Colloquia and Workshops
For the past few years, the Office of Research and Training has been co-sponsoring a number of Colloquia and workshops with our Doctoral Program. Events have featured presentations from MSASS faculty, colleagues from the university community and nationally renowned experts in their respective fields.
Colloquia events are primarily focused on specific research projects, while workshops provide details on methodologies. The Research to Practice events also successfully illustrate the collaboration of MSASS faculty with community organizations and the benefits of residents engaged in communities.
The following is a list of ongoing events for the current year. You may also visit our archives from 2010-2011, and 2011-2012.
2012-2013 Academic Year
Spring 2013 Research Colloquia & Workshop
Co-Sponsored by the MSASS Office of Research and Training & MSASS Doctoral Program
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“Managing Spoiled Identities in Life Story Interviews”
Wednesday January 30th 12:30 to 1:45 PM Room 320 B/C (Lunch Provided)
Pre-registration is required, please e-mail: helen.menke@case.edu
Dr. Erdmans will discuss the construction of life story narratives, focusing on how narrators construct their life stories, as well as how social scientists reconstruct the narrators’ constructions. Using examples from her study of unwed adolescent mothers, she will show how the interaction between the listener and the narrator shape the life story, as does the implicit relation between the narrator and the larger society. Today the dominant culture defines out-of-wedlock early childbearing as a deviant act. Given this dominant narrative, Erdmans looks at not only the content of their stories, but how they tell their story — the meta-narrative that “made sense” of the deviant identity. She then argues that it is the responsibility of the social scientist to write counter narratives that attend to social inequalities, including the white racial frame, patriarchal privilege, and structural violence.
Mary Erdmans, Associate Professor of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, received her PhD in sociology from Northwestern University in 1992. Her areas of interest are immigration and ethnicity (with a research focus on Poles and Polish Americans), the intersection of gender, class, and race (where her research has included studies of white working-class women and adolescent mothers), and narrative research methods including life stories and oral histories. Her research has been published as book-length manuscripts (Opposite Poles and The Grasinski Girls), and her articles have appeared in various journals including the Journal of American Ethnic History, Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Inquiry, Qualitative Health Research, Polish American Studies, Humanity and Society, and North American Review. She is currently working on a manuscript, with Timothy Black, about adolescent mothers based on life-story interviews with 108 black, white and Puerto Rican young women.
Mary P. Erdmans,
Associate Professor,
Department of Sociology,
Case Western Reserve University
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“The Cultural Consensus Model: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding the Connections between Beliefs and Behavior”
Wednesday February 27th 12:30 to 1:45 PM Room 320 B/C (Lunch Provided)
Pre-registration is required, please e-mail: helen.menke@case.edu
The cultural consensus model is a mixed methods approach to analyzing cultural data. Developed by cognitive anthropologists, and using the ideas generated by participants themselves, the cultural consensus model has been used to better understand health inequalities, innovation in organizations, and the connections between psychological distress and physical health, among other topics. This presentation will acquaint participants with: (1) the theoretical orientation associated with examining cultural models; (2) the (qualitative and quantitative) systematic data collection techniques for generating information about those models; and (3) the cultural consensus analysis. The implications and fit of the model for social work will be emphasized.
Cyleste Collins is a Research Assistant Professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. She serves as a faculty associate at the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development and the Schubert Center for Child Studies. Dr. Collins graduate training and degrees are in psychology, anthropology, and social work. Her research focuses on understanding psychosocial processes in a cultural context, using cognitive anthropological theory and methods. Dr. Collins has published in the areas of child neglect, mixed methods research, domestic violence, cultural models, social welfare history, and substance use, and she has disseminated the results of her work at national and international conferences. She has taught courses in research methods, statistics, evidence-based practice, social welfare history and policy, the political economy of health, health disparities, as well as a variety of psychology courses.
Cyleste C. Collins,
Research Assistant Professor,
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Case Western Reserve University
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“From Practice Innovation to Evidence-Based Model Dissemination: Issues and Challenges in Social Work Intervention Research”
Wednesday March 27th 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Room 323 (Lunch Provided)
Pre-registration is required, please e-mail: helen.menke@case.edu
The workshop will address key issues in the process of conceptualizing, planning and implementing social work intervention research, emphasizing practical challenges and ways to address them. Topics to be addressed include: formulating study aims and hypotheses; specifying a theory-based intervention model; the purposes of pilot and feasibility studies; recruitment and retention of research participants; assessment of fidelity in intervention studies; and, involving providers and consumers in research. Dr. Herman will also discuss the process of NIH grant review of intervention research studies.
Dr. Daniel Herman is Professor and Associate Dean for Scholarship and Research at the Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, New York. Trained in both social work and epidemiology, he is a leading scholar in the area of homelessness and its nexus with mental illness. Dr. Herman became the first professional social worker to receive an early career K award from the National Institute of Mental Health. He is internationally known for his efforts to evaluate and disseminate Critical Time Intervention (CTI), a model of time-limited case management that has been widely recognized as one of few effective approaches for the prevention of homelessness among high-risk populations. Dr. Herman’s research has been supported by NIMH, SAMSHA, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (formerly NARSAD). Dr. Herman is a standing member of the Mental Health Services Research Committee of NIMH and is past Vice-President of the Society for Social Work and Research, which honored him with its Outstanding Research Award in 1999. In 2012 he was inducted into the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
Daniel B. Herman,
Professor and Associate Dean for Scholarship and Research,
Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College,
City University of New York.
