Barriers to obesity communication - Power, habitus and hidden assumptions

Communication on health issues often founders on the avoidance or denial of key messages by intended recipients. This paper explores the development and application of a research methodology combining elements of Pierre Bourdieu’s work on the unconscious nature of practice with Gerhard Maletzke’s psychological model of communication. This combination was designed to elicit deeper responses than those often found in health communication research. This alternative methodological approach was used to evaluate a year-long, city-wide anti-obesity campaign in Sheffield, UK, which targeted key gatekeepers in the message chain; their responses generate useful insights into resistance to uncomfortable communication. The paper concludes with suggestions for addressing communication about obesity and potentially other uncomfortable health and social topics

Exploring social gambling: scoping, classification and evidence review

The aim of this report is to speculate on the level of concern we might have regarding consumer risk in relation to ‘social gambling.’ In doing so, this report is intended to help form the basis to initiate debate around a new and under-researched social issue; assist in setting a scientific research agenda; and, where appropriate, highlight concerns about any potential areas that need to be considered in terms of precautionary regulation. This report does not present a set of empirical research findings regarding ‘social gambling’ but rather gathers information to improve stakeholder understanding

Embedding sustainability through systems thinking in practice: some experiences from the Open University

One initiative that has emerged during the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) through the work of the Open University Systems group has been its postgraduate programme in Systems Thinking and Practice (STiP). Built on some forty years’ experience of systems teaching and research at the Open University (OU), this open learning, distance taught programme is designed to develop students’ abilities to tackle complex messy situations, to provide skills to think more holistically and to work more collaboratively to avoid systemic failures. This paper critically reviews the trajectory of this programme –its past, present and future. It discusses the STiP programme’s many boundaries with other programmes and across sectors. Challenges of epistemology, ethics and purpose are explored, in relation to education for sustainability. The programme’s many and varied teaching and learning processes are explicated. The pedagogy of the STiP programme is grounded in a diverse range of students’ experiences and needs that by no means all focus explicitly, or primarily, on sustainability or sustainable development. Many OU students study part-time alongside their other commitments, both work and community-based. STiP students are all interested in systems and learning. But what STiP is a part of for them varies considerably. Students come mainly from the UK and rest of Europe. Many of their interactions are online through several different fora. A diverse, active and critical OU STiP alumni community has developed, initiated by the early graduates of the programme. Academics responsible for the programme also participate in this community’s deliberations, at the invitation of student alumni. In this paper, the authors build on their various experiences of the STiP programme and re-explore its contexts and boundaries from an ESD point of view. They use some of the systems heuristics that they teach, to critically reflect on both what is being achieved through this programme in relation to education for sustainability and what they and some of their past students and associate lecturers think ought to be occurring in this respect as they go forward

Exploring the Issues: An Evaluation Literature Review

Finding ways to make evaluation more meaningful and more useful has been a key theme in the evaluation literature since the discipline began, and there is no shortage of discussion around improving evaluation among nonprofit practitioners. The topic has been a highlight at ONN's annual conference in recent years.However, much of the discussion around improving evaluation focuses on methodology, tools, and indicators.There has been less attention paid to who is asking and determining the questions of evaluation, such as who evaluation is for and what is its purpose. Consequently, the purpose of this background paper is to review the literature on evaluation use with a particular focus on systemic factors. In other words, we are interested in looking at the relationship between evaluation practice and the overall structure and function of the nonprofit sector in Ontario.We're interested in the policies and regulations that guide us, the roles played by various actors, theassumptions we make, the language we use, and the ways in which resources move through the sector. We're examining the purposes that evaluation serves, both overt and implicit. We want to learn more about the factors that make evaluations really useful, the issues that can get in the way of evaluations being useful, and ideas for improvement. Ultimately, our goal in this paper is to generate a broad vision to inform our project's final outcomes

Health + Equality + School Engagement: Scenarios USA Reinvents Sex Education

This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité highlights the experience of Scenarios USA,3 an innovative nonprofit program that has integrated a gender and rights perspective -- and a critical thinking approach -- into curricula, while fostering new pedagogies and greater awareness among teachers. Scenarios USA approaches sexual health not as a stand-alone issue but as intertwined with young people's overall lives and agency. As such, the organization's "sex ed" work is part of a broader strategy of fostering self-expression, leadership, and advocacy among youth, especially among those living in marginalized communities.Instead of teaching adolescents about contraceptive methods, Scenarios has them thinking and writing about gender norms, power dynamics, and intimate relationships in their own lives

