Pub Date : 2021-03-02DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16146990181049
T. Porter, C. Pearson, N. Watson
Background: Anti-welfare narratives depict welfare systems as overly-permissive, open to fraud, and fundamentally unfair. Countering these supposed ills have been political appeals to evidence and reforms made to disability benefit assessments under the banner of objectivity. But objectivity is a complex construct, which entails philosophical and political choices that tend to oppress, exclude and symbolically disqualify alternative perspectives.Aims and objectives: To examine reforms made to UK disability benefits assessments in the name of objectivity.Methods: Thematic analysis of 50 in-depth qualitative interviews with UK disability benefit claimants.Findings: Reforms made in pursuit of procedural objectivity reproduce existing social order, meaning claimants without personal, social and economic resources are less likely to succeed. Data reveal an increasingly detached and impersonal assessment process, set against a broader welfare landscape in which advocacy and support have been retrenched. In this context, attaining a valid and reliable assessment was, for many, contingent upon personal, social and economic resources.Discussion and conclusions: Political appeals to evidence helped establish an impetus and a legitimising logic for welfare reform. Procedural objectivity offers superficially plausible, but ultimately specious, remedies to longstanding anti-welfare tropes. Despite connotations of methodological neutrality, procedural objectivity is not a politically neutral epistemological standpoint. To know disability in a genuinely valid and reliable way, knowledge-making practices must respect dignity and proactively counter exclusory social order. These latter principles promise outcomes that are more trustworthy by virtue of their being more just.
{"title":"Evidence, objectivity and welfare reform: a qualitative study of disability benefit assessments","authors":"T. Porter, C. Pearson, N. Watson","doi":"10.1332/174426421X16146990181049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16146990181049","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Anti-welfare narratives depict welfare systems as overly-permissive, open to fraud, and fundamentally unfair. Countering these supposed ills have been political appeals to evidence and reforms made to disability benefit assessments under the banner of objectivity.\u0000 But objectivity is a complex construct, which entails philosophical and political choices that tend to oppress, exclude and symbolically disqualify alternative perspectives.Aims and objectives: To examine reforms made to UK disability benefits assessments in the name of objectivity.Methods:\u0000 Thematic analysis of 50 in-depth qualitative interviews with UK disability benefit claimants.Findings: Reforms made in pursuit of procedural objectivity reproduce existing social order, meaning claimants without personal, social and economic resources are less likely to succeed.\u0000 Data reveal an increasingly detached and impersonal assessment process, set against a broader welfare landscape in which advocacy and support have been retrenched. In this context, attaining a valid and reliable assessment was, for many, contingent upon personal, social and economic resources.Discussion\u0000 and conclusions: Political appeals to evidence helped establish an impetus and a legitimising logic for welfare reform. Procedural objectivity offers superficially plausible, but ultimately specious, remedies to longstanding anti-welfare tropes. Despite connotations of methodological neutrality,\u0000 procedural objectivity is not a politically neutral epistemological standpoint. To know disability in a genuinely valid and reliable way, knowledge-making practices must respect dignity and proactively counter exclusory social order. These latter principles promise outcomes that are more trustworthy\u0000 by virtue of their being more just.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46396273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-10DOI: 10.1332/174426420X16000979778231
L. Richardson, P. John
Background: Behavioural public policies, known as nudges, suffer from lack of citizen consent and involvement, which has led to an argument for more reflective nudges, known as ‘nudge plus’.Aims and objectives: How can more citizen reflection be introduced in a way that is not itself top-down and paternalist in spite of good intentions? How might these ‘nudge pluses’ develop on the ground?Methods: This paper reports a mixed-methods case study.Findings: In the case study, there was an intervention that started off as a top-down nudge, using a randomised controlled trial. The nudge then evolved into a bottom-up initiative with citizen input aided by a design lab approach.Discussion and conclusion: One way to address tensions between top-down and bottom-up approaches is to let in the messiness and loss of direct control implied in a design lab, whereby nudge pluses might evolve naturally and without expert direction. The success of the eventual initiative points the way to more design-based nudge plus interventions. Nudge pluses may emerge naturally as a result of the evolutionary co-design process. There is potential for replication, with cross-fertilisation between different traditions by introducing behaviour change policies with a design-based approach.
