Inclusive Engagement Research Articles

Co-creating Inclusive Public Spaces: Learnings from Four Global Case Studies on inclusive Cities

This paper presents some of the findings from a global research study on inclusive infrastructure and city design and will focus on inclusive public spaces. Persons with disabilities can experience multi-dimensional exclusion from urban life, including but not limited to physical, attitudinal and social barriers. Public spaces, including recreational and social spaces, are often not prioritised. Inclusive public spaces are fundamental to participation and inclusive in society. Including persons with disabilities in the design and planning of the built environment supports equal rights and helps identify people’s aspirations for inclusive environments. Four city case studies will be discussed in this paper: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Varanasi, India; Surakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya. Research participants and objectives are organised by three stakeholder groups:
 
 People - first-hand experiences of persons with disabilities living in the city and their aspirations for a more inclusive city
 Policy - the awareness and understanding of inclusive design among policy-makers
 Practice - the awareness and understanding of inclusive design among practitioners including barriers to implementation, opportunities and the relationship with assistive technology
 
 Methods include document reviews, interviews, photo diaries and co-design workshops with participatory and inclusive engagement of persons with disabilities throughout. Findings on public spaces are discussed in three ways:
 
 The types of public spaces valued by participants in each of the four cities.
 The barriers and challenges experienced by persons with disabilities in the public realm.
 Aspirations for more inclusive public spaces and opportunities for inclusive design
 
 The paper concludes by discussing how the targeted stakeholder groups of people, policy and practice also help represent three essential dimensions of inclusive city design and forming a framework for successful implementation and delivery and supporting targets set out through the UNCRPD and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 
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Workplace Inclusion of People With Health Issues, Immigrants, and Unemployed Youths-A Qualitative Study of Norwegian Leaders' Experiences.

AimTo explore leaders’ perceptions and experiences of facilitators and barriers for successful workplace inclusion of immigrants, unemployed youths, and people who are outside the labor market due to health issues.MethodsSemi-structured individual interviews with 16 leaders who actively engaged in inclusion work, representing different occupations, were conducted. Systematic Text Condensation was used to structure the analysis.ResultsThe participating leaders emphasized that job match, including their perception of workers’ motivation, respect for workplace policies, and the availability of appropriate accommodation at the workplace, facilitated work inclusion. An active public support system providing professional and financial support to workers and leaders was also an important facilitating factor. The leaders emphasized that their perception of workers’ lack of motivation for the job was the most important barrier in their own hiring and inclusion engagement. Successful inclusion depended on all workers acknowledging responsibility for and contributing to an inclusive work environment. Being open and willing to discuss challenges was an important part of making the inclusion work. In addition, leadership qualities, such as empathy, patience, and a non-judgmental attitude, appeared as a hallmark among these leaders who actively engaged in inclusion work.ConclusionWorkplace inclusion of this population of marginalized people was facilitated by job match, mutual respect, commitment, and trust, as well as financial and practical support from the public support system. Leaders’ inclusion practices were furthermore affected by personal attitudes and perceptions of social responsibility. Even so, successful workplace inclusion was presented as a two-way street. Leaders have the main responsibility in initiating a respectful and trusting relationship, but both the worker and the leader needs to contribute to make the relationship thrive.

You Can't Have AI Both Ways: Balancing Health Data Privacy and Access Fairly.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare promises to make healthcare safer, more accurate, and more cost-effective. Public and private actors have been investing significant amounts of resources into the field. However, to benefit from data-intensive medicine, particularly from AI technologies, one must first and foremost have access to data. It has been previously argued that the conventionally used “consent or anonymize approach” undermines data-intensive medicine, and worse, may ultimately harm patients. Yet, this is still a dominant approach in European countries and framed as an either-or choice. In this paper, we contrast the different data governance approaches in the EU and their advantages and disadvantages in the context of healthcare AI. We detail the ethical trade-offs inherent to data-intensive medicine, particularly the balancing of data privacy and data access, and the subsequent prioritization between AI and other effective health interventions. If countries wish to allocate resources to AI, they also need to make corresponding efforts to improve (secure) data access. We conclude that it is unethical to invest significant amounts of public funds into AI development whilst at the same time limiting data access through strict privacy measures, as this constitutes a waste of public resources. The “AI revolution” in healthcare can only realise its full potential if a fair, inclusive engagement process spells out the values underlying (trans) national data governance policies and their impact on AI development, and priorities are set accordingly.

