Conceptual Tools for Research on Race and Social Problems: An Overview of Dynamic Theory and Model Development

Although interpersonal, group processes and inter-group relationships are dynamic phenomena, researchers have studied these phenomena in a static manner. This article provides an overview of system dynamic modeling to bring greater attention to the importance of dynamic theoretical formulations and presents important concepts and tools that can facilitate movement in this direction. Important concepts for theory development are delineated, and various reasons why the field has a penchant for static theoretical formulations are explored. A set of tools and concepts from system dynamics is presented to guide dynamic thinking and future theory building.     

Evaluating program effects: Conceptualizing and demonstrating a typology

Outcome evaluation is very important for program evaluation and has been becoming increasingly so in the age of accountability. Typically, outcome evaluation is conducted for a single program from a single perspective. However, in a real-life situation, many programs exist in a system, and the effects could be viewed from various perspectives. The authors illustrate a typology of program effects in a system. It moves from the paradigm of a single program’s single effect to that of a set of programs’ multiple effects. Methodological implications are discussed.     

Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights: An Analysis of the Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that states incorporate data on migration into a more cohesive governance regime that does more to promote cooperation on the issue of international migration. However, many concerns remain. Using a legal analysis and cross‐national policy data, we find that the GCM neither fully articulates existing law nor makes use of international consensus to expand the rights of migrants. In its first section, this article provides a concise analysis of the GCM's compliance with a set of core principles of existing international human rights law regarding migrants. In the second section, we apply a novel instrument to create an objective, cross‐national accounting of the laws protecting migrants’ rights in various national legal frameworks. Focusing on a sample of five diverse destination and sending countries, the results suggest we are close to an international consensus on the protection of a core set of migrants’ rights. This analysis should help prioritize the work necessary to implement the GCM.     

Systems thinking

Evaluation is one of many fields where “systems thinking” is popular and is said to hold great promise. However, there is disagreement about what constitutes systems thinking. Its meaning is ambiguous, and systems scholars have made diverse and divergent attempts to describe it. Alternative origins include: von Bertalanffy, Aristotle, Lao Tsu or multiple aperiodic “waves.” Some scholars describe it as synonymous with systems sciences (i.e., nonlinear dynamics, complexity, chaos). Others view it as taxonomy—a laundry list of systems approaches. Within so much noise, it is often difficult for evaluators to find the systems thinking signal. Recent work in systems thinking describes it as an emergent property of four simple conceptual patterns (rules). For an evaluator to become a “systems thinker”, he or she need not spend years learning many methods or nonlinear sciences. Instead, with some practice, one can learn to apply these four simple rules to existing evaluation knowledge with transformative results.     

Building Community for Toronto's Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Transsexual and Transgender Youth

SUMMARY

This paper describes the development of Supporting Our Youth, an innovative grassroots program that builds community for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender youth in Toronto. Hundreds of adults and youth have worked together to develop a broad range of arts, cultural, recreational, and employment training activities, as well as a very popular mentoring and housing program. Initiated in 1997, Supporting Our Youth has been developed according to underlying principles of community development and community building which value broad participation, diverse skills, partnerships, coalition building, and grassroots ownership and direction. As a model, it is transferable to other queer and trans communities, as well as to other marginalized populations.     

Public Relations and Engagement: Theoretical Imperatives of a Multidimensional Concept

Engagement has emerged as important concept in public relations, as stakeholders challenge the discourse of organizational primacy and organizations prioritize the need for authentic stakeholder involvement. As a multidimensional concept, engagement offers a foundation for building organizational relationships, and provides a means to facilitate community–organization interaction. This special issue on engagement and public relations presents a body of work that both explicates and expands the theoretical foundations of engagement, and contributes to scholarly understanding of its contexts, processes, and outcomes.     

Stakeholder participation in evaluation: How important is diversity?

Participatory evaluation seeks in part to promote exchanges of perspective and experience among diverse program stakeholders. Diversity in such exchanges is viewed as integral to the substantive and political strands of the participatory process. Yet, using the grounded experience of two participatory evaluation case studies, we offer some challenges to this ideal of diversity and suggest that when action is the desired outcome, somewhat less rather than more diversity of stakeholder participation is actually desired.     

