The Institute for Society, Culture and Environment (ISCE) is pleased to announce the recipients of its summer research stimulus grant program. The purpose of this program is to provide faculty support for developing interdisciplinary research proposals in the social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Cumulative Disadvantage and Single Mothers: Operationalizing the Theory of Maternal Distress
The goal of this project is to develop and pilot an instrument assessing maternal distress. Maternal distress is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct that comprised of a) psychological distress, most obviously manifested as depressive symptomology, b) relational distress involving intimate others, unresolved loss and guilt, and c) situational distress centered on provider and health concerns. We argue that focusing on women’s psychological state medicalizes maternal distress and diverts attention from legitimate alternative targets for promoting health and well-being for mothers and their children. A necessary first step is the creation of a valid and reliable instrument that measures material distress. The project will result in a coherent, reliable, and valid set of scale items of psychological, situational, and relational aspects of maternal distress that hold predictive utility relative to key child outcomes such as adjustment, behavior problems, and maltreatment. The pilot project will serve as the foundation for NIH/NICD proposal focused on promoting resilience in women and children in vulnerable families.
Virginia Tech's Linux Laptop Orchestra – Coupling Traditional Arts, Creative Technologies, and Scientific Research into a Compelling Platform for Creativity, Education, and Outreach
We propose to design and develop a pilot iteration of the VT Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork), a cost-efficient ensemble with the supporting curriculum that seamlessly integrates Arts and Sciences by cross-pollinating centuries of collaborative tradition of the Western orchestra with contemporary creative technologies. L2Ork with its unique aesthetics does not require years of musical training and as such, its members will ideally consist of students and Faculty of diverse professional backgrounds. Likewise, its research potential as a tightly integrated, tried, and tested collaborative environment will offer an invaluable rapid prototyping sandbox for scholars and educators alike. One could easily envision exploring an array of topics ranging from distributed computing, CreativeIT, and the development of innovative network-dependent technologies, to studies of effects of Web 2.0 and other novel collaboration frameworks on human development, social interaction, and target populations (e.g., children, older adults, persons with disabilities). L2Ork's cost-efficient design using Linux-based software, coupled with low-cost hardware would encourage its wider dissemination and adoption beyond the University, including K-12 education, where such an ensemble would encourage a symbiotic treatment of STEM and Arts. We will identify a number of collaborative on-campus projects for the fall of 2009 to use L2Ork for scientific research. In addition, the project will help strengthen existing collaborative relationship with regional public schools to facilitate a joint pursuit of external funding that would enable introduction of laptop orchestras into the K-12 curriculum, particularly in the underrepresented communities of the Appalachian region.
Discourse Analysis and Multidisciplinary Research: Partnering to Address Contemporary Social Problems
The theoretically informed study of language use offers important access to cultural ideals, beliefs, and experiences that are crucial to addressing pressing social problems. Our collaborative research group seeks to contribute our expertise in the study of discourse to problems that require insights from the humanities as well as the social and natural sciences. One area of interest is in examining the cultural aspects of problems whose solutions are perceived to be technological or managerial. We seek cross-disciplinary partners to develop projects in four primary areas: gender, ethnic, and class disparities; displacement and trauma; energy and culture; and risk and health. With funds from ISCE, we will pursue project partners and work with consultants to obtain funding from private foundations and federal agencies, emphasizing the interpretive research methods that are the strength of humanistic research. Refining and developing our methodology in a collaborative research context will help us connect to potential partners, articulate our projects and goals to funders, and proposals for external funding.
PHOEBE's FIELD: Exploring Physics through Narrative and Metaphor
This a proposal for a traveling exhibition designed to make the abstract physics of fields concrete and relevant to middle school students. The exhibit is based on an unpublished manuscript called Phoebe's Field, written by the principal investigator. The Phoebe's Field exhibit focuses on electromagnetic fields because of their intrinsic link to the communication-centric technologies of youth culture. The exhibit uses the metaphors of sound and wind fields to explain the more complex concept of electromagnetism, and invites visitors to have a full-body, kinesthetic experience as active components of the fields. While Phoebe’s Field is meant to engage all children and their families, we target middle school girls in an effort to widen the net of general scientific literacy. The primary goal of the project is to develop an inclusive model for informal learning environments. The current project team includes a student/faculty team at Virginia Tech, the Science Museum of Western Virginia, the Paul Orselli Workshop, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), Resolution: 4 Architecture, the Center for Children & Technology, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), with Bose Corporation and Motorola, Inc. as product and technical support sponsors. The project team will use ISCE funding to support the re-development of a proposal to the Informal Science Education (ISE) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2009.
