Enhancing Research Capacity in Gerontological Social Work

There is an untapped potential of social work faculty to conduct aging research aimed at enhancing the well-being of older adults. To better exploit this resource, we have designed, implemented, and evaluated a postgraduate training program in aging research. The goal of the program is to build and sustain a community of social work faculty committed to conducting aging research, to incorporating recent advances in their courses, and to engaging their students in aging research. Program design includes an initial institute (which focuses on research methodology, selected content areas, and procedural matters related to preparation and submission of grant applications); ongoing consultation; and a midyear meeting during the intervening year and a follow-up institute that provide the participants with extended opportunities to discuss the proposals they develop. Evaluation data presented in this paper focus on the first two cohorts (who entered in summer 2004 and summer 2005). These data indicate that the program has been highly effective in expanding the pool of faculty engaged in aging research. Lessons learned with regard to program structure, content, recruitment, evaluation, and sustainability are shared.     

‘Hay que seguir luchando’: struggles that shaped English language learning of four Cuban immigrant women

Newly arrived from Cuba, Angelica, Dora, Marina, and Damaris attempted to negotiate new surroundings and immigrant identities, building a sense of home for themselves and their families. Data from qualitative interviews, classroom observations, and focus group conversations revealed hopes that by acquiring English language skills, they would improve their quality of life in their new country. Struggles included personal factors situated in their pasts in Cuba and their new surrounds in the Miami Cuban exile enclave, contexts that were further complicated by uncertain expectations of new lives in Miami and the overwhelming task of learning a new language at a local adult education center. The women negotiated pressure from spouses, assisted children in Cuba, pondered uncertainties of crossing cultural and linguistic borders, and anticipated eventual acceptance within the greater English‐speaking society. The women’s individual luchas (struggles) and English language learning efforts were tempered by their dreams for their children and themselves.     

Principled challenges for a participatory discipline

The ideals that are central to action research are not often explicitly addressed in writing about action research and participation. This article argues for a more explicit dialogue about the ideals of participation and how those ideals relate to participatory practices. The lack of such a dialogue can obscure both the process of participation and the ends to which such processes are put. It offers a beginning to the conversation by drawing out the implications of five principles that underpin many of the justifications for participatory approaches, namely: community and community engagement, the change orientation of participatory research, issues of power and control, the ownership and construction of knowledge, and the combination of these principles as a form of critique of non-participatory approaches to research. The basis for, and critiques of, each of these principles are explored in turn. From these discussions a series of ‘participatory’ challenges are posed for the discussion of the participatory features of action research.     

‘Where Cassius Clay Ends,Muhammad Ali Begins’: Sportspeople,Political Activism,and Methodology

Abstract

Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the United States Army in June 1967 led to a conviction for draft evasion, exile from boxing, and a complex response from the newspaper press. Although press reactions to Ali’s draft resistance were overwhelmingly negative, his refusal to fight in Vietnam sowed the seeds for journalists to celebrate him as a hero upon his return to the ring four years later. Press reactions to Ali’s two names (Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali) act as a lens for scrutinizing this attitudinal shift. This investigation involved macro and micro analyses of 12 United States newspapers. First, distant reading techniques were used to reveal distinct temporal patterns in the usage of both names. In September 1967, journalists from these publications began to use Ali’s two names far more interchangeably than they previously had. By March 1971, they had fully embraced Ali’s Muslim name over his birth name. Close reading then revealed how and why these patterns developed: changes to Ali’s persona, as well as broader cultural and political forces, prompted newspaper journalists to accept his chosen name and identity in early 1971.     

The Internet Backbone and the American Metropolis

Despite the rapid growth of advanced telecommunications services, there is a lack of knowledge about the geographic diffusion of these new technologies. The Internet presents an important challenge to communications researchers, as it threatens to redefine the production and delivery of vital services including finance, retailing, and education. This article seeks to address the gap in the current literature by analyzing the development of Internet backbone networks in the United States between 1997 and 1999. We focus upon the intermetropolitan links that have provided transcontinental data transport services since the demise of the federally subsidized networks deployed in the 1970s and 1980s. We find that a select group of seven highly interconnected metropolitan areas consistently dominated the geography of national data networks, despite massive investment in this infrastructure over the study period. Furthermore, while prosperous and internationally oriented American cities lead the nation in adopting and deploying Internet technologies, interior regions and economically distressed cities have failed to keep up. As information-based industries and services account for an increasing share of economic activity, this evidence suggests that the Internet may aggravate the economic disparities among regions, rather than level them. Although the capacity of the backbone system has slowly diffused throughout the metropolitan system, the geographic structure of interconnecting links has changed little. Finally, the continued persistence of the metropolis as the center for telecommunications networks illustrates the need for a more sophisticated understanding of the interaction between societies and technological innovations.     

Bringing installation art to reconnaissance to share values and generate action

The English education system has recently seen something of a revival of enthusiasm for the use of research both to develop educational practices and to gather evidence about their effectiveness. These initiatives often present action research as a model of individual problem-solving, which, we argue, communicates a limited conception of action research. In this paper we propose an alternative to this ‘problem-solving’ conception of action research that acknowledges the complex, messy nature of action research through the use of arts installations. Specifically, we present the reconnaissance phase of a project which brought together a partnership comprising a water heritage museum, university staff, teachers and artists. A pedagogical adaptation of contemporary installation art theory and practice fostered the exploration of individual and collective understandings of water, and also established a shared approach to curriculum development and ownership of the project among all participants. We propose that this creative practice enhanced and changed the process of reconnaissance; it allowed the group to establish and share commitments to the value of water conservation and generated a wide range of options for our action research.