Futuring Perspectives and Practices for Urban Extension

Extension is well-positioned to engage strategically with urban communities now and in the future. A century of collaboration and proven impact provides Extension with a valuable foundation focused on relevant service accessible to all people; applied science and co-discovery; respectful and inclusive engagement; and commitment to community well-being. An exploration of the literature on the future, from the Extension perspective and from external viewpoints, informs a contemporary approach to focus on the future of urban Extension. An interplay of Extension professionals with diverse community stakeholders and dynamic technologies bridges past perspective and current context with practical methods to address the future. Essential practices for urban Extension professionals include developing futuring literacy, experimenting with innovative futuring approaches, managing decision making as Extension creates the future, and entrepreneurially addressing change throughout the futuring process. Increasing growth and diversity in metropolitan areas present an opportunity to blend familiar planning paradigms with a more emergent model for urban Extension in which change is continuous, and leadership is agile (Doyle & Brady, 2018).

Broadening the diversity of consumers engaged in guidelines: a scoping review

BackgroundGuideline developers are encouraged to engage patients, carers and their representatives (‘consumers’) from diverse backgrounds in guideline development to produce more widely applicable guidelines. However, consumers from diverse backgrounds are...

Governance of Heritable Human Gene Editing World-Wide and Beyond.

To date, the controversy surrounding the unknown risks and consequences of heritable genome editing has grown, with such work raising biosafety and ethical concerns for future generations. However, the current guideline of global governance is limited. In the context of the new framework for the governance of human genome editing developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) committee, this paper presents further analysis by highlighting predicaments of governance on germline engineering that merit the most attention: (1) building a scientific culture informed by a broader set of values and considerations in the internal scientific community at large, such as codes of ethics, and education, in addition to awareness-raising measures; and (2) reflecting on and institutionalizing policies in grassroots practice according to local conditions in external governance, such as the experimentalist governance, which is a multi-layered model of governance that establishes an open-ended framework from the top and offers stakeholders the freedom of discussion. The key to achieving these goals is more democratic deliberation between the public and the inclusive engagement of the global scientific community, which has been extensively used in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). On a global scale, we believe that practicing heritable human genome editing in accordance with the WHO and BTWC appears to be a good choice.

Justice, What a Dream!—Mapping Intersections of Sustainability and Inclusion

This paper takes on the important concepts of inclusion and sustainability, in both their broad and discursive understandings, to map out the interrelations that teachers, who work within different areas of the Austrian school system, make between different, key aspects of their work and organization. The complex intersections of school organization, sustainability, and inclusion were analyzed following a situational analysis approach that made use of different types of mapping (e.g., messy, situational, positional) of data gathered from semi-structured interviews with a teacher-training student and teachers positioned across the Austrian school system, some of whom with experience in classrooms with, for example, refugee, d/Deaf, and neurodivergent students. The findings from these data display ways of being oriented towards sustainable and responsible as well as inclusive engagement, especially within educational spheres. By and large, what emerged from the data was the clear result that school organization as a whole plays one of the biggest roles in determining whether or not non-mandatory subjects such as “sustainability” are given space and time in the classroom. Therefore, if we want to promote topics on sustainability and a focus on climate justice in education, efforts need to be made to bring these topics into the official curriculum.

Inclusive Engagement in an Undergraduate Core Biomaterials Course for Enhanced Reflective Learning.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brought about several challenges in both learning and instructive styles. Chief among these was engagement in classrooms that were remote, in-person or switched between the two due to quarantine periods. In a content centric biomaterials core course, here we describe an ‘inclusive engagement toolkit’ that combines peer-supported learning with a structured reflection of learning objectives that allowed learners to be engaged at high levels and take responsibility for their own learning and course progression.