Experiments in evaluation capacity building: Enhancing brain disorders research impact in Ontario

This paper is the introductory paper on a forum on evaluation capacity building for enhancing impacts of research on brain disorders. It describes challenges and opportunities of building evaluation capacity among community-based organizations in Ontario involved in enhancing brain health and supporting people living with a brain disorder. Using an example of a capacity building program called the “Evaluation Support Program”, which is run by the Ontario Brain Institute, this forum discusses multiple themes including evaluation capacity building, evaluation culture and evaluation methodologies appropriate for evaluating complex community interventions. The goal of the Evaluation Support Program is to help community-based organizations build the capacity to demonstrate the value that they offer in order to improve, sustain, and spread their programs and activities. One of the features of this forum is that perspectives on the Evaluation Support Program are provided by multiple stakeholders, including the community-based organizations, evaluation team members involved in capacity building, thought leaders in the fields of evaluation capacity building and evaluation culture, and the funders.     

Using concept mapping to identify opportunities for HPV vaccination efforts: Perspectives from the Midwest and West Coast

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection significantly contributes to the burden of cancer in the United States, despite the existence of a highly effective vaccine. While numerous interventions to address vaccination uptake exist, vaccination rates remain low. We conducted a concept mapping exercise to solicit perspectives on barriers and facilitators to HPV vaccination from state-level stakeholders in five states in the Midwest and West Coast of the U.S. We identified 10 clusters of barriers and facilitators based on participants’ statements. For rural areas specifically, clusters rated as most important included education and provider influence; those rated as most feasible were education and coordinated/consistent messaging. Our results suggest that a combination of important (but potentially more difficult to implement) strategies, combined with those rated as most feasible (but potentially less impactful) may be beneficial. Our findings highlight similarities across diverse states, suggesting that states can learn from each other and work together to improve HPV vaccination rates. Using concept mapping proved to be an efficient way to collect information from diverse, stakeholders in different locations, and is a methodology that could be used for program planning in areas beyond HPV vaccination.     

Decolonizing Vision on Borderlands: The Mexican Southern Borderlands in Critical Review

This article critically examines the Mexican southern borderlands, understood both as a concrete borderline region and as a concept constructed by scholars. Building on recent borderlands debates, the article constructs a decolonizing vision, which provokes us to ask: To what extent is the borderlands perspective colonialist? By dividing the world into centers and peripheries, do we automatically repeat the centrist interpretations? Are the habitants of the borderlands thinking they are living in a periphery? By exploring academic literature on Mexican southern borderlands and decolonizing criticisms set forward by the Zapatista movement, the article brings forth epistemological challenges related to colonialist imagery and vocabulary on borderlands, suggesting a decolonizing vision from which to shed a new light to the world political centers and peripheries. This way, the article attempts at bridging critical borderlands studies with the field of international relations.     

Enabling careers, autonomy, and prosperity: Using community organizing and building approaches to improve the educational outcomes of people with mental illness

Objectives: The objective of this regional initiative was to develop access to educational opportunities for people with mental illness with a view to ultimately advancing their career prospects. Participants: The initiative engaged a broad range of community stakeholders including people with mental illness, their families, educators, mental health service providers and, policy analysts. Methods: The initiative used community organizing and development strategies to develop solutions to problems related to access to education. Results: The initiative was successful in mobilizing community participation, identifying priorities, and translating these priorities into action plans. Working groups of community stakeholders engaged in initiatives related to improving access to resources to support education, developing training for teachers in secondary schools, creating peer support systems, and developing a pilot supported education program as a partnership between a college and mental health service. Conclusion: Organized community building provided a foundation for a broad range of initiatives meant to improve access to educational opportunities for people with mental illness. Evaluation efforts will need to focus on the extent to which these initiatives ultimately ledto positive changes in the careers of people with mental illness.     

