Innovations from the Margins: Creating Inclusive and Equitable Academic-Community Research Collaborations

How does one build a Request for Proposals (RFP) process that allows for bottom-up participation while simultaneously being pragmatic and adept enough to manoeuvre the complexities of a multi-stakeholder environment defined by differing interests, objectives, mandates, and power dynamics? This article showcases the findings from participatory work with stakeholder groups working in the area of food security in Southern Ontario’s Halton Region. It demonstrates a process designed with the specific intent of increasing the engagement of beneficiaries and service providers in the RFP process. Finally, the article seeks to shed additional light on theory and practice of “participatory approaches” in the context of philanthropy. It is important to be realistic in not reifying participation itself in this context. In both theory and practice, this means adopting lenses and models that openly consider the complex realities, political obstacles, and trade-offs that occur when negotiating participation in this environment

Innovations from the Margins: The Community Ideas Factory community collaboration

This paper explores the importance of building more inclusive, equitable, and mutually-beneficial partnerships in academic-community research collaborations for social innovation. The Community Ideas Factory is a research project that examines food security, affordable housing, employment equity and wrap-around services in the Region of Halton in Ontario, Canada. The project is a unique and dynamic collaboration between researchers from Sheridan College and the Oakville Community Foundation. In recognizing the limitations of traditional, paternalistic, subjective academic-community research collaborations this paper discusses how Participatory Rural Appraisal tools and other community-based problem-solving activities can be used to help communities define and prioritize their own problems, identify resources, and develop practical solutions to the problems they experience. We seek to demonstrate the potential of a new role for the ‘researcher’; one in which she/he assumes a more active and dynamic, yet facilitative, role in community project-building. Drawing examples from our research into food security this examination aims to provide insights, directions, and considerations for scholars, community stakeholders, and granting agencies alike who share an interest in the prospects and possibilities of academic-community collaborations for social innovation research

Set Up For Failure? Understanding Probation Orders and Breaches of Probation for Youth in Conflict with the Law

This dissertation examines probation for young people in Canada. Ninety percent of all young people sentenced in Canada receive a non-custodial or community sentence, with probation accounting for the majority (91%) of community supervision admissions (Munch, 2012). However, little is actually known about the judicial use of probation, the conditions that are imposed as a part of this sentence and, more importantly, what factors are associated with breaches of probation. Breaches of probation, have historically been and continue to be significant pathways back into the youth justice system, especially incarceration. Using informal social control theory (wider social processes – family, school and peers) and an integrated sites of oppression lens (an analysis of marginalized populations) this research explores the factors that influence the nature and extent of probation sentences and if there is disparity in the use of probation sentences for female and Aboriginal youth. This dissertation reports on a province-wide investigation of a sample of all Ontario youth sentenced to probation (N=6051) in 2005 and 2006, using data from the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. This research also explores a sub-sample of youth on probation who were charged with breach of probation (N=255) during the period of study. It appears judges use probation conditions as a means to mitigate informal social controls that may cause delinquency (e.g. poor parenting, school failure, delinquent peers). Little support was found for the hypotheses that girls would receive particular conditions (curfews, residence orders, non-association orders) because of gender bias. Girls were more likely to receive shorter sentences of probation, which is interesting given that they are more likely to be given probation for violent offences. An examination into the impact of race on probation sentences revealed the need for further investigation into judicial decision making with non-custodial sentences. Results of the analysis of the breach of probation data indicate that regardless of the commission of a new offence (in addition to a breach or breaches of probation) non-compliance with previous dispositions, like probation, remains a significant pathway back into the youth justice system. Girls, younger youth and Aboriginal youth are all more likely to be charged with breach of probation. Breaching conditions of probation may be unrelated to the original offence (for which the young person received probation) and may be connected to wider concerns about protection and social control. Marginalized youth, in particular, who breach probation, are significantly more likely to be charged by police and receive custody. The aim of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive understanding of probation and probation violations and broaden the scope of our knowledge of probation. This research adds both empirically and theoretically to the current body of research on youth sentencing in Canada

Phylogenetic Position of \u3ci\u3eCreptotrema funduli\u3c/i\u3e in the Allocreadiidae Based on Partial 28S rDNA Sequences

The infrequently reported allocreadiid digenean Creptotrema funduli Mueller, 1934 is documented from the blackstripe topminnow, Fundulus natalus (Cyprinodontiformes: Fundulidae), in the headwaters of the Biloxi River, Harrison County, Mississippi. Specimens from Mississippi were compared with the type material from Fundulus diaphanus menona from Oneida Lake, New York, and no substantial difference was found. A fragment of ribosomal DNA, comprising a short portion of the 3\u27 end of 18S nuclear rDNA gene, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) genes (including ITSI. 5.8S, and ITS2), and the 5\u27 end of the 28S gene including variable domains D1-D3 was sequenced for the species. A portion of the 28S rDNA gene from C funduli, plus similar fragments from 8 other allocreadiids and the callodistomatid Prosthenhystera sp., were aligned and subjected to maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses. Resulting phylogenetic trees were derived from the analyses and used to estimate the relationship of Creptotrema Travassos, Artigas, and Pereira, 1928 with other allocreadiids. Creptotrema was found to be closely related to Megalogonia Surber, 1928 and 3 Neotropical genera, i.e., Wallinia Pearse, 1920, Creptotrematina Yamaguti, 1954, and Auriculostoma Scholz, Aguirre-Macedo, and Choudhury, 2004. No molecular data were available for species in Cremotrema prior to this study, so the ITSI, 5.8S, and ITS2 genes have been made available for comparative studies involving neotropical species in the genus