OPEN TO INTERPRETATION: AMERICA’S TITLE IX STORIES
Funds from ISCE will help us lay the groundwork for a documentary film, book, and outreach project that examines the discourses around Title IX, the 1972 landmark law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. By focusing on the continuing, 35-year-old controversies around gender equity in education and athletics, this project examines how rhetorical, ideological narratives frame our social constructions of reality and the dynamics of social change. The proposed film and book are especially timely in light of dialogue sparked by a 2007 book that critiques the “separate but equal” premise of Title IX. The authors contend that there is “a legal conflict between Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Their position counters conventional wisdom that Title IX is a sufficiently strong law as well as arguments that gender equity in athletics has “gone too far” and now represents reverse discrimination. Our project analyzes and contributes to this dialogue by tracing the strands of gender equity discourses back to the 1970s, the first decade after Title IX was enacted. The project centers on an early gender equity struggle that was among the first to confront the key issues that are still central to contemporary debates.
INCREASING THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN ENGINEERING: AN EXAMINATION OF GENDER STEREOTYPES, SELF-BELIEFS, CHOICE OF MAJOR, ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, AND PROGRAM WITHDRAWAL
ISCE support will be used to support the development of external grant proposals for a longitudinal study to examine how gender stereotypes and self-beliefs are related to women engineering students’ (a) selection of a major, (b) achievement in engineering courses, and (c) likelihood of withdrawing from engineering. Of equal importance, the study will examine how these variables differ across populations such as a large land-grant institution, a historically Black institution, and an all-female institution. The findings will provide the foundation for follow-up research on interventions to improve the academic achievement and retention of women in engineering. In doing so, this project directly addresses social and individual transformation within the context of human development as it seeks ways to broaden the participation of women in engineering. The proposed study will use a mixed methods design, combining quantitative data (survey instruments) and qualitative data (open-ended interviews) collected at multiple points during the participants’ freshman and sophomore years. The findings will allow us to identify significant relationships among the study variables and develop an in-depth understanding of participants’ experiences as engineering students, including their career choices.
REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS AND THE CREATION OF TRANSATLANTIC MARKETS FOR INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Competitiveness – the ability to create innovative and entrepreneurial economies – increasingly depends on economic relationships that span geographic boundaries. While globally operating firms have long been a reality, scholars and policymakers have only recently started to think about how regional economies are globally integrated and how transatlantic linkages create wealth and prosperity at the regional level. We propose to examine how transatlantic relationships support innovation and entrepreneurship at the regional level. ISCE funding will support the development of proposals to the National Science Foundation and the German Marshall Fund. Reviews of a similar proposal submitted to the Delegation of the European Commission in Washington D.C. noted the importance of regional competitiveness as a topic in EU-US relations and expressed great interest in the proposed comparative focus. We will develop a network of researchers and policymakers and propose to seek external funding for a research workshop in Europe and a policy conference in Washington D.C. We draw on an international network of research and outreach partners to write a winning proposal this summer. Our proposed activities will leverage our location in Washington D.C. by connecting to the policymaking communities
BUILDING RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT & TECHNOLOGY IN HOUSING, EXISTING SUSTAINABILITY PARAMETERS, INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INDICATORS, AND INHABITANT PERCEPTIONS
Funding from ISCE will enable the researchers to prepare a grant proposal in response to a specific National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences program announcement. The proposed project has, as its ultimate aim, a transformative increase in the adoption of sustainability technologies among inhabitants of existing housing structures. We aim to investigate sustainability parameters and indoor environmental quality of existing housing structures, along with inhabitant perceptions of economic and health benefits and risks associated with sustainable technology and indoor air contaminants. Using evaluation tools developed by the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation (BASE) of the indoor environment, the investigators will catalog parameters from 500 non-LEED-certified housing structures across economic and geographic sectors. Relationships among parameters will be evaluated using geographic information systems and structural equation modeling, to determine key factors associated with inhabitant comfort, health, and willingness to adopt new sustainability technology. Findings will be employed in the development of intervention strategies to improve market adoption of sustainability technologies.
