| Abstract |
"The United States census provides researchers, students, and the public with some of the richest and broadest information available about the American people. Exploring the U.S. Census by Frank Donnelly gives social science students and researchers alike the tools to understand, extract, process, and analyze data from the decennial census, the American Community Survey, and other data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. More than just a data collection exercise performed every ten years, the census is a series of datasets updated on an ongoing basis. With all that data comes opportunities and challenges: opportunities to teach students the value of census data for studying communities and answering research questions, and the challenges of navigating and comprehending such a massive data source and transforming it into usable information that students and researchers can analyze with basic skills and software. Just as important as showing what the census can tell social researchers is showing how to ask good questions of census data. Exploring the U.S. Census provides a thorough background on the data collection methods, structures, and potential pitfalls of the census for unfamiliar researchers, collecting information previously available only in widely disparate sources into one handy guide. Hands-on, applied exercises at the end of the chapters help readers dive into the data"-- Provided by publisher. |
