Reflexive Research Ethics in Fetal Tissue Xenotransplantation Research

For biomedical research in which the only involvement of the human subject is the provision of tissue or organ samples, a blanket consent, i.e., consent to use the tissue for anything researchers wish to do, is considered by many to be adequate for legal and Institutional Review Board (IRB) requirements. Alternatively, a detailed informed consent provides patients or study participants with more thorough information about the research topic. We document here the beliefs and opinions of the research staff on informed consent and the discussion-based reflexive research ethics process that we employed in our fetal tissue xenotransplantion research on the impact of environmental exposures on fetal development. Reflexive research ethics entails the continued adjustment of research practice according to relational and reflexive understandings of what might be beneficent or harmful. Such reflexivity is not solely an individual endeavor, but rather a collective relationship between all actors in the research process.     

Research Review

Championing Children: A Report on Manchester City Council's Services For Children. John Rea Price Gillian Pugh     

Research newsnotes

The authors describe the curricular changes made as part of a 20-year commitment by Smith College School for Social Work (SCSSW), a graduate school with a clinical social work specialization, to become an antiracism institution. Unaware of precedents, faculty, administration, and students needed to develop structures and processes to confront inherent institutional racism at the SCSSW. In addition to multiple administrative actions, every aspect of the curriculum was reevaluated, leading to changes in courses offered and everything about them, from syllabi to pedagogy, as well as how faculty are trained and supported. The authors found that explicit and implicit curriculum must work together in intentional and synchronous ways. Critical intention across design, implementation, evaluation, accountability, and openness to process is emphasized here. They conclude that an antiracism commitment requires continuous engagement, connection, challenge, learning, and teaching and a curriculum that is fluid, flexible, proactive, and responsive.     

Complexity Science: Understanding Research Processes and Improving Research Practice

ABSTRACT

Reflecting on experiences of coresearching with young people aged 13 to 15 in evaluating a government-funded initiative within their own communities, the author explores both some of the consequences of this endeavor and learnings from reflections on research processes therein. Reflections upon lessons learned are analyzed through applying some key concepts from complexity science to the research. It is argued that complexity science assists in reflection and in reaching more in-depth understandings of research processes. The author outlines how these concepts could be applied in research more generally and concludes that learnings from this experience are relevant to researchers everywhere.     

社会法学研究应当吸取经济法学研究的教训

经济法学与社会法学的研究对象和研究方法都具有交叉性和相通性.我国经济法学的研究实践表明,研究范围的选择,调整对象研究的思路,以及对总论与分论、本学科与他学科、求同与求异、实体法与程序法的关系的处理,都存在深刻的教训.在社会法学研究中吸取这些教训,对社会法学的发展具有重要意义.     

Research as Social Work: Participatory Research in Learning Disability

The social-work literature has already made links between socialwork and research, and has argued in favour of practitioner–research.This paper turns the argument around and looks at how researchcan come to look and feel like social work. This happens particularly,but not exclusively, in participatory research in the learning-disabilityfield, especially in auto/biographical or life-story research,where long-term research relationships are more in evidence.Drawing on the participatory research methodology literature,and her own oral and life-history research, the author exploresthe areas in which research comes to emulate social-work practice.There are, of course, practical and ethical issues to be addressedand, as the author concludes, safeguards are needed to clarifyroles and foster openness in research relationships.     

Research Subject Advocate: A New Protector of Research Participants

In 2001, the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) directed the 78 General Clinical Research Centers (GCRC) to develop a Research Subject Advocate (RSA) position. The RSA would report directly to the Principal Investigator (PI) of each GCRC and assure compliance of studies conducted on the GCRC with federal regulations and policies. Seven RSAs agreed to be interviewed about their new role. Website documents, electronic correspondence, and presentations at the first annual national meeting of RSAs were scrutinized using discursive analysis to shed light on this new organizational form and its potential for increased protection of human research participants. The RSA role actualizes the ethical principles of respect for persons, justice, and beneficence that are the foundation of the protection of research participants. The results also reveal the regulatory, institutional, collegial, and personal resources and barriers that assist the RSA in the successful implementation of the RSA role. In addition, issues important to the RSAs are described.     

A Research Odyssey

This second special issue on single-system designs begins with an essay celebrating the life and work of Ludwig L. Geismar, who contributions to social work research include penetrating investigations on poverty, the multi-problem family, delinquency, and child-care. For nearly forty years, he has blended theory, research, and practice with persistent energy and vitality, and has set an important benchmark in social work scholarship. It is important that social work researchers know from whence we began so as to understand where we are now and where we are likely to be headed. This essay honors one of the significant contributors to that understanding: Ludwig L. Geismar.