Ethics framework for citizen science and public and patient participation in research

BackgroundCitizen science and models for public participation in health research share normative ideals of participation, inclusion, and public and patient engagement. Academic researchers collaborate in research with members of the public involved in an issue, maximizing all involved assets, competencies, and knowledge. In citizen science new ethical issues arise, such as who decides, who participates, who is excluded, what it means to share power equally, or whose knowledge counts. This article aims to present an ethics framework that offers a lens of understanding and heuristic guidelines to deal with ethical issues in citizen science.MethodsWe conducted seven case studies between 2015 and 2021 to attune and validate the ethics framework for the context of citizen science. The cases related to studies with older adults, people with a psychiatric vulnerability, people dependent on community care, people who are unemployed or living in poverty or both, and young adults with respiratory disease.ResultsEthics in citizen science reaches beyond the ethical issues in traditional biomedical and health research. It entails more than following procedures about informed consent and privacy and submitting a proposal to a Medical Research Ethics Committee. Ethics in citizen science relates to everyday ethical issues during the study, including relational and moral complexities concerning collaboration, sharing power, and democratic decision-making. Dealing with these issues requires ethics work of researchers. This entails seeing ethically salient issues and reflecting on everyday ethical issues. Ethics work consists of seven features: framing work, role work, emotion work, identity work, reason work, relationship work, and performance work. All are relevant for researchers in citizen science.ConclusionsEthical issues in citizen science often relate to power differentials, partnership, and collaboration between academics and non-academics. The ethics framework prepares researchers for the work needed in citizen science to act responsibly and offers a heuristic guide to reflect on ethics. Reflection on ethics is a pathway towards ethical citizen science, especially if researchers collaboratively reflect in partnership with non-academics who are subject to the moral issue.

Consulting on the European Union's 2050 tourism policies: An appreciative inquiry materiality assessment

Stakeholder consultations serve as powerful legitimising devices upon the balance of participants, the quality of the process and its effective results. We propose a deliberative digital stakeholder consultation methodology based on an appreciative inquiry approach to materiality assessment. We illustrate its application in a four-month consultation for the European Commission (2020 European Tourism Convention, towards a European Agenda for Tourism 2050). An interactive, online consultation (due to COVID-19) enabled dynamism and co-creation. Appreciative enquiry introduced the human elements of ownership and legitimacy towards policy. The choice of topics, language and attitudes reframed problems into opportunities with shared responsibilities. Technology allowed to explore new forms of open, democratic and inclusive engagement, and materiality provided structure and transparency that legitimised the process.

Scientific Institutions Should Support Inclusive Engagement: Reflections on the AAAS Center for Public Engagement Approach

Scientists’ engagement with society on critical environmental and health issues is essential to reaching positive and equitable long-term outcomes. We argue that stronger institutional support for public engagement is necessary and that inclusive practices should be built into public engagement training and relationships. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)’s Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology provides a model of support for scientists that we believe other scientific institutions can replicate and expand on. This model prioritizes representative and accessible science communication training, resources (e.g., funding and staff and peer support), opportunities to practice engagement, and rewards and incentives for doing engagement. We describe our programs in each of these areas and reflect on how well each builds scientists’ engagement skills and institutional capacity, and whether each embodies and models thoughtful, accessible, and representative engagement. Through these various approaches, the Center communicates to other scientific institutions that engagement by scientists should be valued, celebrated, and supported, and builds capacity for individual scientists to do effective engagement. We argue that these supports can be applied by other scientific institutions to reflect and incorporate society’s diverse needs and concerns, thus truly serving the public and making science and scientific institutions stronger for it.

Development and evaluation of a novel training program to build study staff skills in equitable and inclusive engagement, recruitment, and retention of clinical research participants.

Adequate equitable recruitment of underrepresented groups in clinical research and trials is a national problem and remains a daunting challenge to translating research discoveries into effective healthcare practices. Engagement, recruitment, and retention (ER&R) training programs for Clinical Research Professionals (CRPs) often focus on policies and regulations. Although some training on the importance of diversity and inclusion in clinical research participation has recently been developed, there remains a need for training that couples critical equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) concepts with skill development in effective recruitment and retention strategies, regulations, and best practices. We developed the ER&R Certificate program as a holistic approach to provide Duke University CRPs the opportunity to build competency in gap areas and to increase comfort in championing equitable partnerships with clinical research participants. The thirteen core and elective courses include blended learning elements, such as e-learning and wiki journaling prompts, to facilitate meaningful discussions. Pre- and post-assessments administered to CRP program participants and their managers assessed program impact on CRP skills in ER&R tasks and comfort in equitable, diverse, and inclusive engagement of clinical research participants. Results from the first two cohorts indicate that CRPs perceived growth in their own comfort with program learning objectives, especially those centered on participant partnership and EDI principles, and most managers witnessed growth in competence and responsibility for ER&R-related tasks. Results suggest value in offering CRPs robust training programs that integrate EDI and ER&R training.

