Innovation spaces: transforming humanitarian practice in the United Nations

Presents new research on the objectives, motivations, and challenges of ‘innovation spaces’ in humanitarian and development work. Introduction The use of the term ‘lab’, more commonly seen in the physical and natural sciences, conjures a sense of a safe haven for experimentation, focused problem solving and solution creation. As laboratories for innovation have become part and parcel of innovation in the UN system, there is a pressing need to understand more about what these labs can truly offer and whether they should be isolated, instead of mainstreaming innovation into an agency. This research seeks to understand the way in which innovation labs across several UN agencies are being used to foster new ways of operating within the UN’s bureaucratic structures. Asks three key questions to help unpack how innovation labs are taking shape and to inform lessons for future labs about what works and what does not, in trying to achieve a culture of innovation and improved humanitarian solutions. These questions are: • What form do innovation labs in UN agencies take? • What motivated their initiation? What are their aims and objectives? • What impact have they had and how is the impact being measured? &nbsp

Annotated bibliography of community music research review, AHRC connected communities programme

This research review, consisting of a 90-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an AHRC Connected Communities programme project entitled Community Music, its History and Current Practice, its Constructions of ‘Community’, Digital Turns and Future Soundings. It supports a 2,500 word report written with this same title for the AHRC

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education: Are We Adequately Preparing Pre-Service Teachers to Circumvent Cultural Marginality in the Classroom?

Research has shown that despite the growing population of diverse and ELL students in American schools, pre-service teachers are not adequately prepared to effectively deal with the current reality of a diverse classroom. The reason for this is twofold. First, the student population is becoming increasingly diverse when compared to the majority of teachers who are White, middle-class, monolingual English speaking females. Second, teacher preparation is lacking as it pertains to cultural competence. The following mixed method study investigates two liberal arts based teacher education programs with a focus on culturally responsive teacher preparation. Through program analysis, faculty interviews, and the administration of qualitative questionnaires and quantitative surveys, this study employs a one-way MANOVA to investigate the extent to which culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) is infused throughout the curriculum in teacher education programs. In addition, this study measures teacher self-efficacy in delivering responsive lessons, measure outcome expectations in employing CRP, as well as whether teachers are employing certain responsive practices in the process of delivering instruction. Scores on the Culturally Responsive Teacher Preparation Scale (CRTPS), the Culturally Responsive Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (CRTSE), and the Culturally Responsive Teaching Outcome Expectancy Scale (CRTOE) allows for the investigation of the degree to which pre-service teachers feel they are being prepared to acknowledge and employ culture in the learning process. As an extension of this, scores also reflect the extent to which they feel confident in their ability to employ culture and contextual teaching, as well as whether they believe employing culture will have positive outcomes. This study has implications for the future preparation of educators who are efficacious in their ability to employ culture as a vehicle to reach every child in their care

The Role of Occupational Therapy in Supporting the Needs of Older Adults who Identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Transgender (LGBT)

There are growing numbers of older individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) who are in need of health care services provided by culturally and clinically competent providers, including occupational therapists. The LGBT community presents with unique needs and circumstances that impact occupational therapy (OT) practice. This Opinions in the Profession article presents an overview of the unique narratives of and special considerations for LGBT older adults that the OT profession needs to address to meet the needs of this population and improve our service delivery. We assert essential implications for OT practice and education to better support the needs of LGBT older adults and strategies for occupational therapists to promote culturally and clinically competent care and serve as agents of change in practice

