Re-presenting population science data in the context of shifting demographic dynamics, climate change and alternative epistemologies

Suny At Albany, Albany NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a study that centers on the data that is being used to support alternative theories, such as a theory about changing population demographics and political gains. Recent polls have documented the increasing popularization of such theories in the US. The results of this project will contribute to the development of a scholarly book, and to the production of curricular materials for undergraduate classrooms. These outputs are intended to help scientists and others to understand, and for some to address, the use and misuse of scientific data and to counter population misperceptions and increase public scientific literacy and awareness of alternative interpretations of demographic trends. The teaching tools will be slated for use in university courses in multiple disciplines, as well as in non-profit workshops and trainings. Through a cross-sector partnership between a university and a national non-profit organization this qualitative study will look at how population science is translated into popular notions of population trends in the US. Messages about current population trends that appear in social, popular, news, and think tank media account for slowing birth rates, population aging, changing racial and ethnic population composition, and immigration rates among other data. The messages express anxieties about changes in population that contribute to climate change, a changing national electorate, or negative impacts on labor and economies. The study will analyze alternative theories and the science they re-interpret as well as debates among scientists who produce and use that data about its meaning. By convening a multi-disciplinary, cross-sector advisory board to provide expert feedback on project research and piloting resulting materials with students as end-users, the study will contribute to informed dialogue about what it means to be American in the context of the shifting racial, ethnic and age composition of the national population. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.