{"title":"Co-designing behavioural public policy: lessons from the field about how to ‘nudge plus’","authors":"L. Richardson, P. John","doi":"10.1332/174426420X16000979778231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426420X16000979778231","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Behavioural public policies, known as nudges, suffer from lack of citizen consent and involvement, which has led to an argument for more reflective nudges, known as ‘nudge plus’.Aims and objectives: How can more citizen reflection be introduced\u0000 in a way that is not itself top-down and paternalist in spite of good intentions? How might these ‘nudge pluses’ develop on the ground?Methods: This paper reports a mixed-methods case study.Findings: In the case study, there was an intervention that started\u0000 off as a top-down nudge, using a randomised controlled trial. The nudge then evolved into a bottom-up initiative with citizen input aided by a design lab approach.Discussion and conclusion: One way to address tensions between top-down and bottom-up approaches is to let in the messiness\u0000 and loss of direct control implied in a design lab, whereby nudge pluses might evolve naturally and without expert direction. The success of the eventual initiative points the way to more design-based nudge plus interventions. Nudge pluses may emerge naturally as a result of the evolutionary\u0000 co-design process. There is potential for replication, with cross-fertilisation between different traditions by introducing behaviour change policies with a design-based approach.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43705032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-01DOI: 10.1332/174426419x15679622689515
T. Norton, D. Rodriguez, C. Howell, C. Reynolds, S. Willems
Background: Little is known about how knowledge brokers (KBs) operate in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to translate evidence for health policy and practice. These intermediaries facilitate relationships between evidence producers and users to address public health issues.Aims and objectives: To increase understanding, a mixed-methods study collected data from KBs who had acted on evidence from the 2015 Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference in Mexico.Methods: Of the 1000 in-person participants, 252 plus 72 online participants (n=324) from 56 countries completed an online survey, and 20 participants from 15 countries were interviewed. Thematic analysis and application of knowledge translation (KT) theory explored factors influencing KB actions leading to evidence uptake. Descriptive statistics of respondent characteristics were used for cross-case comparison.Findings: Results suggest factors supporting the KB role in evidence uptake, which include active relationships with evidence users through embedded KB roles, targeted and tailored evidence communication to fit the context, user receptiveness to evidence from a similar country setting, adaptability in the KB role, and action orientation of KBs.Discussion and conclusions: Initiatives to increase evidence uptake in LMICs should work to establish supportive structures for embedded KT, identify processes for ongoing cross-country learning, and strengthen KBs already showing effectiveness in their roles.
{"title":"‘Maybe we can turn the tide’: an explanatory mixed-methods study to understand how knowledge brokers mobilise health evidence in low- and middle-income countries","authors":"T. Norton, D. Rodriguez, C. Howell, C. Reynolds, S. Willems","doi":"10.1332/174426419x15679622689515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426419x15679622689515","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Little is known about how knowledge brokers (KBs) operate in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to translate evidence for health policy and practice. These intermediaries facilitate relationships between evidence producers and users to address public health\u0000 issues.Aims and objectives: To increase understanding, a mixed-methods study collected data from KBs who had acted on evidence from the 2015 Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference in Mexico.Methods: Of the 1000 in-person participants, 252 plus 72 online participants\u0000 (n=324) from 56 countries completed an online survey, and 20 participants from 15 countries were interviewed. Thematic analysis and application of knowledge translation (KT) theory explored factors influencing KB actions leading to evidence uptake. Descriptive statistics of respondent characteristics\u0000 were used for cross-case comparison.Findings: Results suggest factors supporting the KB role in evidence uptake, which include active relationships with evidence users through embedded KB roles, targeted and tailored evidence communication to fit the context, user receptiveness\u0000 to evidence from a similar country setting, adaptability in the KB role, and action orientation of KBs.Discussion and conclusions: Initiatives to increase evidence uptake in LMICs should work to establish supportive structures for embedded KT, identify processes for ongoing cross-country\u0000 learning, and strengthen KBs already showing effectiveness in their roles.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42754769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-02-01DOI: 10.1332/174426420X15834126054137
Emilia Aiello, C. Donovan, Elena Duque, Serena Fabrizio, R. Flecha, Poul Holm, Silvia Molina, E. Oliver, E. Reale
Background: We are witnessing increasing demand from governments and society for all sciences to have relevant social impact and to show the returns they provide to society.Aims and objectives: This paper reports strategies that promote social impact by Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research projects.Methods: An in-depth analysis of six Social Sciences and Humanities research projects that achieved social impact was carried out to identify those strategies. For each case study, project documents were analysed and qualitative fieldwork was conducted with diverse agents, including researchers, stakeholders and end-users, with a communicative orientation.Findings: The strategies that were identified as contributing to achieving social impact include a clear focus of the project on social impact and the definition of an active strategy for achieving it; a meaningful involvement of stakeholders and end-users throughout the project lifespan, including local organisations, underprivileged end-users, and policy makers who not only are recipients of knowledge generated by the research projects but participate in the co-creation of knowledge; coordination between projects’ and stakeholders’ activities; and dissemination activities that show useful evidence and are oriented toward creating space for public deliberation with a diverse public.Discussion and conclusions: The strategies identified can enhance the social impact of Social Sciences and Humanities research. Furthermore, gathering related data, such as collaboration with stakeholders, use of projects’ findings and the effects of their implementation, could allow researchers to track the social impact of the projects and enhance the evaluation of research impact.
