Learning by Adoption: The International Adoption Experience of Canadian and Dutch Adoptive Parents of Children from the United States

This paper explores the international adoption experience of Dutch and Canadian adopters of U.S. born children through the lens of adult learning, adult education and lifelong learning

Disturbing Outcomes: The Dark Side of Transformative Learning

This paper argues for a need to expand investigation of transformative learning theory to include consideration of transformative learning processes, practices and outcomes that do not follow a ‘positive’ direction but traverse a wide band of possibilities

Darkness Visible: A Consideration of Alternative Directions and Outcomes of Transformative Learning Theory, Teaching and Practice

Transformative learning theory has enjoyed a thirty-plus year history as a dominant adult learning theory. It has been the subject of innumerable articles and books as well as meriting its own journal, conference and graduate degrees. Yet, the fertile nature of this theory to produce such a wide swath of scholarship is deceiving and, indeed, surprisingly limited in its reach. The major goal of this symposium is to challenge current discourse of transformative learning theory, teaching and practice which seems almost wholly tethered to scholarship on outcomes that result in individual healing or attainment of more enlightened states; or collective actions with goals firmly embedded in the promulgation of social justice

Impact Assessment ans Evaluation Tools

This handbook provides tools for evaluation / impact assessment of any project/initiative involving interactive innovation

Strategies for Achieving Whole-Practice Engagement and Buy-in to the Patient-Centered Medical Home

PURPOSE The current model of primary care in the United States limits physicians\u27 ability to offer high-quality care. The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) shows promise in addressing provision of high-quality care, but achieving a PCMH practice model often requires comprehensive organizational change. Guided by Solberg\u27s conceptual framework for practice improvement, which argues for shared prioritization of improvement and change, we describe strategies for obtaining organizational buy-in to and whole-staff engagement of PCMH transformation and practice improvement. METHODS Semistructured interviews with 136 individuals and 7 focus groups involving 48 individuals were conducted in 20 small-to mid-sized medical practices in Pennsylvania during the first regional rollout of a statewide PCMH initiative. For this study, we analyzed interview transcripts, monthly narrative reports, and observer notes from site visits to identify discourse pertaining to organizational buy-in and strategies for securing buy-in from personnel. Using a consensual qualitative research approach, data were reduced, synthesized, and managed using qualitative data management and analysis software. RESULTS We identified 13 distinct strategies used to obtain practice buy-in, reflecting 3 overarching lessons that facilitate practice buy-in: (1) effective communication and internal PCMH campaigns, (2) effective resource utilization, and (3) creation of a team environment. CONCLUSION Our study provides a list of strategies useful for facilitating PCMH transformation in primary care. These strategies can be investigated empirically in future research, used to guide medical practices undergoing or considering PCMH transformation, and used to inform health care policy makers. Our study findings also extend Solberg\u27s conceptual framework for practice improvement to include buy-in as a necessary condition across all elements of the change process

Deranged Loners and Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973–2001

There were 7 assassination attempts on U.S. presidents between 1973 and 2001. In this article, we critically examine coverage of each attack in the New York Times and the Washington Post, describing how the coverage employs therapeutic discourse frames that position the president as vulnerable and portray the attackers as lonely and demented outsiders. Noticing contradictions in this pattern, we also identify counter-frames, including those acknowledging the political motivations of the assassins, the diminished public sphere that is a context for those actions, and the contradictions in a legal system that denies the insanity pleas of those framed so extensively as mentally ill. Political science, psychology, and law enforcement researchers have recognized that assassination attempts are often driven by rational political and economic concerns. Our analysis thus points to the need for further research exploring therapeutic framing techniques of other instances of political violence that may discourage publics from thinking critically about protest, violence, and tragedy in the United States

Interactive Innovation: Network analysis tool for practitioners

The network tool is used to: • Identify crucial actors that shape the network and/or boost the innovation • Identify actors that negatively affect the actors and/ or undermine the innovation • Monitor the way the network develop and adapt the strategy/activities accordingly The idea is to evaluate interactive innovation projects in terms of the role of actors’ interactivity in relation to decision-making on the innovation process (through information or knowledge exchange, and joint or cooperative research). This can be for example about the role of an actor that entered in the course of the process and that strengthened the innovation through establishing suitable connections with other actors, leading to a better decision-making process on the innovation. The analysis of the network of actors can be made at one point of time only, or at 2 or 3 consecutive periods of time. We recommend the latter as it allows us to see the evolution of the network of actors over time. The evaluation can be done in quasi real time, but also in an ex-post manner. An ex-post assessment means that the evaluator will reconstruct the network as it was at the period of interest. In terms of data source, three options are possible: • The evaluator makes its own estimation of relationship level between the actors; • The evaluator involve key actors to estimate the levels of relationships; or • He/she asks the actors involved in the network, what their levels of relationships with the other actors are. In this case, bilateral exchanges are generally recommended. However, if actors feel or would feel comfortable to discuss this together, for example in case there is no major power asymmetries or conflicts between actors, a workshop could also be performed