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“Research for Action: The Influence of Research on Public Policy”
Jack Habib, Ph.D., Director, Myers-JDC Brookdale Institute, Israel
Friday May 10th 12:30 to 2:00 PM Room 323 (Lunch Provided)
Pre-registration is required, please e-mail: helen.menke@case.edu
The challenge of linking research and policy is a universal one and is a major concern in many countries. One often finds considerable skepticism on the extent to which research influences policy as it is often claimed that policy is dominated by political considerations. At the same time, there is growing emphasis on evidence-based practice at the programmatic level and also on systems of ongoing outcome measurement in public systems. In 1974, the Myers JDC Brookdale Institute was established to promote the link between research and social policy in Israel. This is a complex issue and there is a significant literature that addresses it. Dr. Habib will reflect on the conceptual framework required to think about this issue and some of the actual principles for promoting successful efforts that emerge from experience in Israel and from cross-national dialogues.
The presentation will discuss:
- Stages in policy development and the contribution of research at each stage
- Principles of action that contribute to the link between research and policy
- Structural factors in the organization of research that affect its impact
Case studies of policy development for children in Israel will be used for illustrative purposes. It is hoped that the colloquium will provide a more optimistic perspective on the potential contribution of research to public policy.
Professor Jack Habib received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and is professor emeritus of economics and social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Director of the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, which is the leading center for applied social research serving Israel and the Jewish world. It seeks to improve the effectiveness of social services and policies by developing and disseminating knowledge of social needs as well as of the effectiveness of policies and programs intended to meet those needs. Prof. Habib has served on many Israeli national commissions established to improve various aspects of the social service system and has participated in numerous international professional exchange programs, collaborative research projects and multi-national conferences. Prof. Habib is the author of numerous books and articles in the field of social welfare in Israel and internationally.
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Fall 2012 Research Colloquium
| “Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in Social Work Research” Tuesday October 2 – 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.Mandel Center Building, Room 115 (Lunch Provided) |
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Speaker: Natasha Bowen, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Social Work University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Co-Sponsored by: The MSASS Office of Research and Training and the MSASS Doctoral Program. For the newcomer to SEM, this workshop will describe the advantages and prerequisites of SEM analyses in social work research with scales. Basic concepts of the SEM framework will be presented. AMOS software — a user-friendly graphical SEM package — will be used to demonstrate the parts of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and SEM models. The second part of the workshop will reinforce the basics of SEM and give newcomers a preview of the more advanced modeling potential of Mplus. For those familiar with SEM: The introductory material will provide a useful review of the fundamentals of SEM. Then, the functions and advantages of Mplus software will be demonstrated. Mplus accommodates categorical and ordinal response options (the most common type of social work response option), clustered and/or non-normal data, and a variety of other. Learn More Presentation |
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| “Evaluation and Learning in Community Change: Insights from a Mixed-Methods Study of a Mixed-Income Community in Akron” Wednesday October 10 - 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.Room 320 BC (Lunch Provided) |
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Speakers: Robert L. Fischer, PhD, Co-Director, Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development; Research Associate Professor Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and Mark L. Joseph, PhD, Director, National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities; Faculty Associate, Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development; Associate Professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences Co-Sponsored by: The MSASS Office of Research and Training & MSASS Doctoral Program. Cascade Village is a mixed-income community in Akron, Ohio, redeveloped and managed by The Community Builders (TCB), a leading non-profit developer of mixed-income housing in the U.S. TCB believes that redeveloped mixed-income housing is not an end in itself, but a platform for other positive changes in families and communities. TCB has engaged the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at the Mandel School to serve as the learning and evaluation team for this initiative. The learning and evaluation team seeks to document both the process of implementing Ways & Means, as well as assess the early results of the model on resident life and resident engagement at Cascade Village. In this presentation, Robert Fischer, Mark Joseph and Project Manager April Hirsch — as well as staff and residents from Cascade Village — will talk about the progress of the Ways & Means Initiative and the role, value and challenges of learning and evaluation on community change efforts. Presentation |
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| “Dyadic Analysis Using Multilevel Modeling and the Actor-Partner Interaction Model (APIM)” Wednesday October 31 - 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.Room 320 BC (Lunch Provided) |
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Speaker: Aloen L. Townsend, PhD, Professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences Co-Sponsored by:The MSASS Office of Research and Training & MSASS Doctoral Program. This colloquium will consist of viewing a videotaped presentation by David Kenny, PhD, on cross-sectional dyadic data analysis. Kenny is the lead author of a book entitled Dyadic Data Analysis (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006, Guilford Press), Board of Trustees Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut, and the lead developer of the Actor-Partner Interaction Model for analyzing dyadic data. After the presentation (approximately 1 hour), Professor Aloen Townsend will facilitate a half-hour informal discussion about analytic approaches to cross-sectional dyadic analysis. Learn More |
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| “Constructing and Testing a Screening Instrument for Children’s Exposure to Violence to be Used by the Defending Childhood Initiative” Wednesday November 14 – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.Room 320 BC (Lunch Provided) |
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Speakers: Jeffrey M. Kretschmar, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences; and Mark I. Singer, PhD, Co-Director, Center on Substance Abuse and Mental Illness, Professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences; Co-Sponsored by: The MSASS Office of Research and Training & MSASS Doctoral Program. This presentation will describe the approaches used in the conceptualization, testing and implementation of a brief screening instrument for children/adolescents exposure to violence. The instrument was created for the United States Attorney General Eric Holder’s Defending Childhood Demonstration Program which is designed to develop and support comprehensive community-based strategic planning and implementation of projects to prevent and reduce the impact of children’s exposure to violence in their homes, schools, and communities. Cuyahoga County was one of four national sites selected for program implementation. The instrument will be used as a gateway for a more complete case assessment, and when indicated, clinical services for the sequelae of childhood violence exposure. Learn More Presentation |
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