{"title":"Effective strategies that enhance the social impact of social sciences and humanities research","authors":"Emilia Aiello, C. Donovan, Elena Duque, Serena Fabrizio, R. Flecha, Poul Holm, Silvia Molina, E. Oliver, E. Reale","doi":"10.1332/174426420X15834126054137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426420X15834126054137","url":null,"abstract":"Background: We are witnessing increasing demand from governments and society for all sciences to have relevant social impact and to show the returns they provide to society.Aims and objectives: This paper reports strategies that promote social impact by Social Sciences\u0000 and Humanities (SSH) research projects.Methods: An in-depth analysis of six Social Sciences and Humanities research projects that achieved social impact was carried out to identify those strategies. For each case study, project documents were analysed and qualitative fieldwork was\u0000 conducted with diverse agents, including researchers, stakeholders and end-users, with a communicative orientation.Findings: The strategies that were identified as contributing to achieving social impact include a clear focus of the project on social impact and the definition of\u0000 an active strategy for achieving it; a meaningful involvement of stakeholders and end-users throughout the project lifespan, including local organisations, underprivileged end-users, and policy makers who not only are recipients of knowledge generated by the research projects but participate\u0000 in the co-creation of knowledge; coordination between projects’ and stakeholders’ activities; and dissemination activities that show useful evidence and are oriented toward creating space for public deliberation with a diverse public.Discussion and conclusions: The strategies\u0000 identified can enhance the social impact of Social Sciences and Humanities research. Furthermore, gathering related data, such as collaboration with stakeholders, use of projects’ findings and the effects of their implementation, could allow researchers to track the social impact of\u0000 the projects and enhance the evaluation of research impact.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47576668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16178101375342
A. Bäck, U. V. T. Schwarz, Anna Bergström, H. Hasson, A. Richter
Background: A supportive context is essential for successful implementation processes. Local politicians are delivery system actors who might both enable and hinder the implementation of health and social policies. Aims and objectives: The study examines the relationship between perceived prerequisites and the type of actions taken by local political committees to support the implementation of evidence-based practice in social services. Methods: A cross-sectional web survey targeting the chair and vice-chair of committees responsible for social services in Sweden (n=181). The data was analysed with regression analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA. Findings: Three clusters of action were identified (passive, neutral and active), capturing the reported actions taken by the committees to support implementation of EBP. The committees’ perceived prerequisites (capability, motivation, and opportunity) were highest in the active cluster and lowest in the passive cluster. The clusters also differed regarding chair/vice-chair educational level, and type of municipality in which the chair/vice-chair were active. Discussions and conclusion: The variation in reported actions among the committees to support the implementation of EBP implies that some social service organisations might lack the contextual support they need for implementing EBP. The prerequisites for the committees might need to be strengthened with regard to capability, motivation and opportunity. This study is an indication of the relationship between committees’ prerequisites and their actions in the implementation of EBP, but further research is needed.Key messagesThis study contributes to the literature on the contextual factors that may facilitate local politicians’ actions regarding the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP).The reported actions taken by the political committees to support the implementation of EBP varied greatly.Strengthening the prerequisites of political committees should not only encompass capability, but also motivation and opportunity.