A Natural Experiment Created by Pandemic Restriction: Comparing In-Person, Hybrid, & Teletherapy Formats

Introduction Adult type 2 diabetes (T2DM) threatens public health and most patients manage their diabetic condition while in the community. As it is challenging for patients to properly manage diabetes alone, caregiver involvement in T2DM patient care is encouraged. This study aimed to examine the association between caregiver involvement in T2DM education within a community and the patients’ diabetes care outcomes (e.g., glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level, behavior, or hospitalization). Methods The available scientific literature in PubMed, Cochrane, EMBASE, and CINAHL was searched. The methodological quality of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results A total of 13 out of 741 published studies were synthesized in this review. There is evidence that caregiver involvement in T2DM education is effective in the reduction of HbA1C and BMI, but not necessarily effective in reducing lipids. Study results indicate that caregiver related interventions can significantly improve patient diabetes knowledge, physical activity, and self-efficacy, but results were more mixed regarding medication adherence. Risk of bias analysis classified the majority of studies (77%) to be moderate or high quality. Conclusion This review aimed to explore the association between caregiver involvement in adult T2DM education in the community and patients’ diabetes care outcomes. The findings show an improvement in biological and behavioral self-management outcomes with caregivers involved in T2DM education, though no studies examined the direct association between complications or hospital readmission. Future research focused on tailored interventions and longer follow-up of patient outcomes are recommended.

Bureaucrat-Local Politician Relations and Hierarchical Local Governance in Emerging Democracies: A Case Study of Tunisia

ABSTRACT How do bureaucrat-local politician relations affect the inclusiveness of local governance in emerging democracies? This study answers the question through conducting a case study of Tunisia. The study evaluates interview data recently collected among 39 municipalities in socio-economically divergent regions with mayors, city council members, civil society members, and a governor, and examines transparency data compiled for all 350 municipalities by an independent civil society organization. The findings suggest that partisanship appointment of governors can limit the inclusiveness of local governance through perpetuating hierarchical relations with mayors at the expense of inclusive local engagement mechanisms. An analysis on the Transparency Index of municipalities within governorates with identified partisanship ties (n = 206) indicates that municipal governance becomes less transparent when a governor shares a political background similar to the ideological position of the mayor’s party. Thus, partisan appointments of bureaucrats can have implications for the inclusiveness of local governance.

Spurring inclusive entrepreneurship and student development post-C19: synergies between research and business plan competitions

PurposeAcademic innovation strives to benefit from an ample talent pool, and entrepreneurship and research competitions constitute an integral part of the effort. This prompts discussions about how to optimize the impact of interdisciplinary learning, especially for less-traditional participants. The main purpose of this article is to describe how synergies between research and business plan competitions can facilitate inclusive engagement and enhanced development of transferable skills.Design/methodology/approachA case illustration addresses the following questions: (1) what skills can be enhanced through a single project toward parallel participation in research and business plan competitions? (2) How can synergies between research and business plan competitions support more inclusive student development? The case illustration outlines the process and outcomes of an initiative with three first-gen business students, two female and two international.FindingsThe case illustration describes how synergies and alignments of deadliness between research and business plan competitions enhanced the learning process by facilitating more opportunities to showcase learning and receive feedback. In addition, the parallel preparation facilitated student inclusion by providing purposeful authentic practice in a project envisioned by the students. As a result of the 2019 learning experience, students and their employers continue to value in 2021 the effective development of transferable skills.Originality/valuePrevious studies examine independently entrepreneurship initiatives, science technology engineering arts and mathematics (STEAM) initiatives, transferable skills and pedagogy that support inclusive education. This manuscript describes the option of synergies between research and entrepreneurship competitions to support more inclusive student development. In addition, it provides recommendations for impact when scaling-up synergies.

