Teaching

Introduction to Quantitative Social Science (Princeton, Fall 2016)

Would universal health insurance improve the health of the poor? Do patterns of arrests in US cities show evidence of racial profiling? What accounts for who votes and their choice of candidates? This course will teach students how to address these and other social science questions by analyzing quantitative data. The course introduces basic principles of statistical inference and programming skills for data analysis. The goal is to provide students with the foundation necessary to analyze data in their own research and to become critical consumers of statistical claims made in the news media, in policy reports, and in academic research.

Instructors: Professors Kosuke Imai and Margaret Frye (details)

Visualizing Data (Princeton, Summer 2016)

Equal parts art, programming, and statistical reasoning, data visualization is critical for anyone who seeks to analyze data. Data analysis skills have become essential for those pursuing careers in policy evaluation, business consulting, and research in fields like public health, social science, or education. This course introduces students to the powerful R programming language and the basics of creating data-analysis graphics in R. We use real datasets to explore topics ranging from networks (like trade between counties) to geographical data (like the spatial distribution of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan).

Instructors: Professors Kosuke Imai and Will Lowe (details)

Immigration Politics and Policymaking (Princeton, Spring 2016)

Founded and built by immigrants, the U.S. has a complicated relationship with newcomers. How have politics shaped U.S. immigration policy and with what effects on the character of inflows and American identity? Are changing demographics tied to exclusionary attitudes and public views about immigration policy? Do Hispanic attitudes conform to nativist fears? What role do norms, culture and economics play in public attitudes about immigrants? Do members of Congress follow their constituents’ preferences when voting on immigration policy? This class will tackle these and related questions about immigration politics and policymaking in the U.S.

Instructor: Professor Ali Valenzuela (details)

Violent Politics (Princeton, Fall 2015)

Governments have tremendous power over our lives and thus the competition over who controls them is always intense and often violent. This course will study various ways in which violence is used to political ends. The larger goal of the course is to understand the sources of violence in political competition and the conditions under which political disputes can be peacefully resolved. Specific forms of violence to be covered include assassination, civil war, ethnic conflict, insurgency, revolution, riots, terrorism, and war.

Instructor: Professor Jacob Shapiro (details)