly in relation to networks.

The research is directed by Professor Peter Taylor, Michael Hoyler and Dr Kathryn Pain. Details of the project are available at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/projects/projec81.html

Curriculum Vitae will only be accepted if accompanied by a completed University application form.

For informal discussions, please contact Peter Taylor (Professor) by email (p.j.taylor@lboro.ac.uk) or on 01509 222790

Further details about the post are available at http://jobs.lboro.ac.uk/index.php?page=Details&id=641

Challenging the ‘Parallel Lives’ Myth: Race, Sociology, Statistics and Politics

Wednesday May 13 th 2009 10.30 -16.00

London School of Economics

Room LG01, New Academic Building, Lincoln’s Inn Fields

The BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group and the BSPS are taking the opportunity of the publication of ‘Sleepwalking to Segregation’? Challenging myths about race and immigration by Nissa Finney and Ludi Simpson (Policy Press 2009) to review recent public debates about ‘race’, immigration and integration. The idea of communities living ‘parallel lives’ and of Britain ‘sleepwalking to segregation’ will be a major focus of the seminar. The occasion will also mark the official launch of Sleepwalking to Segregation.

10.30 Registration and refreshments, and Policy Press book display

11.00 Robert Moore (University of Liverpool) Introduction: ‘recurrent themes’

11.20 Ludi Simpson (University of Manchester) ‘Sleepwalking to Segregation’? How do claims of white flight, growing segregation and dangerous segregation persist despite evidence to the contrary? What are the consequences?

12.05 Paul Gilroy (LSE) Race Politics and the retreat from rationality. In the age of ‘evidence based policy development’ why would our leaders choose to set the evidence base on Parallel Lives aside?

12.35 – 13.45 Lunch (sandwich and drink provided), and book display

13.50 to 14.20 Brief introductions from three speakers who will join the morning speakers for a panel discussion:

Debbie Phillips (Leeds and Oxford Universities) will focus on how questions about community cohesion have become intertwined with a racialised political discourse on urban segregation and integration.

Shamser Sinha (CoConvenor BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group) argues that multicultural communities are displaying solidarities and resisting racism in ways confounding Trevor Phillips’ segregation thesis and its inbuilt reification of cultural, ethnic and racial difference.

Kjartan Sveinsson (Runnymede Trust) will argue that the socioeconomic disadvantage of poor white communities has been cast as an ethnic and cultural problem while larger structural considerations, such as the hierarchical nature of the British class system, are left out of the equation altogether.

14.20 – 16.00 Panel discussion with all speakers, and contributions from the floor

Please note that it is essential to register for this free conference in order to gain admission to the LSE lecture theatre. Please register your name and address and affiliation at:

http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/international/lectures/parallellivesmyth.htm

How to get to LSE: LSE is in central London at Aldwych, WC2A 2AE. The nearest underground station is Holborn, which is on the Central line or Piccadilly line. Click on this hyperlink for further information:

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/howToGetToLSE.aspx

The event takes place in the New Academic Building which can be found in the top left hand corner of this map: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/LSE_CampusMap_web_07.pdf

Statistician/ Perinatal Epidemiologist, Maternity data linkage,

Department, of Midwifery and Child Health, School of Community and Health Sciences, City University London

Reference Number KG/12144  –  Grade 6/7, Two years, full time

City University London is working with partners in England and Wales to enhance the scope of the data available for monitoring maternity care and for research. A considerable range of information is recorded about pregnancy and its outcome but, in England and Wales, these data are recorded in a number of separate information systems, none of which are complete or comprehensive on their own.

The aims of the post are to build on the work already done to link birth registration data to the NHS Numbers for Babies dataset by further linking these data to datasets containing maternity data for England and Wales and to undertake exploratory analyses of data about care given at delivery in relation to gestational age, birthweight and the socio-demographic characteristics of parents recorded at birth registration.

Applicants should be statisticians or data analysts qualified to at least Masters level with experience of statistical data analysis in health related research or social research, preferably but not essentially in the maternity or perinatal field.

Closing date 5pm on March 6 2009. Anyone who wishes to discuss the post informally is invited to ring Alison Macfarlane on 0207 040 5832 or email A.J.Macfarlane@city.ac.uk

Radical Statistics Group – Annual Conference and AGM, 2009

An Aging Society: Are We Prepared?

Saturday March 7, 2009

Oxford Institute of Aging
Manor Road Building
(Adjacent to St Catherine’s College, Manor Road)
Oxford OX1 3UQ

Registration, 9:30-10:00 am

The programme includes papers on topics such as:
- Use of demography
- Ethnicity
- Family Support
- Health
- Pensions
- Policy Making
- Effective Interventions

Registration is from £20 and includes lunch.
Student rate available at £15.

More information is available including programme, speakers’ abstracts, booking form, social events & travel at
http://www.radstats.org.uk/conf2009/

Queries and bookings to admin@radstats.org.uk

The Radical Statistics Group was formed in 1975 as part of the radical science movement associated with the establishment of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS). The researchers and statisticians who started Radstats shared a common concern about the political implications of their work and an awareness of the actual and potential misuse of statistics. Members of Radical Statistics believe that statistics can be used to support radical campaigns for progressive social change.