Dos Idiomas: Concise Recommendations for Bilingual Speech Therapy

Spanish-English dual language learners living in the United States present an incredibly diverse and heterogeneous group. Many members of this community may experience a variety of communication disorders that must be addressed by speech-language pathologists and associated professionals. Currently, these children face many barriers to receiving proper speech and language services and care, including misidentification, miscommunication with caregivers, and inappropriate intervention methods. This thesis project outlines several key differences that clinicians should be aware of in the development of bilingual children and continues to describe key clinical strategies that can be used during identification, intervention, and caregiver involvement. It is incredibly essential that speech-language pathologists are equipped with knowledge about the theories supporting bilingual language acquisition; reliable and valid assessment methods that distinguish disorders from differences for culturally and linguistically diverse populations; the benefits associated with and strategies for implementing bilingual speech therapy; and methods of encouraging and communicating with Latinx caregivers to improve intervention outcomes. Additionally, clinicians should understand that monolingual clinicians are responsible for possessing the skills and knowledge needed to deliver bilingual speech therapy. The research included in this presentation suggests that a converging evidence approach, bilingual intervention, and culturally sensitive caregiver involvement strategies are among the most effective clinical recommendations in the field for young Latinx DLLs to date. This project is designed to guide clinical decision making and can be used as a reference for educators, professionals, and students within the field of communication disorders

Leveling the Playing Field: Attracting, Engaging, and Advancing People with Disabilities

People with disabilities experience significant challenges in finding employment. The participation of people with disabilities in the workforce and their median income are both less than half that of the civilian workforce. They work part time 68 percent more frequently than people without disabilities. These disheartening results persist despite the enactment of significant federal legislation aimed at making the workplace more supportive and accessible to people with disabilities. The Conference Board Research Working Group (RWG) on Improving Employment Outcomes for People with Disabilities was convened to address how to overcome these disparities. It was sponsored by the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University, under a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Department of Education. The RWG members focused on four questions: 1) The business case: Is it advantageous for organizations to employ people with disabilities? 2) Organizational readiness: What should organizations do to create a workplace that enables people with disabilities to thrive and advance? 3) Measurement: How can success for both people with disabilities and the organization itself be determined? 4) Self-disclosure: How can people with disabilities, especially those whose disabilities are not obvious, be encouraged to identify themselves so that resources can be directed toward them and outcomes can be measured

Not by transmission alone : the role of invention in cultural evolution

We are grateful to the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. for funding this work and to the Diverse Intelligences research community for valuable conversations around these themes. S. Nöbel acknowledges IAST funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the Investissements d’Avenir program, grant ANR-17-EUR-0010 and support by the Laboratoires d’Excellence TULIP (ANR-10-LABX-41). EA and MS acknowledge support from the US Army Research Office (W911NF‐17‐1‐0017 to EA).Innovation—the combination of invention and social learning—can empower species to invade new niches via cultural adaptation. Social learning has typically been regarded as the fundamental driver for the emergence of traditions and thus culture. Consequently, invention has been relatively understudied outside the human lineage—despite being the source of new traditions. This neglect leaves basic questions unanswered: what factors promote the creation of new ideas and practices? What affects their spread or loss? We critically review the existing literature, focusing on four levels of investigation: traits (what sorts of behaviours are easiest to invent?), individuals (what factors make some individuals more likely to be inventors?), ecological contexts (what aspects of the environment make invention or transmission more likely?), and populations (what features of relationships and societies promote the rise and spread of new inventions?). We aim to inspire new research by highlighting theoretical and empirical gaps in the study of innovation, focusing primarily on inventions in non-humans. Understanding the role of invention and innovation in the history of life requires a well-developed theoretical framework (which embraces cognitive processes) and a taxonomically broad, cross-species dataset that explicitly investigates inventions and their transmission. We outline such an agenda here. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Shaping an Inclusive LIS Workforce: Insights from Information Professionals

This study investigates how information professionals deliver culturally sensitive services, their experiences in serving patrons from diverse cultural backgrounds, their self-perceived intercultural skills, and their views on addressing cross-cultural challenges in the workplace. The sample, comprised of 125 information professionals representing a range of organizations, including libraries, museums, and archives, reveals a noticeable trend in their perceptions regarding their ability to provide culturally responsive services and their cultural competence skills. These perceptions are significantly influenced by their participation in cultural competence-related educational programs and academic preparation for cross-cultural work. The research findings provide fresh insights into the integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles to enhance the intercultural skills of information professionals within their organizations and professional practices

“Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life