GOVERNMENT AGRICULTURAL LAND ACQUISITION AND RURAL FARMING HOUSEHOLDS’ LIVELIHOOD IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA

The Nigeria Land Use Act of 1978 placed statutory ownership of land into the State governors’ hands for public interest, and since then, the objectives of this act are yet to be met after 43 years of its enactment. Rural farming households in South West Nigeria has over the years experienced a forceful dispossession of their parcel of land by the State government and the conflicts arising from this take-over have remained largely unresolved both by lawful and peaceful means. The study examined the guiding principles of government agricultural land acquisition and rural farming households’ livelihood in South West Nigeria. The study used primary data sourced from 480 displaced rural farming households whose land has being acquired by government. The respondents were selected using two-stage sampling techniques. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Likert five points scale was used to measures attitudes. The results revealed that the displacement of rural farming households pushed many of the farmers to engaged in other jobs rather than relying only on farming activities. Likewise, there was a notable difference between the income earned by the farmers before and after forceful dispossession. The Likert five points scale revealed that the comprehensive approach to the acquisition and allocation of land and a robust and inclusive engagement strategy with all stakeholders, including affected communities and vulnerable groups was not effective in South West, Nigeria. This was reinforced by the finding that majority (75%) of the respondents reported a substantial knowledge gap and lack of awareness about policy frameworks and procedures associated with government agricultural land acquisition. The study recommended that State government should embrace comprehensive approach to the acquisition and allocation of land as stipulated by Committee on World Food Security-Responsible Agricultural Investment (CFS-RAI) and payment of fair compensation to the affected families whose land has been acquired by government.

Testing the Ethos of Tolerance: Chin’s Interpretation of Rorty’s Political Theory

Abstract In The Practice of Political Theory, Clayton Chin puts Richard Rorty’s pragmatism in dialogue with a range of contemporary political theorists, particularly focusing on how his notion of cultural politics can speak to the ontological turn in political theory. This article focuses on Chin’s claim that Rorty’s cultural politics provides an ethos of inclusive and tolerant political engagement. After exploring the basis for Chin’s interpretation, it identifies three tensions in this ethos, in relation to character of its demandingness, the fissure between ethnocentric and egalitarian engagement, and the relationship of this ethos to the virtues and procedures of democratic citizenship.

Influence of work design and work status on part-time employees' inclusion and work engagement: some Australian evidence

AbstractIncreasing numbers of people are working part-time (PT) hours, sometimes involuntarily (IPT). Australia has the fourth highest percentage of PT employees among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (26%). This study examines relationships between work design factors and workplace inclusion for PT employees and identifies how perceived inclusion and work engagement of PT and IPT employees compares with full-time (FT) employees. Data were collected using an online questionnaire distributed to employees in Australia. A part-time work design model was developed and tested across two independent samples using partial least squares. Results suggest that PT and IPT employees feel less included in the workplace compared to FT employees. PT employees also perceive their roles to be less task interdependent. A key finding was that PT employees' perceived inclusion was related to proactive behaviors, autonomy, and job crafting, in addition to hours worked. Implications for the management of PT employees are discussed.

Climate Governance and Agriculture in Southeast Asia: Learning From a Polycentric Approach

The global climate governance framework will need to empower a wide range of groups representing different geopolitical and sector-specific interests to engage in climate action. Learning from polycentric governance approaches could provide insight on how to foster more inclusive engagement and more effective outcomes from global efforts to fight climate change. The Paris Agreement has opened up room for this type of bottom-up, polycentric governance and new attention to important issues such as agriculture. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Climate Resilience Network (ASEAN-CRN) is an example of a polycentric system to enhance resilience and adapt to climate change. The ASEAN Negotiating Group on Agriculture (ANGA) enables the region’s agriculture sector to shape global climate governance frameworks. The case of ANGA highlights that opening up space for polycentric systems can foster climate action in relevant sectors. Supporting regions to navigate UNFCCC processes can further enable polycentric systems, enhancing climate resilience and adaptation.

Virtual Democracy: Online Ballet and Contemporary Dance Classes During the Covid-19 Crisis

This article considers the politics and dynamics of online ballet and contemporary dance classes during the Covid-19 lockdown on geo-political, economic, and cultural implications of dance classes in digital media. Using a post-colonial lens and popular dance studies, this research analyzes the effect of the online ballet and contemporary classes colonizing digital spaces and the effect of this phenomenon on creating a more democratic and participatory access to dance that has built a more global and inclusive engagement with the arts for geographically peripheral spaces. This essay investigates the kind of common created by kinaesthetic experience of the dancers teaching and participating in the classes in digital media providing a key strategy to analyze the participatory embodiment of dancers as a radical, material, corporeal challenge to the hierarchies of the dance world, and furthermore, the economic dynamics that shape it.