Prof. Stephen Klineberg of Rice University is currently visiting Leipzig, and will give a presentation at the University of Leipzig, organized by the Houston-Leipzig Sister City Association and the Department of American Studies Leipzig, entitled “The Significance of the Houston-Leipzig Sister City Relationship: A Houston Perspective” on June 15, 2012, at 4:15 p.m.  The event is open to members of the Houston-Leipzig Sister City Association, the Staedtepartnerschaft Leipzig-Houston, as well as students and the general public, and will take place at the Neues Seminargebaeude Room 202, Universitaetsstrasse 1.  Dr. Klineberg will also deliver a Fulbright Lecture at the university about  “The Changing Face of Houston and America: Tracking the Economic and Demographic Transformations through 31 Years of Houston Surveys.” Dr. Gabriele Goldfuß, Head of the International Office of the City of Leipzig, will deliver greetings on behalf of the Mayor and the City of Leipzig.

A graduate of Haverford College near Philadelphia, Professor Klineberg received an M.A. in Psychopathology from the University of Paris and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard. After teaching at Princeton, he joined Rice University’s Sociology Department in 1972. The recipient of ten major teaching awards, including the George R. Brown Lifetime Award for Excellence in Teaching, he is a faculty associate and divisional advisor at Lovett College, where he twice served as Interim Master.

In March 1982, he and his students initiated the annual Houston Area Survey, now in its 29th year of tracking the changes in the demographic patterns, life experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of Harris County residents. The Houston region recovered from the collapse of the oil-boom in the 1980s to find itself squarely in the midst of a restructured economy and a demographic revolution. No other city in America has been the focus of a long-term longitudinal research program of this scope. None more clearly exemplifies the transformations that are refashioning the social and political landscape of urban America.

The project has attracted great interest and generous support from foundations, corporations, and individuals in the wider Houston community and beyond. That support has made it possible not only to fund these professional surveys, but also to expand the research each year with additional interviews in Houston’s Anglo, African-American, and Latino communities. In 1995 and 2002, the surveys reached large representative samples from Houston’s Asian communities as well, with one-fourth of the interviews conducted in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Korean.

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