Articles,
Chapters,
and Books |
Articles |
Chapters in Books |
Books |
| Scholarship, Radicals, and Foreign Soil: Experiential Learning and Global Citizenship.
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Links: Student Learning, University Rewards, and Community Service | A Logic Model of Service-Learning: Tensions and Issues for Further Consideration. |
| Lessons in Local-Global Action and Research | Dark Skins, Dangerous Knowledge: Blacks, Women, and Black Women in the Coming Century
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Microcosm and Breakthroughs: Women, Black Women, and the Conference in Nigeria |
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Scholarship, Radicals, and Foreign Soil: Experiential Learning and Global Citizenship. Bryant, D. C. (under review, Special Issue on International Community Psychology, American Journal of Community Psychology). |
| The paper describes the Social Action Project, an action research exemplifying service-learning that monitored groups in Midwestern, USA; Iboland, Nigeria; and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Qualitative research articulated social contexts using efficacy and resource mobilization theory. The findings support linking micro-macro, not ignoring sociocultural contexts. The cross-cultural contexts highlight further discourse regarding social change in international settings.
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Links: Student Learning, University Rewards, and Community Service Bryant, D. C. (2006, Spring). The Community Psychologist. |
| . This article describes an institutional model for service-learning called the Social Action Project (SOCACT). The SOCACT has operated for fifteen years teaching multi-disciplinary teams of undergraduate students to conduct field research. The project initiatives focus on bringing the knowledge and resources of the university to bear on problems defined by community residents. Participants can then work to change those problems. Students engaged in service learn while also cultivating their own social awareness or managing the philosophical crises of experiential education.
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A Logic Model
of Service-Learning: Tensions and Issues for Further
Consideration. Bryant, D. C. et al. (2006). Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, pp. 47-60. |
| This paper introduces a conceptual model for supporting the continued development of service-learning as a pedagogy of engagement. A logic diagram is used to facilitate understanding of service-learning. The model illustrates the (a) complex elements involved in creating or sustaining a strong program, (b) potential tensions within the field, and (c) evaluation requirements at the level of a program or campus. The logic model also identifies tensions and issues that merit ongoing discussion amongst those committed to the continued development of service-learning in higher education.
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Lessons in Local-Global Action and Research Bryant, D. C. (1996). Journal of Community Psychology, 26, 250-256. |
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This report describes how a community library was identified as a need and was ultimately established in a Nigerian community. The Africa Book Project illustrates the challenges presented in applying theories of empowerment developed in the US in an international setting and how the problems were resolved. The report examines the events through which a resource network was created as an organizing mechanism at both the individual and the collective levels. The report discusses the impact of subjective culture on the implementation of the field research. Lessons which can be applied in US communities, and the theoretical questions which they raise, are presented.
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Dark Skins, Dangerous Knowledge: Blacks, Women, and Black Women in the Coming Century Bryant, D. C. (1995). , pp. 14-21. In, Cultural Zephyr e.V., Berlin, Germany: Fountainhead Tanz Theatre. |
| The article proposes that although academics are often assumed to be irrelevant to real social problems, they make all the difference in defining "knowledge" and in so doing construct "reality." The impact of definitions and images to describe people of color and women are ubiquitous. When new voices are added to the discussion, change occurs. The local-global implications are explored by asking whether the power of naming is not, indeed, the most dangerous power.
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Microcosm and Breakthroughs: Women, Black Women, and the Conference in Nigeria Bryant, D. C. (1992). . Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin, 26(4), 14-15. |
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Report on the first international conference on black women and the African
diaspora. Included discussion of the role of women and minorities in
international development. Cross-cultural psychologists reviewed
presentation of emerging dynamics in race and gender relations in the area
of international development.
