The Detroit Area Study and Me

I have been affiliated with the Detroit Area Study (DAS) in several capacities for nearly four decades. This motivates me to take a distinctly personal approach to the subject and talk about my experiences with DAS. I have been involved with the DAS in three distinct capacities: as a student in my first year of graduate school; as a faculty investigator on the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, a DAS study that was turned into a three-decade project; and as a faculty investigator on a 2006 student practicum that is a direct outgrowth of DAS. I will talk briefly about each of these three encounters. Then I will mention some lessons that I have learned from nearly four decades of DAS-related activities. I will close with a regret and an invitation.

Paper presented in a session on “The Detroit Area Study and its Contributions to Demography and Survey Research” at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, Detroit, Michigan, April 30-May 2, 2009.