call for stories of diversity challenges!

[colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

From:    "David M Chavis" <dchavis at capablecommunity.com>


CALL FOR STORIES OF DIVERSITY CHALLENGES
IN COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND ACTION

Project Goals
The primary goal of this project is to delineate "Principles for Diversity
in Community Research and Action" that emerge from an analysis of the
everyday stories of working with diversity in community contexts.  The
project is designed to solicit descriptions of challenges and dilemmas,
share examples of the approaches adopted to deal with them, and draw out
themes, best practices, and guiding principles.  The final product is
intended to be practical and useful to those who work in community settings.
The first step in our process is to gather as many stories as we can of ways
that diversity has presented challenges in community research and action.  

Background
This project emerged out of discussions within the Society for Community
Research and Action (SCRA; Division 27 of the American Psychological
Association) regarding the need to bring together the collective experience
of those working with diversity in community settings to distill a set of
principles to guide our work.  There is a need for more systematic study of
diversity in community-based work.  Everyday diversity challenges may be
rooted in struggles over competing priorities and limited resources, deep
historical conflicts between groups, backlash, organizational cultural
norms, and other issues.  Frequently, only successes are shared, and there
is an attempt to tie up complex diversity issues into neatly packaged cases
or recommendations.  We believe that there is much to be learned from the
problematic choice points in our work.  It is here that the political,
historical, social, and psychological dynamics of diversity are most
evident.  

Call for Stories
We invite you to share your stories.  Challenges involving any of the
following (and their intersections) are welcome: culture, race, ethnicity,
class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disabilities.  Stories can
include within-group, as well as between-group, challenges.  Settings can
include school, workplace, neighborhood, CBO, healthcare service delivery,
research project, faith community, grassroots organization, or other
settings where community research and/or action occur.  The research/action
described may have diversity as an explicit focus of the work, or a
diversity-related dilemma may have emerged in the course of other work.  We
are particularly interested in the difficult or "messy" challenges faced,
where initial efforts may have failed, where resolution is not simple and
straightforward.  However, any and all diversity challenges are welcome.  

Submission Process  
Send a brief statement of interest to Shelly P. Harrell, Ph.D.: email
(preferred) 'sharrell at pepperdine.edu'; FAX (310) 568-5755; or mail-
Pepperdine University, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, 400
Corporate Pointe, 4th floor, Culver City, CA, 90230.   Please include author
affiliation and full contact information.  Upon receipt of your statement of
interest, we will send you a more detailed description of the project and
author guidelines.  We ask that you review these guidelines prior to
submitting your story.  

Once you receive the author guidelines, we ask that you organize your story
submission into the following sections: (a) Context- describe the history,
setting, goals, and activities of your project/intervention; (b)
Challenge/Dilemma - describe one diversity-related challenge encountered
including the nature of the challenge and initial reactions; (c) Response -
describe how the diversity challenge was handled at the time the dilemma
presented itself; (d) Reflections - provide an overview of your thoughts,
analysis, and lessons learned.  Length:  2-3 pages (approximately 500-700
words).  Deadline for receipt of stories:  March 15, 2003.  For questions
contact:  Shelly Harrell: sharrell at pepperdine.edu (phone: 310-258-2844) or
Meg Bond: Meg_Bond at uml.edu (phone: 978-934-3971).

After our initial review of the submissions, we will invite a subset of
authors to develop their stories more fully as case studies to be included
with a summary of principles in our final document.  In addition, we may
contact all authors for more information or follow-up prior to completing
our analysis.  We anticipate publication of this work as either a special
issue of a professional journal or edited book.  

Please share this "Call" with others.  We want to collect as many stories as
we can!



*******************************
Meg A. Bond, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Women & Work
Professor of Psychology
University of Massachusetts Lowell
870 Broadway Street, Suite 1
Lowell, MA 01854-3043
(978) 934-3971 - phone
(617) 497-6850 - fax
Meg_Bond at uml.edu