Organization and Leadership in the Participatory Community

Abstract

Participation is a community mobilization process which develops in relation to its internal and external conditions. Two of the most salient internal conditions due to their importance for the development of community participation (CP) are the organization and the leadership adopted by participants throughout the participatory project. That is, the community constructs along its self-management process, the particularities that those conditions should have, so that they correspond with the meaning of participation orienting it and with the characteristics of the goals the community attempts to achieve. It is argued that organization and leadership develop in the participatory community not only as related conditions, as they jointly influence CP, but as two conditions which mutually influence one another, so that the definition the community makes of one of them converges with the definition of the other one. That relationship is examined taking as illustration a case study of CP which has a successful history of seventeen years of continued participation.     

Community-Partnered Needs Assessment: A Strategy to Teach College Students About Health Disparities

Partnering with communities to provide service-learning opportunities for undergraduates can be an effective strategy to teach college students about health disparities. In the current study, undergraduates partnered with a public K–8 school to conduct a participatory needs assessment. College students worked directly with teachers, parents, public school students, and key stakeholders to identify and prioritize health needs, and they awarded the partnership school a grant to address physical activity and bullying. Undergraduates rated the class highly favorably and reported a deeper understanding of health disparities resulting from the service-learning activity. Health disparities research is increasingly becoming a national priority and service learning can attract future talent by providing undergraduates with the opportunity to engage in the material in a meaningful way with clear community benefit.     

Two Approaches,One Course: An Experience in Experiential Learning

In universities where experiential learning is not the norm, introducing this style of learning into undergraduate courses can be an intimidating process for both instructors and students. Instructors are often unsure of how to manage student experiences in the community, while a significant number of students react with skepticism toward this new type of course, as well as concern about their instructor's changing expectations for their performance. The following is a reflection of our first 2 years of teaching undergraduate courses from a distinctly experiential learning approach. Qualitative data is used to highlight the parallel learning processes that occurred over the semester, for students as well as for us as instructors. Our biggest challenges are explored in detail, and advice to instructors contemplating adapting an experiential approach to their own courses is presented.     

The role of individual differences in understanding and predicting workplace safety

While U.S. colleges and universities ponder their mission, vision, values, and virtues, researchers at a large, urban, Catholic, patron-identity university actively engaged in empirical assessments of “who we say we are.” In this themed issue, faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students are a research team engaged in quantitative and qualitative analysis of their school's mission identity and mission-driven activities. Results from several sets of studies around student perceptions and impact of mission are presented and discussed. School administrators and those interested in community engagement impacts on students may find these articles useful and informative.     

Exploring Civic Engagement at an Urban Commuter Campus: Pathways and Barriers

Universities have traditionally had a vested interest in the civic preparation of students. In order to understand the unique situation of this population of students in a university serving non-traditional community students, qualitative data was used to identify pathways and barriers associated with their civic engagement. Results suggest themes associated with time, knowledge, and access.     

The Effectiveness of Using New Instructors to Teach an LGBT Ally Development Course

We examined student responses to three new instructors who taught a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) ally development course as described in a study by Ji, Finnessy, and Dubois (2009). Our analysis of the responses indicated that students did improve as LGBT allies in ways similar to those reported in the 2009 study. The findings suggest that the course could be disseminated provided that instructors actively encouraged students to engage in experiences that develop their LGBT ally identities.     

“邻避运动”在澳门的兴起及其治理——以美沙酮服务站选址争议为个案

由选址问题引发的邻避运动是一个世界性的现象。自回归后第二个五年来,具有邻避特征的公共设施选址争议在寸土寸金的澳门日益增多。本文以澳门美沙酮服务站选址争议为个案,从风险认知和决策模式两方面分析了社区居民反对政府选址政策的原因,进而提出在社区层面引入参与式治理,期冀从源头上应对邻避抗议运动。本文的研究价值在于:第一,对邻避运动的关注,能够拓展澳门既有的抗议研究;第二,对邻避运动的治理,能够为参与式治理的社区实践提供契机。     