{"title":"Local politicians in action? The relationship between perceived prerequisites and actions of political committees responsible for social services in supporting the implementation of evidence-based practice","authors":"A. Bäck, U. V. T. Schwarz, Anna Bergström, H. Hasson, A. Richter","doi":"10.1332/174426421X16178101375342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16178101375342","url":null,"abstract":"Background: A supportive context is essential for successful implementation processes. Local politicians are delivery system actors who might both enable and hinder the implementation of health and social policies. Aims and objectives: The study examines the relationship between perceived prerequisites and the type of actions taken by local political committees to support the implementation of evidence-based practice in social services. Methods: A cross-sectional web survey targeting the chair and vice-chair of committees responsible for social services in Sweden (n=181). The data was analysed with regression analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA. Findings: Three clusters of action were identified (passive, neutral and active), capturing the reported actions taken by the committees to support implementation of EBP. The committees’ perceived prerequisites (capability, motivation, and opportunity) were highest in the active cluster and lowest in the passive cluster. The clusters also differed regarding chair/vice-chair educational level, and type of municipality in which the chair/vice-chair were active. Discussions and conclusion: The variation in reported actions among the committees to support the implementation of EBP implies that some social service organisations might lack the contextual support they need for implementing EBP. The prerequisites for the committees might need to be strengthened with regard to capability, motivation and opportunity. This study is an indication of the relationship between committees’ prerequisites and their actions in the implementation of EBP, but further research is needed.Key messagesThis study contributes to the literature on the contextual factors that may facilitate local politicians’ actions regarding the implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP).The reported actions taken by the political committees to support the implementation of EBP varied greatly.Strengthening the prerequisites of political committees should not only encompass capability, but also motivation and opportunity.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66286460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16141794148067
Pirmin Bundi, Kathrin Frey, T. Widmer
Background: Evaluations are a useful tool to learn more about the effectiveness of public measures. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, recent research suggests that quality is an important determinant of the utilisation of evaluations. Despite this claim, hardly any empirical study has investigated whether the quality of an evaluation – measured by a meta-evaluation – influences its perceived utilisation by decision makers.Aims and objectives: This article asks how the quality of an evaluation study is related to its perceived use, and investigates the relationship between the quality of an evaluation, assessed through a meta-evaluation, and how the evaluation is perceived and accepted by the parties concerned.Methods: The basis for the empirical analyses were 34 external evaluations, conducted from 2006 to 2014, of upper secondary schools in the canton of Zurich, as well as a standardised survey conducted among 307 representatives of these schools (teachers, administrators, members of quality development teams, and the heads of school oversight commissions).Findings: We conclude that the quality of the evaluation, as assessed in a meta-evaluation, is not particularly associated with the perception of evaluation quality and the perceived use of the evaluation. The perceived quality, however, is related to the perceived impact of an evaluation.Discussion and conclusion: These findings are relevant for evaluation research and practice, since they show that the quality of an evaluation and evaluation use do not necessarily go hand in hand.Key messagesEvaluators have to be aware that a systematically assessed quality of an evaluation does not go hand in hand with the perceived quality of that evaluation;Evaluators often focus on the instrumental form of evaluation use, but they should not ignore other forms of use and maybe try to maximise these utilisation forms in the design of their evaluation;Evaluators should be more active in advising stakeholders when it comes to evaluation use, for example, through policy narratives;Evaluators should carefully think about the measurement of evaluation quality and evaluation effects in research on evaluation.
