Ecologically Sustaining Research Partnerships

It is essential that universities and local or government agencies begin to work together to do unconventional and impactful research that is mutually sustaining to both partners. When done well, the partnerships will strengthen the positions of each institution to continue to do their work and create new opportunities for equity and advancement. The challenges associated with building these types of partnerships are numerous, but even more challenges exist when the partnerships are committed to working in solidarity. To create partnerships that are examples of solidarity leading to mutual sustainability, partners must be intentional about using an ecological-systems model to shape the decision-making process. In doing so, the partners enact an Ecologically Sustaining Research Partnership (ESRP), which ensures that both partners are strengthened by and exist beyond the life of the partnership. Importantly, ESRPs are committed to equity and empowerment and use the ecological-systems model to shift the basis of power in favor of commonly oppressed groups. This emancipatory approach to research is essential for the field of early childhood, but it can also be expanded to guide partnerships between universities and communities across disciplines.

Meet Generation Disaster

The “Meet Generation Disaster” chapter describes the basic principles of cohort effects and generational labels and explains how Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model of interacting systems of developmental influence inform the book. To provide historical context, the chapter describes the society the oldest members of Generation Disaster were born into in 1989 and how subsequent societal forces—primarily but not exclusively the attacks of 9/11, the 2008 recession, and the growing influence of media—have rapidly changed U.S. culture throughout the cohort’s lives, forcing them to constantly adapt to an unstable and stressful environment throughout childhood and adolescence and as they’ve become emerging adults.

“Walking in Two Worlds”: Towards an Indigenist Ecological Systems Model for Group Therapy

Walking in two worlds is a common metaphor Indigenous peoples use to describe their experiences navigating the differences between Indigenous and Western epistemological and ontological worldviews across various contexts. Despite wide support for this phenomena, there have been few attempts to address Indigenous-Western cultural incongruities through structural changes in counseling psychology, though we are well-equipped as a profession to do so. Thus, we propose for counseling psychology to move towards an Indigenist Ecological Systems Model (IESM; MASKED, 2018) as an integrative framework for promoting Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in science and practice. We provide a brief overview of IESM and a direct application of the model through a case illustration of Walking in Two Worlds, a psychotherapy group for Indigenous peoples. With IESM, we describe creating an Indigenous-informed clinical intervention that leverages Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, prompting real ecological change. We conclude with implications IESM has for counseling psychology.

Place-Consciousness and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Model: A Discussion of Recurring Issues that Undermine the Teaching of Indigenous Histories in New Zealand and Australian Schools

This article draws upon a ‘tale from the field’ (Van Maanen, 1988) to encourage New Zealand and Australian teachers of history and social studies to appraise how their own perceptions of place and teaching about Indigenous peoples’ histories impact upon their students’ learning. Moreover, it explains why Uri Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems model (despite its limitations) can assist the process of critiquing the teaching of Indigenous histories in schools on both sides of the Tasman Sea. It concludes that place conscious Indigenous land-based learning experiences, resulting from mutually beneficial collaborations with Indigenous communities, are needed to enhance the teaching of Indigenous peoples’ histories in both countries.

The Role of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory in Enhancing Interpretive Consistency in Mixed Research

One of the nine major threats to legitimation (i.e., the degree that integration of findings leads to credible and defensible meta-inferences) is sample legitimation integration (Onwuegbuzie & Johnson, 2006). Addressing this form of legitimation requires the researcher to maintain interpretive consistency between the selected sampling design and the inferences made from the ensuing findings. To facilitate researchers’ efforts to address interpretive consistency, in this article, we provide a meta-sampling framework that is structured in accordance to the dimensions of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems model. In this meta-framework, the four dimensions of the model are juxtaposed to various types of generalizations, sampling-based considerations, and mixed sampling criteria. Application of this inclusive framework is appropriate for the conduct of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research.Â