Courses : Syllabi : 760
Geography 760 Spatial Demography
Instructor
Course Description
Spatial demography refers generally to demographic analysis that explicitly takes location into account. Demography is in fact an inherently spatial science, but the spatial side languished until recently, and is still in the process of gaining traction. A genuinely analytical spatial demography has arisen from two interconnected developments: (1) the advent of accessible geographic information systems and; (2) the development of spatial statistical techniques that can be applied to demographic data. Our goal in this seminar is to link demography, spatial statistics and GIScience into what we now call spatial demography. In this process, however, we are looking for new interpretations of how the world works demographically, and this may call for the integration of mixed methods into our research—fusing as much data and as many analytical techniques (from “soft” to “hard”) as are required to understand what is happening.
Grading
Your grade in this course will be determined by the following elements:
- I expect all students to participate directly in discussion by staying ahead of the reading for the week, so that you can bring questions and insights with you to the class. To facilitate this, each student in the class will be responsible for summarizing and commenting on one of the readings on spatial demography listed in the course calendar. Class participation will constitute 10 percent of your course grade.
- A major portion of the course will be oriented around a series of lab assignments designed to “get your hands dirty” doing actual calculation/manipulation of the spatial demographic techniques discussed in the seminar. We will work on them in the REGAL lab (NH 390), but you will typically finish them up outside of class and they will be due the following week. Each assignment will have a different combination of spatial demographic components and altogether they will be worth 50 percent of your grade.
- The remaining 40 percent of your grade will be based on a term project of your choosing–in consultation with me–that employs a spatial demographic approach. You will turn this in as a written report (approximately 15 pages double-spaced, plus references, tables, and figures) at the end of the semester and will present your findings to the class in an oral/powerpoint presentation on the last day of class. We will be working with data from my Ghana project, as well as data for Charlotte, North Carolina and you may use these data for your term project, or you may use other data that are relevant to your own research.
Books and Materials
The only required book that I ask you to buy for this course is Andy Mitchell, The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis, Volume 2: Spatial Measurements & Statistics (Redlands: ESRI Press), 2005.
However, I do expect that you will have read my population text as background for the course. There are copies for sale at the bookstore, and a copy on reserve in the library, if you have not already read it: John R. Weeks, Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, Eleventh Edition (Belmont; CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning), 2011
ALL OTHER MATERIALS FOR THIS COURSE WILL BE AVAILABLE ON-LINE ON SDSU'S BLACKBOARD, or in the Reserve Room of the University Library.
Weekly Topics
| Week | Topic |
|---|---|
| Week One | Introduction of participants and to what we intend to accomplish in this seminar. Review of major elements of demography and of spatial demography |
| Week Two | Review of the work in Accra and in Charlotte and the data that we are going to be using in class and in the labs (and which you may use for your term project, if you choose); Discussion of space vs. place in demography |
| Week Three | Review of non-spatial analytical approach to demography Lab: Using SPSS to create measures of fertility and migration using data for Accra from the 2000 census, and then figuring out how to interpret the results |
| Week Four | Introduction to spatial data Lab: Mapping different kinds of demographic data |
| Week Five | The use and abuse of statistical significance and American Factfinder Lab: Using GeoDa to understand statistical significance of spatial patterns |
| Week Six | No Class |
| Week Seven | Global patterns of spatial autocorrelation Lab: Using ArcGIS, GeoDa and Rooks Case add-in for Excel |
| Week Eight | Clustering at the local level |
| Week Nine | Overview of “Connecting the Dots Between Health, Poverty, and Place in Accra” |
| Week Ten | Local clustering, continued Lab: Using ArcGIS, GeoDa and Rooks Case add-in for Excel |
| Week Eleven | Non-spatial clusters Lab: K-means clustering of Accra and/or Charlotte neighborhoods |
| Week Twelve | Using multivariate regression to test hypotheses about demographic data |
| Week Thirteen | Multivariate approaches continued—Spatial filtering Lab: Regression in SPSS, regression and spatial filtering in ArcGIS and spatial regression in GeoDa |
| Week Fourteen | Multivariate approaches, dealing with spatial heterogeneity with Geographically Weighted Regression Lab: GWR in ArcGIS |
| Week Fifteen | Student presentations of term projects |