Stakeholder identifying and positioning (SIP) models: From Google's operation in China to a general case-analysis framework

Through examining online search service provider Google's much-talked about business operation in China over the past several years, this research introduced a series of practical stakeholder identifying and positioning (SIP) models that can be used for various PR case analysis, issue management and decision-making process. Stakeholder, though an important concept that is at the epicenter for understanding and practicing public relations, has nonetheless received insufficient scholarly scrutiny from the public relations’ perspective, and has been so loosely defined that it often leads to confusion rather than clarification. This study categorized all stakeholders into three broad “PR” dimensions, namely, (1) Product and Revenue; (2) Policy and Regulation; and (3) Perception and Reputation. The dynamic interactions and interrelations of these stakeholders were further streamlined and illustrated through several commonly applicable models.     

Family-Centered,Community-Based Asset Building: A Strategic Use of Individual Development Accounts

This research examines individual development account (IDA) programs as part of a broader community development strategy for low-income/low-wealth communities, particularly communities of color. Through a review of multiple literatures and detailed case studies, we explore the potential of explicitly creating a community-based, family-centered development account program as a step toward a comprehensive community asset building approach in low-income urban neighborhoods. From the perspective of IDA practitioners, such an approach provides program participants with local support networks and access to additional services. From the perspective of grassroots community organizers, such an approach provides tangible benefits to low-income residents of their neighborhoods. The likelihood of success may depend on the availability of local resources to build areas of strength and reduce vulnerabilities, but there are examples where a family-centered, community-based asset building approach seems to thrive.     

Decreasing occupational injury and disability: the convergence of systems theory, knowledge transfer and action research

Many work injuries and their associated disabilities are preventable, but effective prevention requires coordinated action by multiple stakeholders. In trying to achieve coordinated action occupational health practitioners can learn valuable lessons from systems theory, knowledge transfer and action research. Systems theory provides a broad view of the factors leading to injury and disability and a means to refocus stakeholder energies from mutual blaming to effective strategies for system change. Experiences from knowledge transfer will help adopt a stakeholder-centered approach that will facilitate the concrete application of the best and most current occupational health knowledge. Action research is a methodology endorsed by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control, which provide methods for successfully engaging stakeholders needed to attain sustainable change. By combining concepts from the three fields we propose MAPAC (Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Act, Check), a five-step framework for developing projects aimed at decreasing occupational injury and disability. Although most practitioners would be familiar with some of the concepts, we believe an explicit framework linked to transferable knowledge from these diverse fields can help design and implement effective programs. We provide examples of model application in workers compensation and in the healthcare workplace.     

New roles for families in child welfare: Strategies for expanding family involvement beyond the case level

This paper examines the strategies and approaches child welfare agencies used to integrate meaningful family involvement into their service delivery systems, under the Children's Bureau Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care demonstration initiative. Through a series of retrospective interviews with child welfare agency staff, systems of care project staff, family members actively involved in implementing the systems of care initiative, and local program evaluators, researchers investigated the family involvement planning and capacity building activities of child welfare agencies during the initiative's implementation. Findings indicate that child welfare agencies' capacity building efforts primarily centered on human resource development, focusing on three areas: program staffing, family engagement, and agency buy-in. These findings illustrate the importance of developing the capacity of child welfare agency staff and family members before fully implementing family involvement programs and activities. Although more research is needed to document the impact of family involvement, the lessons learned from these grant communities' experiences provide critical information and can inform development of policies and practices to help child welfare and other child- and family-serving systems promote and implement meaningful and sustainable family involvement.     

The continuum of dependent family care: a theoretical explanation and model

ABSTRACT

Caring for dependents with disabilities and how this type of care differs from the care of typically developing dependents has largely remained unaddressed in the work–family literature, partly because of a lack of theoretical development on the concept of dependent family care. Studies examining dependent family care often apply a life course perspective, missing key disability factors influencing dependent family care demands and need for resources. This article develops a theoretical framework of dependent family care that accounts for both typical care, which follows the life course trajectory, and exceptional care, which follows a disability trajectory. We position dependent family care as based on a continuum, achieved by adapting life course theory, family adjustment to chronic illness, ecological systems theory, stigma theory and the social model of disability into a model. We explain how dependent family care occurs and what contributes to whether one is engaging in typical or exceptional care. We draw broad constructs representing predictors of different types of dependent family care. We provide specific examples to illustrate how one might test theoretical propositions, an agenda for further research and discuss implications for family–work–community research and practice.     

