About SSDAN Census Datasets

All of the SSDAN census datasets were constructed so that they might be accessed with StudentCHIP software. By going to the Getting Started section of this website, you can learn right away how to access datasets in StudentCHIP. You can also request a trial version of StudentCHIP via this Website, which comes bundled with many sample SSDAN datasets.

StudentCHIP was selected because of its ease of use, low expense for students, and appropriateness for straightforward contingency table analyses of census data. Because the software takes as its "input" aggregated tables of different combinations of variables, the available SSDAN census data files consist of a large number of these tables (called "datasets") tailored to particular classroom topics. See the diagram below to find out what a SSDAN dataset looks like.

 All of the SSDAN census datasets can be freely distributed to your students and colleagues, however are not for commercial use. These datasets are the main products of this project, along with the classroom exercises, and will continue to be updated.

Described below are the groups of datasets that you can freely distribute to your students and colleagues. - all of which are downloadable from this Website.

  • CenTrend datasets allow comparisons over the 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses.
  • Cen1990 and Cen2000 datasets permit very detailed comparisons across social and demographic groups from the 2000 and 1990 U.S. Censuses, respectively.
  • Geography9 and Geography2k datasets permit analysis of individual states, counties or cities, from 1950-1990/2000 or in 1990/2000 alone.
  • Custom datasets, prepared for use with the Classroom Exercise Modules developed by SSDAN participants, allow analysis of such topics as occupational sex segregation in specific occupations, the impact of immigration on the US and high immigration states, and disability discrimination.

A whole range of topics related to American social, economic and geographic issues can be explored with SSDAN datasets. Our datasets are drawn from the US Census and include variables such as: race-ethnicity, gender, immigration status, earnings, education, occupation, cohabitation, full and part-time work, among many others. Some of our datasets permit the analyses of trends over the census years: 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. A larger number of files permit more in-depth analyses of population groups and geographic areas from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses.

There are two ways for you to bring SSDAN datasets into your classes. You can:

  • Adopt our student workbook, Investigating Change in American Society: Exploring Social Trends with US Census Data, which includes access to a supporting website with the latest version of WebCHIP. The workbook also provides users with the code to download Chipendale software along with additional exercises and datasets (including the CenTrend and Cen2000 datasets),

 

CenTrend datasets allow comparisons over the 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses.

Cen2000 datasets permit very detailed comparisons across social and demographic groups from the 2000 U.S. Census.

-- OR --

  • Contact Ruth Bogart at ZetaData, Inc. to either order disks for your students, at under $10 per copy, or arrange to get a customized site license.

  When using this option, be aware that StudentCHIP is subject to site license, and cannot be freely distributed to your students. However, Ruth Bogart, commercial developer of StudentCHIP, has made it easy and inexpensive for you or your bookstore to order student copies. They can be ordered in an expedited manner from: Ruth Bogart, Zeta Data, 25 Haskins Road, Hanover, NH 03755, 603-643-6103, ruth@zetadata.com.

You can obtain more information about the SSDAN datasets by browsing the datasets we have on topics that interest you by querying the database of SSDAN datasets. After you have decided which datasets you wish to download, you must first know whether you will be using the Macintosh version or the IBM version of the StudentChip program. At that point, simply download the datasets by selecting them.