Experiential Teaching in an Adult Development Course: Promoting an Understanding of Intergenerational Interactions

Twelve students in a developmental psychology service-learning course engaged in a service-learning project with two groups of elders in an urban setting. Nine members of the class provided quantitative and qualitative feedback on this experiential learning experience. Survey results indicated that students believed the project increased their interest in the content area and that the project was a valuable aspect of the course. Based on student reflection papers in the course, students could identify specific ways the project helped them to learn course content. Finally, two interviewed students commented on how the project helped dismantle ageist preconceptions they held prior to completing the course. The project illustrates the advantages of experiential teaching in promoting interactions and understanding between diverse age groups. Three recommendations for implementing experiential teaching in community psychology and service-learning courses are presented.     

Caregiver engagement in the behavioral health screening and assessment for child welfare-involved children: child welfare and behavioral health workers’ perspectives

Caregivers are frequent sources of information of their children’s behavioral health and other service needs. It is particularly challenging to engage child welfare-involved caregivers who risk losing custody of their children. This case study explores how caregivers who were about to lose custody of their children engage in their children’s behavioral health screening and assessment from the perspective of child welfare and behavioral health workers. Using qualitative data collected via focus groups from child welfare and behavioral health workers, themes were identified related to the process of engaging caregivers in child behavioral health screening and assessment, determinants (both internal and external) for the caregiver engagement process, and how this process affected screening and assessment outcomes. Findings have implications for screening and assessing behavioral health needs of children involved with the child welfare system and recommended strategies to better engage caregivers in the process.     

Becoming better health care providers: outcomes of a primary care service-learning project in medical school

Medical educators have begun to embrace service-learning as a method for teaching medical students to be more socially responsible, patient-oriented practitioners. However, research documenting the learning outcomes of service-learning in medical education is limited. In this paper, written documents generated through evaluation of a mandatory, structured community service-learning experience were analyzed qualitatively to discover the diverse learning outcomes among 24 students who participated in the experience. Preliminary findings indicate that students developed skills and attitudes directly related to competencies of concern in most U.S. medical programs. These preliminary findings may help other programs articulate learning outcomes for their service-learning programs. Further, these preliminary findings may stimulate more systematic research (qualitative and quantitative) in this area.     

Experiencing Community Psychology Through Community-Based Learning Class Projects: Reflections From an American University in the Middle East

Many introductory community psychology courses do not incorporate community-based learning (CBL), and when they do, it is most often in the form of individualized volunteer hours. We present an alternative model for CBL in which the entire class collaborates on an experiential project that promotes community action. We believe that such an approach better embodies the values and methods of the discipline and has a more powerful impact on the students and stakeholders. It may be especially effective in developing countries that do not have an established network of service infrastructures; in such nations the onus is on the teachers and learners of community psychology to contribute to transformative change. In this article practical guidelines are provided by the instructor regarding how to structure and implement this CBL model. Additionally, two students describe how the CBL experience solidified their learning of course concepts and significantly impacted them personally.     

论构建和谐的社区警务模式

在当今社会高举和谐大旗的大背景下，我国的社区警务也应该建立一种和谐的模式，只有这样，才能最大限度地发挥出社区警务的优越性。文章通过对和谐社区警务模式的涵义、与人民群众、自然环境以及社会环境等之间的关系、存在的问题和解决问题的方法等几个方面的具体论述，为和谐社区警务模式的建立提出了指导性建议。     

From Zero-sum Game to Positive-sum Game: why Beijing tolerates Pacific Island states' recognition of Taipei

The Pacific Islands region might be regarded as one of the most remote and politically least significant areas in the geopolitical and economic considerations of world giants. However, as the regional order of the Asia–Pacific changes rapidly, China has shown more eagerness to engage the island states. Interestingly, Beijing's former arch-rival Taipei still maintains, arguably, considerable influence over the region. This raises a question that is thought-provoking: why is this status quo tolerated by Beijing? Drawing on empirical sources in relation to communication between Beijing, Taipei and these island states, by focusing on how Beijing handles the South Pacific region in general and the six non-recognizing states in particular, this article attempts to tackle the question by distinguishing the difference in Beijing's mentality today from that of 30 or 40 years ago. It argues that the zero-sum mentality of fighting against Taipei in the region has now been replaced by a positive-sum assumption to engage Taipei, as well as the pan-Chinese community in the world, via the PIS, regardless of whether they establish formal ties with Beijing or not.     

