Mixed‐Method Evaluation of Continuing Professional Development: Applications in Cultural Competence Training

Continuing professional development has been identified as an important tool for advancing the competence of social workers, yet outcomes of professional development are conventionally evaluated using methods that cannot provide trustworthy information about program effectiveness. This paper suggests that innovations in social research can be applied to strengthen the evaluation of educational outcomes from continuing professional development. The benefits of designing a mixed‐method evaluation of educational interventions are explored by reviewing the experience of implementing a cultural competence continuing professional development workshop series in Toronto, Canada. Review of the process demonstrates that the combination of methods results in a richer data set that can answer questions about both the process of the learning experience, and the effect that training has on professional practice.     

Indian gaming and Tribal Revenue Allocation Plans: Socio-economic determinants of policy adoption

As the Indian gaming industry has experienced unprecedented growth over the past two decades, tribes have pursued different paths regarding the utilization of gaming revenues within parameters established by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Since 1993, more than 100 tribes have received approval through the Department of the Interior to distribute revenues directly to tribal members through per capita payments governed by a Tribal Revenue Allocation Plan (RAP). This paper improves our understanding of nations with payment plans by exploring whether socio-economic tribal features are associated with the successful adoption of a RAP. We find that tribes who gained approval of a RAP in the 1990s have higher per capita incomes, while also having smaller populations and lower levels of educational attainment. Population is the strongest predictor of RAP adoptions in both the 1990s and 2000s, with the impact of other tribal features being less meaningful in explaining adoption in the second decade.     

Racial Differences Between African and White Americans in the Presentation of Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is commonly thought of as a disorder of White females. Despite evidence indicating similar prevalence rates across races and genders, no study has examined the experience of BPD among ethnic minorities and how this differs from Whites. The affective and behavioral symptoms of BPD were studied in 17 African Americans and 27 White Americans with the disorder. Results indicated that African Americans experience greater affective intensity and emotional dysregulation, fewer self-harming behaviors, and more thoughts of interpersonal aggression than Whites. Differences in affective symptoms were accounted for by group differences in substance use and receipt of inpatient services, whereas differences in behavioral symptomatology persisted after adjusting for potential confounders. These findings suggest that not only is BPD not a disorder exclusive to White females, but that the experience of the disorder may differ substantially across races. Implications for future research and directions for developing culturally relevant treatments are discussed.     

Projective techniques for social science and business research

This paper examines various websites based in the Shetland Islands, on Britain’s northern periphery. These sites focus on local life and culture and, by enabling interactive contribution, provide an extension of the social networks existing in the physical locations of the Islands. So rather than emphasising the separation of the virtual and physical realms, they enable a hybrid space, in which interactions within the virtual space enhance and accentuate the appreciation of physical locations within Shetland, and the social relationships based there. Therefore they focus users’ attention on the Islands as a specific and distinctive community. However, they are also embedded within the wider virtual landscape of the internet. Thus, through the use of these sites, perceptions of the local and peripheral continually oscillate with ideas of the globally connected. They enable users to perceive Shetland as a place that exists at many points on an axis of peripherality and connectedness. Ultimately, they enable a continuation, but also complication of an historical process, in which communal narratives of cultural identity and collective memory have been continually informed and reformed by the dialogue between Shetland communities and the wider world through the structures of mass communication.