Addressing Barriers to University-Community Collaboration

Abstract

University-community partnerships, and COPC programs in particular, offer important opportunities for traditionally segregated groups to work together in collaborative relationships. The challenge of bringing people who possess distinct differences in background and social power together is a long-standing issue. Class, status, and organizational differences may impede collaboration. This article discusses the history of COPC as social policy and reviews an evaluation report of successful community-university partnerships. Drawing from the community organizing literature in sociology and social work, this article suggests community organizing methods that address structural obstacles to collaborative work. Especially in COPC programs characterized by multiple interactions, it is the community based organization (CBO) which has greatest facility to equalize the playing field between disparate groups. The role of community organizers in CBOs is to acknowledge and disrupt the structural inequalities inherent in these relationships. The community organizer must resist the role of expert or buffer between the community and university and instead strive toward authentic collaboration.     

Ethical and Racial Conflicts in Urban-Based Action Research

Abstract

Through the use of a case study of a joint faculty-student research project, this paper discusses how community-based action research, policy analysis, and community organizing can be synthesized in work with low-income communities. It outlines potential implications of this synthesis for both community practice and social work education.     

The Intersection of Social Process and Social Structure Theories to Address Juvenile Crime: Toward a Collaborative Intervention Model

Juvenile crime has long been a pervasive social problem and the target of various intervention efforts. These efforts are ultimately orchestrated by the theoretical lens through which juvenile crime is viewed. This article illustrates the utility of examining theoretical perspectives to inform interventions by presenting a critical analysis and proposed synthesis of two major theories in this area; social learning theory and social disorganization theory. Results of this analysis suggest that both be considered and merged in developing potential solutions. Removing professional silos and developing interdisciplinary approaches aimed at improving outcomes for youth, their families, and communities are critical.     

Promoting public health through community engagement: Embracing the journey

ABSTRACT

This case study recounts and analyzes the journey that graduate students, enrolled in an experiential, interdisciplinary health promotions course, took with a diverse, urban, Black, Midwest community. Community members, faculty, and graduate students in social work and public health were fellow travelers on this voyage into uncharted territory. A major goal of the journey was to teach students how to recognize community strengths and to facilitate the community in using those strengths. The learner’s stance is used as the guiding principle for this reflective journey that generated serendipitous benefits and challenges. The article concludes with recommendations for interdisciplinary education and curriculum development.     

Collaborative Frame Construction in Social Movement Campaigns: Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Scientist–Activist Mobilization

Previous research has explored the definitional features of the processes of scientific expert activism but has been less clear regarding the dynamics of this scientific activism. This paper addresses these gaps in understanding by using an exploration of the state-based efforts and mobilizations to regulate the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) to identify and analyze the dynamics of interactions between scientists and activists as they collaborate in pursuit of movement objectives. Drawing primarily from interview data and participant observation, I explore how scientific experts—through collaboration and work with activists—impact the processes of movement framing, and how, in turn, the collaborative dissemination of these frames may contribute to movement goals. I argue that the relationships and coordination that developed between BPA scientists and activists resulted in a collaboratively crafted set of frames that were both scientifically rigorous and highly resonant to a public audience.     

增设恶意串通诉讼罪的立法构想

恶意串通诉讼行为不仅对司法机关正常活动有严重的危害,而且侵害了他人的财产权益,因而我国刑法应当增设恶意串通诉讼罪.恶意串通诉讼罪应属于妨害司法罪的一个具体犯罪,侵犯的客体具有双重性,既侵犯国家司法机关的正常活动,又侵犯公私财产所有权,但有主次之分;客观方面表现民事诉讼双方当事人暗中勾结,虚构民事法律关系和案件事实,提供虚假证据,在法院面前相互配合进行表演,蒙蔽法院,情节严重的行为;主体为一般主体,包括自然人和单位;主观方面是故意.在刑罚配置上,恶意串通诉讼罪的最低刑不应低于普通诈骗罪,而最高刑不应高于妨害司法的犯罪.     

Contemporary Political Thought and Its Implications for Social Studies Teachers

When social studies students have a role in the processes of designing assignments, constructing rubrics, and conducting assessments, they participate in authentic democratic principles relative to their own learning. When given voice, choice, and ownership in their education, social studies students gain opportunities to strengthen their depth of engagement, expand their breadth of responsibility, and increase their degree of satisfaction. Concomitantly, incorporating genuine collaboration helps social studies teachers enhance their teaching effectiveness and improve their overall classroom assessment systems. Ultimately, these techniques help social studies teachers empower their students to live the social studies they are learning in class and apply the concepts to the contexts of their lives. Thus, the learning process becomes more meaningful, productive, and rewarding.     

Comparing Ourselves to Others: International Knowledge and Attitudes

The authors focus on the collaboration between a university methods professor and two classroom teachers in teaching social studies methods as a way of bridging the gap between university preparation for teaching social studies and putting that preparation into practice in elementary classrooms. The teachers offer recommendations from their own teaching experiences for how preservice teachers can find time for powerful social studies teaching despite pressures to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind in literacy and mathematics. They integrate social studies with literacy and math, use "teachable moments" and transitions between subjects, and incorporate social studies research with computer and media skills. In addition, they employ class meetings to practice the democratic processes of collectively setting and revising class rules, accepting responsibility for those rules, and working together to solve classroom problems. Informal feedback from the preservice teachers reflects their appreciation of advice from classroom teachers with current experience in addressing the challenge of making time for powerful social studies teaching.     

Social work through collaborative autoethnography

This paper discusses a research project involving five MA Social Work Students and one member of Social Work Academic Staff. Using narrative and taking a collaborative autoethnographical approach, this project highlights some of the feelings that students articulated following a 70-day placement experience. Findings include anxiety, powerlessness and frustration, together with growing confidence, recognition of their skills and a deeper understanding of the role of ‘self’ in social work. Raising issues of preparedness for practice placement, this paper has implications for both social work practice and social work education. Autoethnography (AE) is both a method of carrying out research and a methodology, specifically a qualitative methodology linked to ethnography and narrative inquiry. AE results in highly personalized narrative accounts of the researcher’s engagement with specific sociocultural contexts in the pursuit of knowing more about a phenomenon. Applying such a methodology to explore collaboratively issues of student lived experience of placement is a new and innovative use of this method.     

产学研合作创新网络知识溢出的发生机制与影响因素研究

知识溢出是产学研合作创新网络形成与演进的重要动力机制。文章基于无标度网络和社会资本理论对产学研合作创新网络的特征进行了概括,并对其知识溢出进行了界定和分类,然后从研发合作、技术协作与转化、人才流动和企业衍生4个方面研究阐释了产学研合作创新网络知识溢出的发生机制,进而从区域环境、创新网络、网络主体、溢出知识4个维度分析论述了产学研合作创新网络知识溢出的影响因素,最后提出了后续研究的展望。