Meeting Information Needs through Global Partnerships: A Roadmap to Becoming a Global Health Sciences Library

Abstract

Supporting global health priorities through the development of robust health science librarianship partnerships is of significant importance. Increased demand for synthesizing evidence-based information, collating quality resources, and increasing research productivity to improve human health requires integration of library and information science skills and expertise. The Health Sciences Library (HSL) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), exists to be an indispensable partner in health information and knowledge, teaching and learning, and research. As global efforts at UNC expanded, the HSL sought to ensure that our global engagement strategy and integration were aligned with campus priorities and partner needs. The HSL created a global research partnership plan: identify resources that improve efficiency, increase access to information, build in-country capacity and expertise—all while strengthening collaborations across multiple countries. Creating a meaningful and sustainable engagement strategy was central to envisioning our path forward and can be used as a framework for consideration by librarians in similar settings.     

Transforming engagement: a case study of building intrinsic motivation in a child with autism

This longitudinal case study of a 10‐year‐old girl with autism and severe communication impairment measures the impact of the MORE (Means, Opportunities, Reasons and Expectations) approach to enhancing engagement and communication. Through detailed observation of video data over a period of 28 months, engagement behaviours including interaction with adults and following adult directions increased, while resistant behaviours such as kicking, hitting and pushing adults away decreased. Fluctuation between different ‘states’ demonstrated that the frequency and duration of engagement was influenced by the MORE approach and an emphasis on developing intrinsic motivation. In order to enable further efficacy research, core features of the intervention and the changes in engagement over time are described.     

Toward a Developmental Science of Politics

In this monograph, we argue for the establishment of a developmental science of politics that describes, explains, and predicts the formation and change of individuals’ political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior beginning in childhood and continuing across the life course. Reflecting our goal of contributing both theoretical conceptualizations and empirical data, we have organized the monograph into two broad sections. In the first section, we outline theoretical contributions that the study of politics may make to developmental science and provide practical reasons that empirical research in the domain of politics is important (e.g., for identifying ways to improve civics education and for encouraging higher voting rates among young adults). We also review major historical approaches to the study of political development and provide an integrative theoretical framework to ground future work. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model as an organizing scheme and emphasizing social justice issues, we describe how factors rooted in cultural contexts, families, and children themselves are likely to shape political development. In the second section of the monograph, we argue for the importance and utility of studying major political events, such as presidential elections, and introduce the major themes, rationales, and hypotheses for a study of U.S. children's views of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In addition, we apply a social-justice lens to political thought and participation, addressing the role of gender/sex and race/ethnicity in children's political development broadly, and in their knowledge and views of the 2016 U.S. presidential election specifically. In interviews conducted within the month before and after the election, we examined two overarching categories of children's political attitudes: (a) knowledge, preferences, and expectations about the 2016 election, and (b) knowledge and attitudes concerning gender/sex and politics, particularly relevant for the 2016 election given Hillary Clinton's role as the first female major-party candidate for the presidency. Participants were 187 children (101 girls) between 5 and 11 years of age (M = 8.42 years, SD = 1.45 years). They were recruited from schools and youth organizations in five counties in four U.S. states (Kansas, Kentucky, Texas, and Washington) with varying voting patterns (e.g., Trump voters ranged from 27% to 71% of county voters). The sample was not a nationally representative one, but was racially diverse (35 African American, 50 Latinx, 81 White, and 21 multiracial, Asian American, Middle Eastern, or Native American children). In addition to several child characteristics (e.g., age, social dominance orientation [SDO]), we assessed several family and community characteristics (e.g., child-reported parental interest in the election and government-reported county-level voting patterns, respectively) hypothesized to predict outcome variables. Although our findings are shaped by the nature of our sample (e.g., our participants were less likely to support Trump than children in larger, nationwide samples were), they offer preliminary insights into children's political development. Overall, children in our sample were interested in and knowledgeable about the presidential election (e.g., a large majority identified the candidates correctly and reported some knowledge about their personal qualities or policy positions). They reported more information about Donald Trump's than Hillary Clinton's policies, largely accounted for by the substantial percentage of children (41%) who referred to Trump's immigration policies (e.g., building a wall between the United States and Mexico). Overall, children reported as many negative as positive personal qualities of the candidates, with negative qualities being reported more often for Trump than for Clinton (56% and 18% of children, respectively). Most children (88%) supported Clinton over Trump, a preference that did not vary by participants’ gender/sex or race/ethnicity. In their responses to an open-ended inquiry about their reactions to Trump's win, 63% of children reported negative and 18% reported positive emotions. Latinx children reacted more negatively to the election outcome than did White children. Girls’ and boys’ emotional responses to the election outcome did not differ. Children's personal interest in serving as U.S. president did not vary across gender/sex or racial/ethnic groups (overall, 42% were interested). Clinton's loss of the election did not appear to depress (or pique) girls’ interest in becoming U.S. president. With respect to the role of gender/sex in politics, many children (35%) were ignorant about women's absence from the U.S. presidency. Only a single child was able to name a historical individual who worked for women's civil rights or suffrage. Child characteristics predicted some outcome variables. For example, as expected, older children showed greater knowledge about the candidates than did younger children. Family and community characteristics also predicted some outcome variables. For example, as expected, participants were more likely to support Trump if they perceived that their parents supported him and if Trump received a greater percentage of votes in the children's county of residence. Our data suggest that civic education should be expanded and reformed. In addition to addressing societal problems requiring political solutions, civics lessons should include the histories of social groups’ political participation, including information about gender discrimination and the women's suffrage movement in U.S. political history. Providing children with environments that are rich in information related to the purpose and value of politics, and with opportunities and encouragement for political thought and action, is potentially beneficial for youth and their nations.     

Assessing General Education and Special Education Majors’ Self‐Efficacy for Teaching Reading

In an era of teacher quality reforms, one overlooked area for assessing readiness for teaching is education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. This gap is unfortunate, as teaching reading is a common responsibility among general and special education teachers. In the current push for RTI—one in which more general education teachers are increasingly called upon to provide reading support to students with learning disabilities, in addition to the support received from special educators—it is important to determine preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. Self‐efficacy is an important construct to consider as it is related to eventual teacher attrition. The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to measure elementary and special education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. With a sample of 110 education majors, a three‐factor scale was developed and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. Implications for the future of teacher education programs are discussed.     

Choosing 'stereotypes': debating the efficacy of (British) disability-criticism

This paper considers how, by paying attention to the divergent use of 'stereotypes' as a methodological tool, we concomitantly pay attention to the capacities of contemporary disability-criticism. First, the search for negative stereotypes is described in terms of how it enables the repeated citation of common examples. However, as some areas of disability-criticism have begun to acknowledge that 'stereotypes' are not exclusively a negative form, the second part of the paper uses the US cartoon series South Park to explore what sort of interpretations such a troublesome recognition allows. While critical discourse on disability is discussed as a whole, the ultimate aim is to draw some conclusions about the past, present and future of British disability-criticism. The paper concludes by suggesting that recognising the contingency of where we are on how we choose to read representations of disability strengthens debates about how we want to go on.