DARC (DIGITAL ARTS RESEARCH COLLECTIVE) SUMMER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
The Digital Arts Research Collective (DARC) is a cross-disciplinary research project that endorses Richard Florida’s observation that creative technologies bring new methods and focus to old problems across disciplinary boundaries. Foremost among DARC’s core competencies is the ability to create provocative digital simulacra such as interactive environs, animated games and other sensory interventions. These technical disciplines are complemented by a stance towards research that juxtaposes disciplinary values. For example, the aesthetics of math and science (e.g. optimization of resource utilization and compactness of representation) differ from those of retail architecture (reassurance and momentary engagement) and differ still from those of contemporary art (irony and multi-layered meaning). This approach is represented by the three activities this proposal will develop: “Singing Darwin” investigates contemporary evolutionary theory, linking art and science venues through performance, exhibit and electronic media; “Revo-over” is an art installation that intersects genres and alters the experience of physical space; and DARC’s emergent program will explore genre-crossing research. Specific activities supported through ISCE include the development of prototype elements and preparation of grant proposals to NSF (Creative IT and Informal Science Education), NEH (IMLS/NEH Digital Partnership), Sloan Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
DISASTER MANAGEMENT, CLIMATE SIGNALS, AND THE USE OF SCIENCE IN PUBLIC POLICY
Scientific and technical advances offer the potential for science to improve public policy decision-making. In the climate realm, researchers have developed the ability to anticipate seasonal climate shifts (e.g., El Niño) and their impacts on human systems. Yet, few emergency managers have used such climate information to reduce disaster losses from floods and hurricanes. We believe targeted research and stakeholder engagement can illuminate reasons for the limited use and mitigate practical difficulties that emergency managers face. ISCE funds will be used to strengthen an existing, highly-rated proposal for a federally funded research project to 1) understand emergency managers’ use of climate signals; 2) assess the relative importance to forecast utilization of the communication of climate signals, the political and institutional context of emergency management, and forecast characteristics; and 3) develop a network supporting the use of climate information in hazards management. Our planned study combines interviews; facilitated group discussion among experts and practitioners; and a national survey of hazards managers, which employs choice experiments to examine factors shaping climate forecast use. The study’s final element entails development of an Internet-based forum to disseminate findings and build a network of practitioners and researchers to share information about climate signals.
Local Knowledge, Building Science, and Technical Assessments in Post-Katrina
New Orleans’ Historic Districts
This project will examine the relationship between local knowledge and non-local
(outside/expert) knowledge in the assessment, rebuilding and repair of historic
damaged properties in New Orleans. It will focus on several predominantly
minority and mixed neighborhoods in the older (19th century) parts of the
city. Specifically, the research will look at interactions between
local groups and individuals, NGOs and businesses that target the repair
and rebuilding of historic properties, and the local, state and national
government arena to further understanding of how local knowledge can be effectively
combined with cosmopolitan knowledge to enable rebuilding in the wake of
a disaster that is culturally and technologically appropriate and communicatively
open and helpful to all participants.
Aural Matrix Haptic Display Interface: A Two-Dimensional Aural Speaker
Array as a Three-Dimensional Multimodal Interactive Environment for Imaging
and Navigation
Aural Matrix Haptic Display Interface (AMHDI) is an aural counterpart to
the traditional visual display technology, such as TV and LCD. It uses human
aural perception mechanism and its vastly underemployed discrete spatial
potential in order to complement, off-load, or entirely replace human visual
perception function. AMHDI serves a foundation for the development of assistive
technologies for visually impaired as well as other perception-, navigation-,
and coordination based. It has a creative media potential to enhance both
consumer and immersive audio environments, as well as offer a new artistic
medium. The main objective of this project is to produce a small but fully
functional AMHDI prototype.