{"title":"Does evaluation quality enhance evaluation use?","authors":"Pirmin Bundi, Kathrin Frey, T. Widmer","doi":"10.1332/174426421X16141794148067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16141794148067","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Evaluations are a useful tool to learn more about the effectiveness of public measures. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, recent research suggests that quality is an important determinant of the utilisation of evaluations. Despite this claim, hardly any empirical study has investigated whether the quality of an evaluation – measured by a meta-evaluation – influences its perceived utilisation by decision makers.Aims and objectives: This article asks how the quality of an evaluation study is related to its perceived use, and investigates the relationship between the quality of an evaluation, assessed through a meta-evaluation, and how the evaluation is perceived and accepted by the parties concerned.Methods: The basis for the empirical analyses were 34 external evaluations, conducted from 2006 to 2014, of upper secondary schools in the canton of Zurich, as well as a standardised survey conducted among 307 representatives of these schools (teachers, administrators, members of quality development teams, and the heads of school oversight commissions).Findings: We conclude that the quality of the evaluation, as assessed in a meta-evaluation, is not particularly associated with the perception of evaluation quality and the perceived use of the evaluation. The perceived quality, however, is related to the perceived impact of an evaluation.Discussion and conclusion: These findings are relevant for evaluation research and practice, since they show that the quality of an evaluation and evaluation use do not necessarily go hand in hand.Key messagesEvaluators have to be aware that a systematically assessed quality of an evaluation does not go hand in hand with the perceived quality of that evaluation;Evaluators often focus on the instrumental form of evaluation use, but they should not ignore other forms of use and maybe try to maximise these utilisation forms in the design of their evaluation;Evaluators should be more active in advising stakeholders when it comes to evaluation use, for example, through policy narratives;Evaluators should carefully think about the measurement of evaluation quality and evaluation effects in research on evaluation.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66285630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16143457505305
S. Robinson, Kylie Valentine, Jan Idle
Background: The paper draws on empirical evidence from a project investigating service responses to disabled women and children experiencing domestic and family violence (DFV). Service provision in these sectors is often rationed due to resource constraints, and increasingly marketised, and disabled people often do not have their needs met. Their opportunities for participation in policy and practice are also constrained.Aims and objectives: Our aim is to bring critical studies of intersectionality into dialogue with ‘evidence-making’ scholarship on policy implementation, to allow for new analyses of the inclusion of lived experience expertise in policy.We ask: What are the potential drivers for new forms of practice and evidence making in policy and service settings?Methods: The multi-method study comprised literature and policy review and qualitative research about the experience and implementation of an early intervention violence prevention support programme. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with mothers (n=27) and children (n=7), and service providers (n=28).Findings: Many mothers did not identify as disabled, although they discussed the effects of impairment. However, children were all diagnosed, and diagnosis was a means of accessing funding and services. The service was focused on brokering responses to family needs, and formal participation mechanisms for clients were not prioritised.Discussion and conclusion: Resource constraints and workforce capacity are ongoing concerns in the disability and violence prevention sectors. Relationships that facilitate trust, agency and choice remain key. Insights from critical policy scholarship suggest opportunities to recognise existing relationships as participation, with implications for policy and practice.
{"title":"Disability and family violence prevention: a case study on participation in evidence making","authors":"S. Robinson, Kylie Valentine, Jan Idle","doi":"10.1332/174426421X16143457505305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16143457505305","url":null,"abstract":"Background: The paper draws on empirical evidence from a project investigating service responses to disabled women and children experiencing domestic and family violence (DFV). Service provision in these sectors is often rationed due to resource constraints, and increasingly marketised, and disabled people often do not have their needs met. Their opportunities for participation in policy and practice are also constrained.Aims and objectives: Our aim is to bring critical studies of intersectionality into dialogue with ‘evidence-making’ scholarship on policy implementation, to allow for new analyses of the inclusion of lived experience expertise in policy.We ask: What are the potential drivers for new forms of practice and evidence making in policy and service settings?Methods: The multi-method study comprised literature and policy review and qualitative research about the experience and implementation of an early intervention violence prevention support programme. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with mothers (n=27) and children (n=7), and service providers (n=28).Findings: Many mothers did not identify as disabled, although they discussed the effects of impairment. However, children were all diagnosed, and diagnosis was a means of accessing funding and services. The service was focused on brokering responses to family needs, and formal participation mechanisms for clients were not prioritised.Discussion and conclusion: Resource constraints and workforce capacity are ongoing concerns in the disability and violence prevention sectors. Relationships that facilitate trust, agency and choice remain key. Insights from critical policy scholarship suggest opportunities to recognise existing relationships as participation, with implications for policy and practice.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66285652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16149632470114
Sarah Chew, N. Armstrong, G. Martin
Background: Knowledge brokering is promoted as a means of enabling exchange between fields and closer collaboration across institutional boundaries. Yet examples of its success in fostering collaboration and reconfiguring boundaries remain few.Aims and objectives: We consider the introduction of a dedicated knowledge-brokering role in a partnership across healthcare research and practice, with a view to examining the interaction between knowledge brokers’ location and attributes and the characteristics of the fields across which they work.Methods: We use qualitative data from a four-year ethnographic study, including observations, interviews, focus groups, reflective diaries and other documentary sources. Our analysis draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework.Findings: In efforts to transform the boundaries between related but disjointed fields, a feature posited as advantageous – knowledge brokers’ liminality – may in practice work to their disadvantage. An unequal partnership between two fields, where the capitals (the resources, relationships, markers of prestige and forms of knowledge) valued in one are privileged over the other, left knowledge brokers without a prior affiliation to either field adrift between the two.Discussion and conclusions: Lacking legitimacy to act across fields and bridge the gap between them, knowledge brokers are likely to seek to develop their skills on one side of the boundary, focusing on more limited and conservative activities, rather than advance the value of a distinctive array of capitals in mediating between fields. We identify implications for the construction and deployment of knowledge-brokering interventions towards collaborative objectives.Key messagesKnowledge brokers are vaunted as a means of translating knowledge and removing barriers between fields;Their position ‘in between’ fields is important, but their influence in those fields may be limited;Lacking the resources and relationships to work across fields, they may align with only one;Both the structure of fields and the prior knowledge and habitus of brokers will influence knowledge brokerage’s success.
