Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Project Title: Transgender Homicide in the United States
Primacy Faculty: Dr. Christina DeJong (dejongc@msu.edu)
Time Commitment: 10 hours/week
Able to Work For: Course Credit & Fulfilling Experiential Learning Requirement
Application Deadline: January 10, 2022
Start Date: January 10, 2022
End Date: April 29, 2022

Description of Project:

The Transgender Homicide Project (THP) was started in 2018 as a method of tracking the homicides of trans people in the United States to identify the factors related to their murders. The project also analyzes the methods used by the media to report on transgender homicides, and identifies the different ways in which the media frames these cases for consumption by the public.

Description of Duties:

Students on the THP find and code newspaper articles about the homicides of transgender people, keeping track of the characteristics of the people involved, characteristics about the crime, and aspects of media reporting. Information is entered into spreadsheets, and media stories are saved as PDF files for additional analysis.

Minimum Qualifications:

Students should be able to conduct Google searches for news articles and be able to read details about homicide cases. They should also be able to enter data in spreadsheets with an eye for detail and accuracy. There is a slight preference for students who have completed CJ292 (Research Methods) or the equivalent, but that is not a requirement.