Browsing by Subject "Crisis"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Developing a critical eye (I), chasing a critical we: intersections of participatory action research, crisis, and the education of black youth
    (2014-05) Lozenski, Brian David
    As the field of critical participatory action research (CPAR) with youth (YPAR) (Morrell, 2004; Torre, Fine, Stoudt, & Fox, 2011) becomes firmly established in the milieu of critical pedagogy, it is incumbent upon educational researchers to continue to investigate and uncover nuance in CPAR as a social practice. This study resists the temptation to become a CPAR "victory narrative," and instead foregrounds the contradictions, contestations, and emergent crises that are inherent in positioning marginalized youth as critical researchers. This critical ethnographic (Madison, 2005) study is situated in the context of a community-school-university partnership where high school youth of African descent participated in a college course taught at an African-centered (Mazama, 2003) community-based organization in St. Paul, Minnesota, called Network for the Development of Children of African Descent (NdCAD). The study explores the development of CPAR as a pedagogical and methodological practice while being informed by the cultural and educational environment of NdCAD.This dissertation uses mediated discourse analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005a; Scollon, 2001) as an analytical tool to theorize various perspectives regarding participation. Specifically, it addresses whether or not CPAR is inherently participatory and how pedagogy can both encourage and limit participation within CPAR. The study theorizes the concept of "participatory subjectivity," or a way of being that recognizes benefit in the coalescence of individuality and collectivity as a vital, yet elusive, destination for youth engaged in collective research. Participatory subjectivity remained elusive for the youth in this study as they transitioned their research away from collective action on a community issue to more introspective inquiry that addressed the development of their personal worldviews. This shift in perspective complicates the ways in which CPAR is traditionally imagined, thus challenging researchers to gain clarity about what constitutes CPAR. Finally, this dissertation situates CPAR conducted with youth of African descent in the United States as a liberatory project that combats the historical trajectory of black education as a tool for the perpetual subservience of communities of African descent to the whim of structural white supremacy.
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    Nonprofit Crisis Toolkit
    (2023) Kosberg, Abigail
    This toolkit is designed to help leaders of small, community-based nonprofit organizations effectively manage and succeed in moments of crisis. Research on crisis response, prevention, and management has been a major topic of discussion for scholars since the Industrial Revolution. Seminal theorists such as Kevin Burnard & Ran Bhamra (who developed the Resilient Response Framework in 2011), W. Timothy Coombs (the father of Situational Crisis Communication Theory, 1995), Bernard Burnes (a leading scholar on Organizational Change Theory), and many others have discussed the topic and produced a wide range of scholarship, frameworks, and methods for crisis response in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. While the breadth of literature is vast, the scholarship does not yet address how these methods can apply to small, community-based nonprofits (defined here as ones with annual budgets under $300,000 and less than 4 full-time employees). In fact, most of these crisis response resources are financially out of reach, simply try to directly convert for-profit crisis response methods, are improperly scaled, and fully reliant on a large employee base to be effective. Moreover, most of these tools are geared towards other scholars and are therefore not easily accessible/digestible for the nonprofit leaders and board members who need them most. This toolkit addresses that gap in the literature by discussing how predominating theories on crisis response and change management can be more effectively scaled for small, community- based organizations. In doing so, the author identifies 5 key characteristics that recur in nonprofits that successfully weather crisis and then proposes a 10-step process for how leaders at small organization can effectively sort through the literature on these topics. Each section breaks down and assesses best practices highlighted by leading scholars in the field, later using the author’s own experience as an executive director at a small nonprofit in crisis as a lens to help guide readers through the topic.