Craft groups : sites of friendship, empowerment, belonging and learning for older women

This article reports on a qualitative research project conducted in Victoria, Australia, with nine older women. The purpose of the research was to explore the women's experience of involvement in craft groups, and specifically, the impact of this involvement on their sense of well-being. Traditionally the health of older people has been examined in relation to medical markers of physical well-being, and often, decline. We were interested to widen this perspective to understand the impact of social connection, belonging and ongoing learning and development on the ageing experience. While the focus of the groups was on domestic craftwork, the process of coming together as a collective appeared to have significant bearing on the holistic health of the women involved. Consistent with feminist groupwork literature, the findings indicated that the women we interviewed experienced the group setting as affirming and generative in a number of ways. These include providing an avenue for mutual aid, addressing isolation, affirming individual and collective strength and wisdom, while acquiring new skills, and normalising concerns regarding health and family.

The role of focus groups in a randomised controlled trial : the ADEPT study

In a recent study we developed a decision aid for prenatal testing of fetal abnormalities. The effectiveness of the decision aid compared with a pamphlet in increasing women's informed choice and decreasing conflict was evaluated using a cluster randomised controlled trial, A DEcision aid for Prenatal Testing for fetal abnormalities (ADEPT) [ISRCTN22532458]. Challenged with the need to ensure that the decision aid best suited the needs of women and health professionals involved General Practitioners (GPs), we explored the potential of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to inform the development phase. In this article we discuss our rationale for, and provide some insights regarding our experience of, using qualitative methods during the development phase of the decision aid.

Assessing cultural and linquistic appropriateness of the Rose Angina questionnaire in three ethnic groups

Introduction. Meeting the needs of migrant groups in Europe requires cross-culturally valid questionnaires, a substantial challenge to researchers. The Rose Angina Questionnaire (RAQ) is an important measure of coronary heart disease prevalence. It consists of seven items that collectively yield a diagnosis of angina. It has been shown to perform inconsistently across some ethnic groups in Britain. This study aimed to assess the need for modifying the RAQ for cross-culturally valid use in the three main ethnic groups in Scotland.

Methods. Interviews were carried out with Pakistani Punjabi speakers (n=26), Chinese Cantonese speakers (n=29) and European-origin English speakers (n=25). Bilingual project workers interviewed participants and provided translation and commentary to the English-speaking researcher. Participants were asked about general and cardiovascular health beliefs and behaviours, and about attitudes to pain and chest pain. They were also asked to comment on their understanding of an existing version of the RAQ in their language.

Results. No dominant themes in the cultural construction of health, pain or cardiovascular knowledge emerged that may significantly influence RAQ response between language groups. Problems were encountered with the Punjabi and Cantonese translations of the RAQ. For example, the translation for “chest” was interpreted by some Pakistani and fewer Chinese women to mean “breasts”. “Walking uphill” was translated in Chinese as “walking the hill”, without stipulation of the direction, so that some Cantonese speakers interpreted the question as meaning walking downhill. In addition, many Chinese interpreted RAQ items to be referring to breathlessness rather than chest pain due to ambiguous wording.

Conclusion. Existing Punjabi and Cantonese versions of the RAQ should be modified before being used in multi-ethnic surveys. Current versions are unlikely to be yielding data that is comparable across groups. Other language versions also require similar investigation to study the cardiovascular health of Europe’s migrant groups.

Review of prevalence data in, and evaluation of methods for cross cultural adaptation of, UK surveys on tobacco and alcohol in ethnic minority groups

Objective To assess the adequacy of cross cultural adaptations of survey questions on self reported tobacco and alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom.

Design Assessment of consistency of data between studies identified through literature review. Studies evaluated with 12 guidelines developed from the research literature on achieving cross cultural comparability.

Results The literature review identified 18 key studies, five of them on national samples. Survey instruments were obtained for 15 of these. The comparison of prevalence data in national surveys showed some important discrepancies, greater for tobacco than for alcohol. For example, prevalence of cigarette smoking in Bangladeshi women was 6% in a national survey in 1994 and 1% in a national survey in 1999; in Chinese men it was 31% in a survey in 1993-4 and 17% in one in 1999; in African-Caribbean men it was 29% in a 1992 survey and 42% in one in 1993-4. The most guidelines met by any study was three, although one study partly met a fourth. Two studies met no guidelines. Only four studies consulted with ethnic minority communities in developing the questionnaire, none checked each language version with all others, and two stated the questionnaire had not been validated.

Conclusions Surveys have not followed best practice in relation to measurement of risk factors in cross cultural settings. There is inconsistency in the prevalence data on smoking provided by different major national UK studies. Users of such data should be aware of their limitations. Research is needed to help achieve linguistic equivalence of survey questions in cross cultural research.

Reinventing liberatory practice : how do we work with groups of which we are not a part?

The research that informed this paper asked: how can we work as allies of groups of which we are not a part? This question is particularly focused on work with people who have experienced colonisation by those who are aligned (by race, class, gender, culture or position) with the colonisers or oppressors. The research brings together literature in the fields of community work, adult education, and feminist and postcolonial theory, with Indigenous viewpoints and experience. An analysis of Indigenous viewpoints identified a range of key ideas about achieving social change.

These ideas are developed into several frameworks, two of which will be discussed here. The first framework offers a way of conceptualising work against oppression and proposes that it must involve a focus on fostering emancipatory agency. Emancipatory agency involves the capacity to know and to act towards social justice ends via meaning making which follows ethical criteria. An ethics of meaning making is proposed which includes a focus on: multiplicity and difference; the partial nature of all knowings; the context / situatedness of meaning; and the critical / reflective attitude in meaning making. This type of agency is dependent on the process of transformative dialogue which is inherently communal and is based on four micro processes: affirming the O/other; encountering, exploring and experiencing of multiple and partial views; moving between positions of self and others; and enacting meaning into the world. A second framework operationalises these ideas in the field of community development, and offers a method of practice.

Redesigning science teacher education to reflect the nature of contemporary science

Evidence that many students are not being captivated by school science has led to advocacy of revising the science curriculum. However, there need to be accompanying changes in science teacher education. This study is designed to lay foundations for innovation in the pre-service education of secondary science teachers, involving a reconceptualisation of the nature of contemporary science and a course structure that links science teaching with broader science public reform initiatives. We held a series of Focus Groups, built around Government Research Priority areas, which brought together people from industry, government, research organisations, and community groups involved in science and its applications. In the groups the participants discussed how science currently operates in their area, ways in which the area will develop in the coming decade, and what implications there are for the nation and its citizens and for science education. What emerged was a concern for public responses to science at a range of levels, and a very different view of science practice and community involvement with science to that represented in current university and school science courses. This was confirmed in interviews with science graduates working in disparate fields, and also focus groups of school students. The paper will report on the insights generated, and explore the implications for redesigning the pre-service education of science teachers.