The tools to understand: community as co-researcher on culture-specific protective factors for Alaska Natives

A collaborative research process engaging Alaska Native communities in the study of protective factors in Alaska Native sobriety and the design of a preventative intervention using its findings is described. Study 1 was discovery oriented qualitative research whose objectives were identification of protective factors and development of a heuristic model. Study 2 involved quantitative survey methods to develop and test ameasure of protective factors identified by the qualitative study. Empirical data from these studies is presented, and the role of Alaska Native co-researchers who did not possess specialist research training is described in the design and implementation of the study, interpretation of findings, and design of the intervention model and tools. Benefits that emerged from co-researcher involvement in this process, to the community and to the co-researchers themselves, are described.     

Is procrastination all that “bad”? A qualitative study of academic procrastination and self-worth in postgraduate university students

ABSTRACT

Most of the existing literature investigated the construct of procrastination using quantitative paradigms—primarily self-administered questionnaires. However, such approaches seem to limit insight, elaboration, and deeper understanding of central facets that might influence procrastination. The present qualitative study explored how a sample of postgraduate students from Cambridge University represented academic procrastination framed within their personal perspectives and context using semistructured interviews. This study extends the existing quantitative literature by adding students’ personal narratives and voices. Ten postgraduate students were interviewed and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The preponderance of the literature on academic procrastination has described it as a maladaptive and detrimental behavior. However, the present study found evidence which supports the existence of a positive form of procrastination as well which suggests that procrastination can sometimes be worthwhile and allow further thinking time, allowing students to do a task and enable them to give more attention to detail which suggests a reconsideration of the negative image commonly associated with procrastination.     

高职院校与社区共同推进高职生道德教育

在我国城乡社区化进程中,高职院校与社区共同推进高职生道德教育,能更好地促进学生品德发展和人格完善。凸显职校与社区和谐德育的优势在于整体构建、系统推进、互动参与。社区对高职生品德发展的影响主要是通过社区服务学习、德育资源享用等实践策略来实现的。需要整合社区德育资源,彰显职校德育特色。     

辽宁高职院校党的基层组织建设现状分析

近年来,辽宁高职院校迅猛发展,无论从学校数量还是招生规模上,几乎占据了辽宁所有高校数量的近三分之一。认真分析和梳理辽宁高职院校基层党组织工作面临的新形势,积极探索适合高职院校特点的基层党组织建设的创新模式,具有十分重要的现实意义,也是当前辽宁高职院校党建工作的一项亟待解决的重要课题。     

政府的责任:大学生生命教育的拷问

尽管生命教育在国外发展已相对成熟,但在我国大学生却缺乏系统、规范的生命教育。引导大学生认识生命、尊重生命、体验生命,提高大学生对生命价值以及人生目标的理性认识,不仅是大学生健康成长的必然要求,也是落实以人为本的科学发展观,构建社会主义和谐社会的必然要求。因此,政府应积极倡导生命教育理念,在行政与制度上确立大学生生命教育的合法性,加强大学生生命教育师资队伍建设,构建大学生生命教育的内容和课程,积极组织开展大学生生命教育研究,启动立体化生命教育体系。     

Citizen Empowerment

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, the notion of empowerment has appeared with increasing frequency in discussion of preventive social and community intervention. While the idea of empowerment is intuitively appealing both for theory and practice, its applicability has been limited by continuing conceptual ambiguity. Based on a small ?^G study of emerging citizen leaders in grassroots organizations, this article proposes a view of empowerment as a necessarily long-term process of adult learning and development. In this framework, empowerment is further described as the continuing construction of a multi-dimensional participatory competence. This conception encompasses both cognitive and behavioral change. Implications for practice are also addressed.