Segmenting Publics

This research synthesis was commissioned by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to examine audience segmentation methods and tools in the area of public engagement. It provides resources for assessing the ways in which segmentation tools might be used to enhance the various activities through which models of public engagement in higher education are implemented. Understanding the opinions, values, and motivations of members of the public is a crucial feature of successful engagement. Segmentation methods can offer potential resources to help understand the complex set of interests and attitudes that the public have towards higher education. Key findings: There exist a number of existing segmentations which address many of the areas of activity found in Universities and HEIs. These include segmentations which inform strategic planning of communications; segmentations which inform the design of collaborative engagement activities by museums, galleries, and libraries; and segmentations that are used to identify under-represented users and consumers. Segmentation is, on its own, only a tool, used in different ways in different contexts. The broader strategic rationale shaping the application and design of segmentation methods is a crucial factor in determining the utility of segmentation tools. Four issues emerged of particular importance: 1. Segmentation exercises are costly and technically complex. Undertaking segmentations therefore requires significant commitment of financial and professional resources by HEIs; the appropriate interpretation, analysis, and application of segmentation exercises also require high levels of professional capacity and expertise 2. Undertaking a segmentation exercise has implications for the internal organisational operations of HEIs, not only for how they engage with external publics and stakeholders 3. Segmentation tools are adopted to inform interventions of various sorts, and superficially to differentiate and sometime discriminate between how groups of people are addressed and engaged. 4. For HEIs, the ethical issues and reputational risks which have been identified in this Research Synthesis as endemic to the application of segmentation methods for public purposes are particularly relevant

Transactions, Transformations, Translations: Metrics that Matter for Building, Scaling, and Funding Social Movements

This report provides an evaluative framework and key milestones to gauge movement building. Aiming to bridge the gap between the field of community organizing that relies on the one-on-one epiphanies of leaders and the growing philanthropic emphasis on evidence-based giving, the report stresses three main insights. The first is that any good set of movement metrics should capture quantity and quality, numbers and nuance, transactions and transformations. They are related -- an energized leader with a clear power analysis (a transformative measure) may turn out more members for a coalition rally (a transactional measure) -- and the report offers a matrix that weaves together both types of metrics across ten different movement-building strategies. The second is that a movement is more than one organization -- and if the whole is to be greater than the sum of its parts, we must measure accordingly. While report includes measures of success at the organizational level, it attempts to move beyond and focus on whether groups can align and work together to create a more powerful force for social change -- suggesting that in the same way that movements need to scale up to face the challenges of our times, metrics, too, must expand to capture the whole. The third is that metrics must be co-created, not imposed. Recognizing the gravity of the times and hoping to gauge their effectiveness, movement builders are eager to come up with a common language and framework for themselves -- and are developing the tools and capacities to do so. The report suggests that the funder-grantee relationship can build on this wisdom in the field and develop a set of evaluative measures that are not onerous requirements but tools for mutual accountability. The report also offers a set of recommendations to funders and the field, ranging from practical steps (like building a new toolbox of measures, improving the capacity to use them, and documenting innovation and experimentation) to more far-reaching suggestions about leadership development, the connection of policy outcomes with broader social change, and the need to generate movement-level measures. We, at USC PERE, hope this report contributes to a conversation about how to best capture transformations as well as transactions in social movement organizing, and how to build the broader public and philanthropic support necessary to realize the promise of a more inclusive America

Law Learning in Action: An Action Learning Project to Evaluate Processes and Outcomes of using Law E-learning Objects in Social Work Education

This document reports on a research project funded by the Social Care Institute for Excellence to evaluate the processes and outcomes (for social work students and educators) of using a suite of e-learning objects within law teaching on social work degree programmes. The e-learning objects in question were published by SCIE in 2007, and those involved in their development were keen to explore how they were being used, and what their impact might be. The research, which started in 2008 and reached completion in 2010, has tracked a group of educators in 6 universities as they have engaged in a process of collaborative capacity building, through participation in a learning set designed to support their own engagement with e-learning and to develop skills in evaluating their outcomes for students. A full list of the SCIE law e-learning objects and their associated learning outcomes is given at Appendix 1