Beyond words: developing an inclusive demography language

 

Calling on IUSSP members to be interviewed on inclusivity in demography
(by students of the University of Groningen Master in Population Studies)

 

Students from the Master in Population Studies, University of Groningen, are working on a project to develop an inclusive demography language useful to the global demography community. For this reason, the students would like to interview or brainstorm with IUSSP members, for instance on designing an alternative population pyramid that can visualize age-specific population distributions by more than two genders, looking at the use of Virtual Reality or developing emojis and sign language phrases for key demographic concepts to complement our verbal communication during lectures, oral presentations, and on social media.

 

If you are interested in being interviewed by or brainstorming with the students (time investment approximately 1 hour), please leave your contact information in the following form: https://forms.gle/hXM6uGmKB5UUKEDq7. The deadline to fill in the form has been extended to 30 September. (Interviews will take place end of September/early October). The contact person for this project is the course coordinator Billie de Haas (b.de.haas@rug.nl).

 

UPDATE:

 

Since the first announcement was sent to members by email, the students defined 7 topics on which they will be working:

 

  1. How data visualisations used in oral presentations at conferences are perceived by persons with a visual impairment
  2. How unpaid work is defined and measured, especially looking at unpaid care work
  3. Developing sign language for key demographic concepts
  4. How the question 'Where is home' is defined and measured in relation to people's identity
  5. The use of accessibility tools for understanding demographic data in journals for persons with a visual impairment
  6. Development of a population composition chart that visualises more than two genders as alternative to the current population pyramid
  7. The use of cartography and mapping in demographic research and how their projects may be political / biased interpreted by demographers from various regions globally


Group 1 and group 5 are looking for students or researchers who have a visual impairment themselves.

 

  • Group 1 will explore the experience of individuals with visual impairments during the oral presentation of demographic visualizations at academic conferences.
     
  • Group 5 will explore how key stakeholders (predominantly visually impaired individuals) perceive both (1) digital data visualizations from 3 leading demography journals and (2) existing solutions identified in literature that aim to make them more accessible. 

More information about the project:

 

Beyond words: developing an inclusive demography language

 

As part of the University of Groningen Master in Population Studies programme, IUSSP has been asked to collaborate on a project with master’s students to create more inclusive symbols to communicate demographic concepts. 

 

In recent years, students in the Master in Population Studies, University of Groningen, have been increasingly questioning the diversity and inclusivity of the definitions, case studies and data visualisations used in our demography discipline. For instance, they challenged their underlying gender-binary and heteronormative assumptions. In 2023, these concerns provided the motivation for a participatory action research project evaluating the Master in Population Studies programme, which aimed at identifying gaps and formulating recommendations for an (even) more inclusive learning environment. 


This evaluation was conducted by the master students themselves in collaboration with the staff of the Population Research Centree (PRC), as part of the Master’s course Qualitative Research for Policy & Practice. In this course, students conduct research for an external client, such as municipalities, using qualitative research methods and participatory action approaches. They also learn how to present their findings in formats suitable for non-academic audiences. 


The inclusivity evaluation, whose key recommendations are freely accessible, covers a range of topics selected by the students themselves, including gender and sexual diversity, neurodivergence, low vision, parenthood, internationalisation and decolonization of the curriculum. Among other things, the project led to a revision of the overall programme learning outcomes, a wider variety in case studies discussed during lectures, and a faculty-wide campaign in which the faculty – acknowledging the sometimes difficult personal issues students deal with – expressed how proud they are of all of their students, not only those who excel.
 

Encouraged by this successful experience, this September the teaching staff of the Master in Population Studies, in collaboration with the IUSSP, will expand their efforts to create a more inclusive learning environment by challenging their students to develop an inclusive demography language useful to the global demography community. Using participatory and creative qualitative research methods, the students will interact with demography scholars and students to, for instance, design an alternative population pyramid that can visualize age-specific population distributions by more than two genders, or develop emoticons and sign language phrases for key demographic concepts to complement our verbal communication during lectures, oral presentations, and on social media. 


The students have proposed the following topics:

 

Unpaid work around the globe: This group will focus on the concept of unpaid work. Examples of unpaid work are domestic work and care work. Specifically, they will focus on the inclusivity of terms such as 'work' and 'the working population'. They will investigate how unpaid work has been categorised and measured, so not only from a financial perspective but also in terms of time spent, etc. Additionally, they want to incorporate a feminist and/or decolonial perspective. They would like to interview demographers, preferably from non-western countries, who could give them information to what extent this has already been researched/implemented in the demographic discipline. Moreover, how can they improve the visualisation of unpaid work in existing demographic graphs/maps/etc. 



Visual impairments and demographic visualisation: In this project, the students want to focus on the accessibility of demographic (data) visualisations with a specific focus on those with visual impairments. It would be great if they could talk to demographers who are visually impaired, or those who have experience with the creation and/or use of more accessible demographic visualisations (use of alt-text, textile graphs, etc).

 

'Where is home?': This group hopes to interrogate the question 'where are you from?' and how this plays a role in identity creation and the role of consent in this identity creation. They specifically want to apply this to cases where individuals may be stateless or for various reasons may call multiple countries home. They want to see how individuals feel about this question, but also how institutions react to this question in order to be more inclusive. They would like to develop from interviews with demographers a framework around asking questions around home and place both in terms of a technical definition of home (for censuses etc.) but also for inclusivity at events e.g. should we ask people where they come from?

 

The students will present their findings in non-traditional formats and mediums, for example infographics, policy briefs, vlogs, etc., and share them with the IUSSP via the IUSSP bulletin and website. Please leave your contact information in the following form if you are interested in being interviewed by, or brainstorming along with, our students in September/October 2024: https://forms.gle/hXM6uGmKB5UUKEDq7

 

The contact person for this project is the course coordinator Billie de Haas (b.de.haas@rug.nl).