Current projects | School Of Social Transformation

Current Projects: Socially Engaged Research

School of Social Transformation faculty are involved in socially engaged efforts that seek to link research and teaching to building a better world. This kind of "use inspired" scholarship is every bit as rigorous as traditional or "discovery" scholarship but also holds itself to a higher standard by which it must also have direct application to and impact on community issues. Here are a few examples of work being done now:

Three faculty members study adolescent girls' sexualities

Yasmina Katsulis (Women and Gender Studies, top left) has partnered with HIV/AIDS outreach organizations in Mexico, a homeless shelter in New Haven, Conn., and several local youth shelters in Phoenix. This has led to new collaborations with School of Social Transformation colleagues Georganne Scheiner (Women and Gender Studies, center) and Vera Lopez (Justice and Social Inquiry, lower left.) Together they study the social construction of adolescent girls' sexualities. The researchers will partner with the Arizona Girls Roundtable, a network of girl-serving organizations and agencies, in order to work with frontline workers in the youth residential services system. Lopez serves on the board of this organization and led a research team examining the role of gender, power and sexuality in delinquent girls' drug procurement strategies within the context of their relationships with boys and older men.

Yoo asks, "How do Asian Americans internalize and deal with racism?"

Brandon Yoo's (Asian Pacific American Studies) research broadly examines how racial minorities experience and cope with culture-specific stressors. One of his areas of particular interest is how Asian Americans internalize and deal with racism. More specially, he seeks to answer the following three interrelated questions: 1) What types of racism are most frequently experienced by Asian Americans and what are its psychological consequences (e.g., perceived model minority myth on well-being)? 2) When and why are Asian Americans likely to attribute negative life events to racism? 3) How does cultural identity buffer the effects of racism on the well-being of Asian Americans?

Usman collects oral histories in Nigeria to explore community formation, experience and changes

Aribidesi Usman’s (African and African American Studies) primary research interest is how local communities and peoples of Africa responded to, manipulated, and became part of regional and global historical process (e.g., pre-colonial states expansion, the Atlantic economy); and also how cultures and institutions of African societies have been transformed as a result of these regional/global encounters. Usman’s current research focuses on Nigeria’s Northern Yoruba group, a society on the fringe of the large political centers of power. His research is based on the premise that the historical dynamics of large African states, kingdoms and empires cannot be adequately explained without a thorough understanding of the nature of the relationships existing between the large centers of power and their hinterland village communities, such as the Yoruba frontier. Usman spent the summer in Nigeria, visiting archives in Kaduna (the capital of Kaduna State in north-central Nigeria), gathering oral histories from official historians and elders and exploring archeological sites for clues about how the Yoruba civilization lived. He has a book manuscript near completion, entitled The Yoruba Frontier: A Regional History of Community Formation, Experience, and Changes in West Africa (ca. 1200-1900 A.D.).

Leong studies Japanese Americans interned in Arizona during WWII and Katrina survivors

Karen Leong, with her colleagues in Asian Pacific American Studies and in partnership with nonprofit and cultural organizations in Arizona and nationally, is involved with an oral history project documenting the experiences of Japanese Americans (Nisei) interned in Arizona during World War II.

Her collaborative group has also partnered with colleagues in Indiana on an NSF-funded project looking at how Vietnamese Americans and African Americans in New Orleans utilized resources to overcome linguistic, racial and socioeconomic barriers for survival following Hurricane Katrina.

Efficacy and competency of nonprofit human service providers in the Southwest

Vanna Gonzales (Justice and Social Inquiry) is working on a study of social efficacy and cultural competency among nonprofit human service providers in the Southwest. She has received funding for the first phase of this project which involves surveying executive and program directors of human service organizations in Maricopa and Yuma counties, from the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. Her expertise in nonprofit organizations extends as far as Italy, where she recently published an article in Impresse Sociale on Italian social cooperatives.

Helping individuals make informed decisions about health issues

Alyssa Robillard (African and African American Studies) focuses on health education as a way to help individuals make informed decisions about their individual, family and community health. Her research looks specifically at adolescent helalth, HIV and other health issues affecting minority populations. One recent project included a multi-site evaluation of the Corrections Demonstration Project which focused on continuity of care issues for HIV positive inmates soon to be released from the prison system. She also recently published a collaborative article with nursing professor Linda Larkey on the cultural context of narrative health promotion in encouraging colorectal screening among African Americans.