A comparison of linear and systems thinking approaches for program evaluation illustrated using the Indiana Interdisciplinary GK-12

Logic models are based on linear relationships between program resources, activities, and outcomes, and have been used widely to support both program development and evaluation. While useful in describing some programs, the linear nature of the logic model makes it difficult to capture the complex relationships within larger, multifaceted programs. Causal loop diagrams based on a systems thinking approach can better capture a multidimensional, layered program model while providing a more complete understanding of the relationship between program elements, which enables evaluators to examine influences and dependencies between and within program components. Few studies describe how to conceptualize and apply systems models for educational program evaluation. The goal of this paper is to use our NSF-funded, Interdisciplinary GK-12 project: Bringing Authentic Problem Solving in STEM to Rural Middle Schools to illustrate a systems thinking approach to model a complex educational program to aid in evaluation. GK-12 pairs eight teachers with eight STEM doctoral fellows per program year to implement curricula in middle schools. We demonstrate how systems thinking provides added value by modeling the participant groups, instruments, outcomes, and other factors in ways that enhance the interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data. Limitations of the model include added complexity. Implications include better understanding of interactions and outcomes and analyses reflecting interacting or conflicting variables.     

EVALUATING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT (PREA): A “LESSONS LEARNED” APPROACH

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was designed to address sexual violence in prison. While previous has focused on sexual violence occurring in correctional facilities, there has been a dearth of studies that document the expertise, experience, or reflections of program following the cimplementation of PREA- within a correctional system. The current study utilizes a “lessons learned” approach to discuss the impact of the PREA Demonstration Project on a state prison system that includes 19 correctional institutions. Results indicate the benefits of merging the philosophical orientation of key stakeholders, establishing benchmarks, and the need for partnerships with prosecutors. A comparison of the perceptions of correctional administrators, inmates, and front-line correctional officers regarding PREA is included. Also featured are the “lessons learned” from the implementation of PREA into four prison sites, along with the concept of building trust and the impact of lockdowns due to staff shortages.     

Transition in practice and action in research. A French case study in piloting eco-innovations

Transition in practice means that diverse organizations – from private foundations to citizen-led movements for “cities in transition” – are experiencing ways to bring about sustainable transitions at the system level. While academic thinking on sustainability transitions can efficiently inform transition in practice, these organizations' initiatives can enrich the analytic understanding of transitions. It is this mutually beneficial trade-off that became the purpose of the action research project with the French private foundation Fondaterra, and which led to the drafting of Fondaterra's own model in piloting eco-innovations towards transition. This paper outlines the main features of the Fondaterra model: the territorial perspective, the idea of piloting change, espousing prospective visions, creating new chains of value, implementing demonstrators and monitoring. The comparison of this model with the transition management model suggests that the latter may resonate with other intervention methodologies that have been developed with strong concern for governance strategies, and that many configurations of transition in practice led by intermediary organizations could achieve tangible results in triggering transitions.     

Principles that underpin effective school-based drug education

This study identifies the conceptual underpinnings of effective school-based drug education practice in light of contemporary research evidence and the practical experience of a broad range of drug education stakeholders. The research involved a review of the literature, a national survey of 210 Australian teachers and others involved in drug education, and structured interviews with 22 key Australian drug education policy stakeholders. The findings from this research have been distilled and presented as a list of 16 principles that underpin effective drug education. In broad terms, drug education should be evidence-based, developmentally appropriate, sequential, and contextual. Programs should be initiated before drug use commences. Strategies should be linked to goals and should incorporate harm minimization. Teaching should be interactive and use peer leaders. The role of the classroom teacher is central. Certain program content is important, as is social and resistance skills training. Community values, the social context of use, and the nature of drug harm have to be addressed. Coverage needs to be adequate and supported by follow-up. It is envisaged that these principles will provide all those involved in the drug education field with a set of up-to-date, research-based guidelines against which to reference decisions on program design, selection, implementation, and evaluation.