{"title":"Understanding knowledge brokerage and its transformative potential: a Bourdieusian perspective","authors":"Sarah Chew, N. Armstrong, G. Martin","doi":"10.1332/174426421X16149632470114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16149632470114","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Knowledge brokering is promoted as a means of enabling exchange between fields and closer collaboration across institutional boundaries. Yet examples of its success in fostering collaboration and reconfiguring boundaries remain few.Aims and objectives: We consider the introduction of a dedicated knowledge-brokering role in a partnership across healthcare research and practice, with a view to examining the interaction between knowledge brokers’ location and attributes and the characteristics of the fields across which they work.Methods: We use qualitative data from a four-year ethnographic study, including observations, interviews, focus groups, reflective diaries and other documentary sources. Our analysis draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework.Findings: In efforts to transform the boundaries between related but disjointed fields, a feature posited as advantageous – knowledge brokers’ liminality – may in practice work to their disadvantage. An unequal partnership between two fields, where the capitals (the resources, relationships, markers of prestige and forms of knowledge) valued in one are privileged over the other, left knowledge brokers without a prior affiliation to either field adrift between the two.Discussion and conclusions: Lacking legitimacy to act across fields and bridge the gap between them, knowledge brokers are likely to seek to develop their skills on one side of the boundary, focusing on more limited and conservative activities, rather than advance the value of a distinctive array of capitals in mediating between fields. We identify implications for the construction and deployment of knowledge-brokering interventions towards collaborative objectives.Key messagesKnowledge brokers are vaunted as a means of translating knowledge and removing barriers between fields;Their position ‘in between’ fields is important, but their influence in those fields may be limited;Lacking the resources and relationships to work across fields, they may align with only one;Both the structure of fields and the prior knowledge and habitus of brokers will influence knowledge brokerage’s success.","PeriodicalId":51652,"journal":{"name":"Evidence & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66286352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1332/174426421X16165177580453
Vicky Ward, T. Tooman, Benet Reid, H. Davies, M. Marshall
Background: ‘Embedded research’ (co-locating researchers within non-academic organisations) is advocated as a way of developing more effective services through better creation and application of knowledge.Aims and objectives: The existing literature on embedded initiatives has largely been descriptive. There has been less in the way of analysis, for example, disaggregating the components of such schemes, unpacking underpinning logics, or comparing the diverse ways in which schemes are instantiated. We aimed to explore the nature and organisation of such schemes in health settings in the UK, with the objective of providing a systematised means of understanding their makeup.Methods: This study uses a focused literature review combined with a systematic scoping exercise of extant initiatives. We assembled documentation on each scheme (n=45) and conducted in-depth interviews in twelve of them (n=17). Analytically, we focused on surfacing and articulating the key features of embedded research initiatives in relation to their intent, structure and processes. Findings were then tested and validated during a co-production workshop with embedded researchers and their managers.Findings: We identified 26 ‘clusters’ of peer-reviewed papers detailing specific embedded research initiatives, and we explored 45 extant initiatives. The initiatives were varied in intent, structure and processes, but we were able to surface ten themes representing common features: intended outcomes, power dynamics, scale, involvement, proximity, belonging, functional activities, skill and expertise, relational roles, and learning and reflection.Discussion and conclusion: The themes uncovered can be used as a framework for guiding further systematic and evaluative enquiry on embedded research initiatives.Key messagesEmbedded research initiatives come in a range of different shapes and sizes;Despite this variety, initiatives share a number of common features;An understanding of these features can promote dialogue about the design and management of embedded initiatives;These features can also guide systematic and evaluative enquiry of such initiatives.
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