Parent-child Emotional Communication in Families who have Experienced
Mediation Related to Separation or Divorce
Mediation is increasingly promoted as a way of resolving family conflicts
related to separation or divorce that is both more efficient and less disruptive
for parents and children compared to litigation. One critical aspect
of the mediation process is the parents’ education about emotional
communication. Research on children’s social and emotional development
strongly suggests that children are aided by their parents’ acceptance
of negative emotions and discussion of the causes and consequences of emotions. However,
little of this research has been conducted with families who have experienced
separation or divorce. In collaboration with Better Agreements, Inc.
(BAI), our local conflict mediation center, we will examine parent-child
emotional communication in families with children whose parents have participated
in mediation related to separation or divorce.
Synergistic Approach to Applying Rhetoric, Creative Writing, and Music
for Teaching Science and Mathematics Concepts to Young Children
Science and Mathematics Inclusive Learning and Engagement (SMILE) is an
interdisciplinary project with the purpose of teaching concepts of science
and mathematics to young children in remote regions of Appalachia through
metaphors and similes embedded in children-oriented stories and songs. With
personnel from rhetoric, creative writing, linguistics, music, and industrial
systems and engineering, we are developing educational toys and instructional
materials to convey new concepts in familiar and easy to understand terms
of mining and engineering. These materials are produced in a participatory
approach with potential users serving as consultants and evaluators. The
purpose of this project is to develop complete and real examples of our kits,
including toys/artifacts, documentation for parents, and educational stories
and songs for children to be used as evidence of the project’s effectiveness
when applying for external funding.
TWIST: Theater Workshop in Science and Technology
Since 1984, the award winning Choices and Challenges (C&C) program
has developed an evidence-based model for public dialog among scientists,
humanists, policymakers, activists, and various publics about contentious
and significant developments in the relation between science, technology,
and social life. Building on past successes with performances associated
with the yearly Choices and Challenges Forum, this collaboration will institutionalize
a yearly cycle of development, performance, and evaluation of theater pieces
that: 1) engages various publics with significant or contentious developments
in science or technology, while 2) simultaneously serving as a research program
for understanding how science/theater projects can and do serve as resources
for developers and attendees, as well as explorations on the potential of
such projects for facilitating meaningful social transformation.
Identity Transformation as Constructed in Federal Mine Safety Coal Inspection
Discourse: How Miners Are Becoming Effective Agents of Change
The Mine Safety and Health Administration's National Mine Health and Safety
Academy (NMHS Academy) at Beaver, West Virginia, have launched a massive,
federally supported program to train over 500 new mine inspectors recruited
from miners working in mines throughout the country, but primarily
in the Appalachian coalfields, to enforce federal mining acts designed to
protect workers. The purpose of this project is to explore (1) how verbal
communications in mining inspections impact identity transformation as ex-miners
become empowered agents for enforcing mine safety within highly visible global
corporations; (2) how Academy teaching methods intersect with trainees’ prior
experiential knowledge; (3) how analyzing these discourse scenarios can assist
in developing educational models for transmitting the types of meta-knowledge
necessary for inspectors to make culturally informed and empowered decisions
shaping how globalization affects miners and their communities; (4) how results
can be extended to other educational settings; and (5) how findings can be
used to create a graduate-level course on social and individual transformation
to be cross-listed with Appalachian Studies and Engineering Education.
Between Making a Living and Making a Place: Flexible Labor, Social
Reproduction, and Latino Migration to the U.S. South
The last two years have brought dramatic change to the political and social
climate for immigrants in the “Nuevo” U.S. South. Initial
reports of southern hospitality extended to Latino immigrants have given
way to Minutemen in Tennessee, legislative initiatives in Georgia to revoke
birthright citizenship, and blurred federal and local border enforcement
actions across southern states. This research explores the premise that these
political and social tensions arise from new frictions for bothworking-class
immigrant and native-born residents: increasingly, their survival strategies
must navigate between, on the one hand, the hypermobility and temporal unpredictability
demanded of workers by flexible labor regimes and, on the other, the need
for place-making and temporal routinization required for social reproduction.
The research team will develop a multi-method investigation of these frictions
in three strategic sites: small, deindustrialized towns with diverse racial
demographics in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
