Rethinking Research in English with Nontraditional Adult Students

Adult students of diverse experiences, disciplines, and identities can become valued contributors to faculty-directed research while also benefiting from the experience. However, national data show that older students participate in mentored research at one of the lowest rates among all groups tracked. This article forwards principles for facilitating nontraditional students’ involvement in collaborative research. These were developed during studies conducted about and with adult undergraduates at a historically Black university. Student researchers’ insights, adult learning theory, and the scholarship of undergraduate research and mentoring indicate interlacing benefits that students, faculty, and English studies may gain from developing such research partnerships.

Ecologically Sustaining Research Partnerships

It is essential that universities and local or government agencies begin to work together to do unconventional and impactful research that is mutually sustaining to both partners. When done well, the partnerships will strengthen the positions of each institution to continue to do their work and create new opportunities for equity and advancement. The challenges associated with building these types of partnerships are numerous, but even more challenges exist when the partnerships are committed to working in solidarity. To create partnerships that are examples of solidarity leading to mutual sustainability, partners must be intentional about using an ecological-systems model to shape the decision-making process. In doing so, the partners enact an Ecologically Sustaining Research Partnership (ESRP), which ensures that both partners are strengthened by and exist beyond the life of the partnership. Importantly, ESRPs are committed to equity and empowerment and use the ecological-systems model to shift the basis of power in favor of commonly oppressed groups. This emancipatory approach to research is essential for the field of early childhood, but it can also be expanded to guide partnerships between universities and communities across disciplines.

Reading Comprehension and Culturally Diverse Schools in Aotearoa New Zealand

It has proven difficult to establish how best to promote valued outcomes in reading comprehension for students in culturally diverse schools. Efforts are constrained by the disparities communities served by these schools often experience in physical, social, economic, and political conditions. However, principles are being developed for the effectiveness of schools, using four perspectives. The first is consideration of reading comprehension as a cognitive, linguistic, and cultural activity, which includes aspects of well-being such as cultural identity. The activity takes different forms, including one new form of digital literacy. Second, principles need to be underpinned by an understanding of how disparities in comprehension develop over time, through adopting a “life course” perspective. Over the life course, channels of socialization are afforded by both family practices and instructional conditions, and features of each are associated with disparities over time. Finally, criteria for what counts as success include enhancing distributions of achievement, promoting and protecting cultural identity, and overcoming system variability. Four principles of note are (a) increasing opportunities for students to learn; (b) providing textual depth and breadth; (c) making discourse and culture central to intervention designs; and (d) design-based research partnerships that can change practices at scale. However, achieving successful educational outcomes for students using these and other principles depends on considerable commitment, resourcing, and time, including reconfiguring of the role and responsibilities of researchers.

Funding patterns for biomedical research and infectious diseases burden in Gabon

Background Biomedical research plays an important role in improving health. There seems to exist a negative correlation between the amount of biomedical research funding and disease burden from all Sub-Saharan African countries. In this study, we describe funding patterns for biomedical research, explore the correlation between funding and burden of diseases, and quantify inequalities in funds distribution across diseases in Gabon over the period 2005–2015. Methods Data on medical research funds from 2005 to 2015 were retrieved through a structured questionnaire distributed to Gabonese biomedical research institutions and by consulting online databases. Data on the burden of diseases were gathered from the World Health Organization and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. We used Kendall rank correlation coefficient to explore the correlation between cumulative funds over time and the burden of disease. The inequality distribution of funding across diseases was assessed through Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve. Results Biomedical research funding was characterized by a remarkable growth from 2005 to 2010 and a decline from 2010 to 2014. Funds were mostly from external sources and from partnerships. There was inequality in research funds allocation across diseases and malaria was far the most funded disease. There was a significant negative correlation between cumulative funding and the burden of HIV, tuberculosis, and of Helminthiasis (from 2006 to 2010) suggesting that research may be contributing to the management of such diseases. A positive, although not significant, correlation was found between cumulative funds and malaria burden. Conclusions The negative correlation between HIV and tuberculosis cumulative funding and burden suggests that research may be contributing to the management of such diseases but further research is needed to assess the causal direction of such as relationship. As the burden of non-communicable diseases is increasing, more research funds should be focused on those. While research partnerships have been and will remain fundamental, Gabon should increase the amount of national funds to overcome periods of reduced research funding flows from abroad.

‘You want to deal with power while riding on power’: global perspectives on power in participatory health research and co-production approaches

IntroductionPower relations permeate research partnerships and compromise the ability of participatory research approaches to bring about transformational and sustainable change. This study aimed to explore how participatory health researchers engaged in co-production research perceive and experience ‘power’, and how it is discussed and addressed within the context of research partnerships.MethodsFive online workshops were carried out with participatory health researchers working in different global contexts. Transcripts of the workshops were analysed thematically against the ‘Social Ecology of Power’ framework and mapped at the micro (individual), meso (interpersonal) or macro (structural) level.ResultsA total of 59 participants, with participatory experience in 24 different countries, attended the workshops. At the micro level, key findings included the rarity of explicit discussions on the meaning and impact of power, the use of reflexivity for examining assumptions and power differentials, and the perceived importance of strengthening co-researcher capacity to shift power. At the meso level, participants emphasised the need to manage co-researcher expectations, create spaces for trusted dialogue, and consider the potential risks faced by empowered community partners. Participants were divided over whether gatekeeper engagement aided the research process or acted to exclude marginalised groups from participating. At the macro level, colonial and ‘traditional’ research legacies were acknowledged to have generated and maintained power inequities within research partnerships.ConclusionsThe ‘Social Ecology of Power’ framework is a useful tool for engaging with power inequities that cut across the social ecology, highlighting how they can operate at the micro, meso and macro level. This study reiterates that power is pervasive, and that while many researchers are intentional about engaging with power, actions and available tools must be used more systematically to identify and address power imbalances in participatory research partnerships, in order to contribute to improved equity and social justice outcomes.

Organic Collaborative Research Partnership Building: Researchers, Needle and Syringe Program Providers, and People Who Inject Drugs

(1) Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) and needle and syringe program (NSP) providers increasingly partner with researchers to explore harm reduction best practice. However, a paucity of research exists regarding how best to engage PWID and community NSP providers to generate the evidence for sustainable harm reduction services. (2) Aim: This study reports on our use of an organic community research partnership-building approach between researchers, NSP providers, and PWID in Canberra ACT, Australia. (3) Method: Survey participants included both PWID (n = 70) and NSP providers (n = 26) across primary (n = 2), secondary (n = 7), and outreach (n = 1) services in Canberra ACT. Applying an organic partnership-building strategy, we engaged with partners and adapted approaches according to information gained in the process of implementation. (4) Results: We found engaging in relationship building around partner priority activities created mutual understanding and trust premised in authenticity of the evolving partnership. Our organic approach, which included a partner audit of the research tools for relevance, resulted in high acceptance and enrolment into the research by NSP providers and PWID. Finally, we observed strong social capital building utilizing an organic approach for the sustainability of the partnership. (5) Conclusions: The results of this study provide evidence for the benefits of organic collaborative research partnership building with NSP providers and PWID for authentic service program implementation. Our approach to research partnership building resulted in strong relationships built on shared goals and objectives, mutual gains, and complementary expertise. We propose the wider use of organic approaches to developing collaborative research partnerships with NSP providers and PWID to enhance consumer responsiveness towards service provision.