Curators and sojourners in learning networks: Practices for transformation

Networks are a promising mechanism for creating systemic change. Studies abound, but do not examine roles and practices to reveal the processes through which networks create transformative capacity. This participatory single case study provides a framework to examine structures, roles and practices. The framework details common network substructures, across which critical practices occur, and provides a typology of specific network practices of curators and sojourners. The primary claim is that a variety of structures and interdependent roles and practices work in concert to support transformation across sites and scales. Results have implications for network design, leadership, practice, and evaluation.     

Will the children use it?—A RE-AIM evaluation of a local public open space intervention involving children from a deprived neighbourhood

Knowledge on how to improve public open spaces in deprived neighbourhoods to increase active living among children is scarce and comprehensively evaluated public open space interventions are needed. Firstly, the aim was to explore if involving 39 local fifth-grade children (10–11 years old) from a deprived neighbourhood in creating playable installations in a public open space influenced their use of this space. Secondly, we wanted to explore if the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance framework (RE-AIM) was useful for evaluating different stages in the intervention project. RE-AIM was applied through a convergent mixed-methods triangulation design using survey, accelerometer, GPS, and interviews as data sources. Effectiveness outcomes revealed that on average the space was used less by the 39 children after the intervention. The implementation and maintenance dimensions revealed aspects of why most children involved in the project did not use the space after intervention. The evaluation cast light on children’s perceptions of their role, and importance of maintenance when the intervention was completed. In future, all dimensions of built environmental projects would benefit from being planned and evaluated in a collaboration with all project partners using an evaluation framework integrated and applied from the beginning of the project.     

Community engagement in the Aboriginal Families Study: Strategies to promote participation

Background

Aboriginal women and families are under-represented in Australian research on pregnancy and childbirth. The Aboriginal Families Study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of a representative sample of women giving birth to an Aboriginal baby in South Australia between July 2011 and June 2013, using methods designed to respect Aboriginal culture and communities.

How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within <Emphasis Type="Italic">Young Lives</Emphasis>

‘Wellbeing’ is a key concept in the study of children’s lives over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are holistic, contextualized and longitudinal. For this reason wellbeing is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15-year project (2000–2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see ). This paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture aspects of child wellbeing in the context of a range of children’s life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. It draws on a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting three core qualitative methods in the four study countries. The paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

Participatory action research opens doors: Mentoring Indigenous researchers to improve midwifery in urban Australia

Problem

There is increasing demand for capacity building among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) maternal and infant health workforce to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies; yet few studies describe the steps taken to mentor novice Indigenous researchers to contribute to creating a quality evidence-base in this space.

And then the internet happened: Thoughts on the future of concept mapping

Over 25 years ago, in the late twentieth century, concept mapping emerged as a mixed method approach to inquiry that enables a group of people to conceptualize their thinking about a specific topic. Since then, the application of concept mapping has spread widely and an easy prediction for the future is that this trend is likely to continue; a more important and greater challenge is to think about the ways in which concept mapping may and should evolve. Discussed here are thoughts about the future of concept mapping including some predictions of likely directions and suggestions for new possibilities. Thoughts on the future are grounded in concept mapping applications that have emerged and gained ground in recent years; these include exploring wicked problems in communities and integrating concept mapping with other methods of inquiry. Thoughts on the future are also grounded in the social and cultural milieu in which we find ourselves at this time. The influence of social media and internet technologies has led to the emergence peer production and crowdsourcing as approaches to co-create information, knowledge, products and services. These tactics may create fertile ground for the further spread of concept mapping. This same collaborative milieu has produced the open software movement which in turn, offers opportunities to enhancing the methodology of concept mapping.     

Voluntary Organizations as New Street‐level Bureaucrats: Frontline Struggles of Community Organizations against Bureaucratization in a South Korean Welfare‐to‐Work Partnership

In recent years, the role of voluntary organizations in welfare partnership has received considerable critical attention from scholars working in the field. While mainstream debates have valued state–voluntary sector partnership as participatory governance, critical studies have argued that it leads voluntary organizations to serve as a shadow state. The present study, however, contends that partnership does not necessarily entail participatory welfare or the complete subordination of the voluntary sector to the state's bureaucratic system. Rather, as new street‐level bureaucrats, voluntary organizations can exercise a degree of autonomy on the frontline despite the bureaucratic constraints engendered by partnership. Through an ethnographic analysis of Korean community organizations engaged as frontline agencies in a welfare‐to‐work partnership, this study unveils how the former have recreated democratic and inclusive environments in a particular policy setting by organizing non‐work activities and transferring administrative authority to recipients. Delineating such street‐level practices, this article demonstrates that state–voluntary sector partnerships may be sites of struggle where voluntary organizations continuously strive to actualize participatory governance in diverse and indirect ways.     

Addressing the Vision Challenges of Residents at a Retirement Community: Collaborative Research with a Community Partner

ABSTRACT

Staff members at a community retirement village were concerned about the demise of a support group for residents with vision loss, and requested help developing effective services for residents with vision challenges. This study explored past barriers to support group participation, as they were perceived by residents, family members, and employees. The community partner worked collaboratively with the researcher in all phases of the study. Questionnaires were designed to elicit demographic data, diagnosed vision problems, level of adjustment to vision loss, well-being, and motivation for attending institutional programs about vision challenges. Residents responded to standardized vision and depression scales; qualitative questions were posed to all 3 groups concerning motivations for resident participation in program activities. Results indicated that, although many residents had diagnosed vision conditions, they were, in general, coping well with vision loss and did not report depressive symptoms. Participants considered ongoing personal contact and follow-up, a group design that offered the choice of educational presentations and/or process discussions, and individualized assistance with practical challenges to be critical to an effective program. This case study, utilizing a collaborative research process, generated requests for expanded social work services and an increased valuing of the social work role.     

NGO2.0 and social media praxis: activist as researcher

This article tracks the emergence of a particular brand of ICT activism that promotes the use of social media as a means of helping Chinese NGOs break out of their communication bottleneck. The author starts by introducing NGO2.0, an activist project targeting China's rural regions, using it as an entry point to examine the practice of “social media for social good” and shed light on the ecosystem of social media usage by Chinese NGOs. The author also deliberates on the explanatory value of the binary paradigm of “rural vs. urban,” looks into the methodological implications of undertaking “social media action research,” and articulates what it means to be engaged in the hybrid practice of “activist as scholar” in the specific context of Cultural Studies.     

发展项目设计中的参与式社会经济评估方法 ———以某造林治沙项目为例

文章以某造林治沙项目为例,阐述如何应用参与式社会经济评估方法来发现和分析项目设计中的社会经济问题。方法包括:相关利益部门座谈、项目村踏查、村级半结构访谈(村干部、男性村民及女性村民)、资源图及季节历讨论、参与式土地利用规划、相关利益群体研讨会等。整个过程强调赋权、不同群体的话语权以及社区能力建设的加强等。