Transformative Potential (Asynchronous Session)
Diversity in Ethics: Exploring the Effects of COVID-19 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Janelle Christine Simmons
This paper explores diversity around ethics (i.e., code or coding) as it relates to the pandemic of 2020 and COVID-19. Issues of diversity of ethics and their implications on topics such as: The US Constitution, bipartisanship, government responses (e.g., China, France, India), inherent racism or prejudice, education, the workforce, etc. are be explored to better understand what the pandemic has revealed about our twenty-first century reality.
Development of Community Driven Citizen Science for Disaster Relief and Resiliency in Puerto Rico View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael Stablein
Under the National Science Foundation grant for Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems Educational Resources, a transdisciplinary group of 10 graduate students were recruited from several universities across the United States to design short and long-term strategies to global wicked challenges. Between October 2019 and March 2020, the team met weekly through a online platform to participate in weekly learning modules and scheduled talks from subject matter experts to learn about topics, such as team development, stakeholder engagement, problem solving, and disaster relief and resiliency (DRR) contexts in Puerto Rico. Simultaneously, our team met with with Caras con Causa, an NGO focused on sustainable community engagement and development through education, environmental stewardship, and community economic development programming in the municipality of Cataño, Puerto Rico, in order to adapt and enhance our hypotheses about engaging community members and implementing solutions. Citizen science and participatory mapping techniques were determined to be a promising strategy and feasible set of tools for Caras to collect valuable real-time socioenvironmental data on local DRR efforts through schools and students participating in their programs. The team concluded our engagement by presenting our story map, a combined set of participatory google my maps and R-generated geospatial maps that include indicators for disaster risk areas, social vulnerability, and ecological reserve development. In final review, Caras representatives were interviewed to reflect on engagement successes and identify shortcomings for improvement of future cohort challenges.
Brought to Light: Indigenous (Native American) Healthcare Disparities and COVID-19 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patricia Hornback, Aida Isela Ramos
Among Indigenous (NativeAmerican) people the mortality rate from COVID-19 has been 4 to 5 times higher than the U.S. national average. The pandemic has highlighted existing disparities in the health care services available to–both rural and urban–Indigenous peoples in the U.S. federally recognized “IndianTribes” (Tribal Nations). Using autoethnography, researchers explore the intersection of their identity as indigenous people of North America and their experience observing the impact of the U.S. Health system and the responses of Tribal Nations to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, this study proposes the concept of“Constructive Indigenization” as a mechanism for observing and considering the contextual reality that exists in, around, and through the interactions between tribal sovereignty, nation-building, and decolonization collectively. Constructive Indigenizationrevealsareas where Indigenous ways of knowing to transcend systemic, economic, and social barriers by applying uniquely Indigenous cultural values, world views, and perspectives. The authors consider Constructive Indigenizationthrough a variety of Tribal responses to the COVID-19 crisis in “Indian Country” while also incorporating social determinants of health (SDoH) framework to situate health care disparities of marginalized people andIndigenous Nations response to the crisis
Racial Equity and Social Justice through Cognitive Questioning and Critical Literacy Interactions during Teacher Read Alouds View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chelsey Bollinger, Maryam S. Sharifian
In this study, the researchers partnered up with five 4-year-old classrooms to investigate cognitive questioning and critical literacy interactions during teacher read alouds. The study occurs in three phases. Currently, in the first phase, data collection is occurring using an observation framework developed by the researchers on the picture books the teachers selected to read aloud, the questions asked during the read aloud, and the teacher’s strategies for extending the story. In the second phase, teachers and researchers will work together to learn how to implement a critical literacy lesson framework during a read aloud (McLaughlin & Allen, 2002) with diverse picture books. This framework includes 1)Explain, 2) Demonstrate, 3) Guide, 4) Practice, and 4) Reflect. In the final phase of the study, teachers will read aloud picture books that portray diverse protagonists in everyday situations and the researchers will collect data on the questions asked during the read aloud and the teacher’s strategies for extending the story. This study is part of a grant program that is designed to increase access to quality preschool services in community-based (non-school based) classrooms for at-risk three-year-olds based on VPI eligibility criteria. The participants' qualifications to participate in this grant included family income at or below 200 percent of poverty, homelessness, child's parents or guardians did not complete high school, or family income is less than 350 percent of federal poverty guidelines in the case of students with special needs or disabilities.
Strategic Entrepreneurialism, Supraordinate Identities, and Superordinate Institutions: The International Institutionalization of Transnational Epistemic Communities for Sustainable Global Development View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Benedict Edward DeDominicis
Social competition results from challenges to the political hierarchical status quo. Social identity creativity is more likely to be the response if substantive benefits result from it in the form of achievement of status. Status enhancement emerges from validation of self at a supranational level than the core national-based nation state. Pavone highlights how legal “strategic entrepreneurs,” i.e., two “Eurolawyers,” liberalized labor laws at the Port of Genoa by utilizing the EU legal regime’s “transformative potential” with its for-profit and civil society allies (2019, 5-6). Globalization exploits national vested interests to secure additional benefits by promoting neo-functional spillover with supranational regime institutionalization as one of its outcomes. These economic and governmental vested interests can become coalitional allies for this process through promotion of international trade regimes with trade dispute resolution mechanisms. Incorporation of sustainable development and human rights protections, e.g., autonomous trade unionization as right, can motivate the coalitional alliance with the non-profit, global civil society organizations. It can particularly play this role insofar as diaspora identities have a potential for mobilization among traditionally marginalized groups. Successful, effective institutionalization of neo-functional spillover will promote the diversification of the state, thereby to make individual social mobility more feasible for individuals within these marginalized groups. It can coopt these heretofore marginalized citizens increasing the relevance of utilitarian economic and participation incorporation becoming more prominent. (Reference: Pavone, Tommaso. 2019. “From Marx to Market: Lawyers, European Law, and the Contentious Transformation of the Port of Genoa,” _Law & Society Review_ 53(3): 851–888. http://dx.doi.org /10.1111/lasr.12365.)
Management of Social Capacities in the Festival of the Crosses in Peru as a Touristic Phenomenon: An Analysis of Diversity and Sustainable Development View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria E Sanchez Zambrano, Ricardo Enrique Bohl Pazos, Maria Elena Esparza
The objective of the study is to analyze the characteristics, similarities, and differences of “Festival of the Crosses” in Peru in order to understand its relevance under a development sustainable perspective.The Festival of the Crosses celebration, is a cultural and religious phenomenon with spaniard roots celebrated in almost all Ibero America. In Peru, it takes place mainly in rural areas which characteristics include high poverty levels, low connectivity and low State presence. Therefore it is extremely important to understand its role in local development. Our analysis focuses on the social capabilities displayed by the communities that are required for the success and continuity of the festival and its relevance for local development. The comparative analysis will be done under the interdisciplinary framework of the Quintuple Helix Model which allows a comprehensive assessment of the festival, considering its political, social, environmental, economical and educative dimensions. Although the festivals attract local and regional tourists, communities tend to demand a higher promotion and investment in order to increase the numbers of visitors in the hope that this will benefit the community, not always considering the conflicts result of the economic and social behavior of visitors and the saturation of local services, or the previous conditions needed to avoid its negative impacts. The study identifies some guidelines, proposed by the social actors themselves, to improve the management of the festival in order to equilibrate the traditional essence of the celebration and its touristic potential.