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| Special Needs, Special Measures: Working with Homeless and Poor Youth | Building a Power Organization: A Network Team Approach to Grass-Roots Organizing |
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Special Needs, Special Measures: Working with Homeless and Poor Youth. Bryant, D. C., Hanis, J., & Stoner, C. (1999). In Linda Forcey and Ian Harris (Eds.), Peacebuilding for Adolescents: Strategies for Educators and Community Leaders. New York: Peter Lang. |
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Homeless families (parents with children) are
the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Working
with homeless and poor populations involves special issues,
especially when working with youths. Traditional psychological
methods and measures are inadequate to the task of describing their
plight -- even less adequate to explaining it. Using conventional
art/drama therapy when working with homeless youths presents
problems due to the transient nature of the population, the unusual
living conditions these children them themselves in, and the
special psychological needs that creates. The use of qualitative
methods and other community psychology research tools is a more
successful approach to addressing the needs of these
disenfranchised populations. These findings are similar to the
findings of earlier research conducted in a southwestern lower
Michigan city experiencing urban decline. |
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Building a Power Organization: A Network Team Approach to Grass-Roots Organizing Bryant, D. C. (1998). Building a power organization: A network team approach to grass-roots organizing, pp. 55-78. In O. Nnameaka (Ed.), Feminism, Sisterhood, and Power. New Jersey: Red Sea Press. |
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The projects reported here were conducted in two different black neighborhoods in a small US community. They were designed to document the evolution of a resource network created through a community-university partnership. The project is a seminal model for long-term community development, based on the premise that a competent and cohesive community can play a preventative role in issues that impact on their lives. The network team approach is an adaptation of the pyramid model proposed by some to maximize the impact of a limited number of professionals. The network team acts as the agent of change to facilitate the goals of the intervention designed by community residents. The degree of success experienced in each neighborhood hinged on "sociometric stars," key individuals with access to power (social, economic, political), not on whether a community organization formed. |
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My Life as a Table: Asset-Based Community Development Bryant, D. C. (manuscript) Text and practical guide for conducting asset-based community development projects. |
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The best way to describe what I decided is to tell you what one of our network contacts told me. So often in community-based efforts, attendance at a meeting or gathering depends less on the issue at hand than it does on who’s doing the cooking.If the cook is well known and highly respected, you can expect a decent turnout and enthusiastic participation. With this idea in mind, I have organized these writings as if they were the meal. You, Seeker , are invited to take the parts you like.
You will recognize the main dishes. The first six chapters tell how ordinary people learned to address complex social issues in their lives. You will read their stories, wherever possible, in their own words. No percentages or frequencies are reported in the chapters. To do so would imply that the numbers have meaning in the context of the issues project initiatives addressed. They do not. The challenges in living our participants manage are far too complex and, in many instances, too intangible.The issues our community partners faced cannot be quantified, but the stories of how people deal with them can be collected systematically. This is what we have done, using storytelling as science. The chapters form a narrative describing how the project initiatives evolved and the lives that were touched along the way. They are powerful stories and they will suffice even if you don’t read anything else in this book.
They are the meat and potatoes.
The citations and references to raw data are arranged as endnotes for each chapter. Here you will find the trail of evidence to support conclusions or additional theoretical information. The authors and titles listed there will include practitioners as well as academics, trade and professional journals are presented side by side. I believe in seeking knowledge where it can be found, crossing lines between disciplines and professions if that is required. I have assembled this body of knowledge for those who look for such landmarks to judge the credibility of a work. Important as they are to the social science presented here, they are side dishes. Peas and carrots that can be eaten if you choose.
There is no point that could be called "the end" because that implies that there will come a day when the partnerships described in this book will no longer be needed. This is not likely to be the case. Social problems are intransigent and, therefore, there is no single answer to any of the -isms that plague our society. Rather, the question is how to monitor the impact along the way so that any necessary adjustments can be made. The best way to accomplish that is to keep doing strategic planning, periodically asking ourselves, "How far have we come?"
This book documents exactly how far we have come. Consider the lack of a neat ending to be the dessert. Ambivalence is not a bad thing. Change and transformation mean, by definition, that some people are going to feel anger and distress while others feel optimism and enthusiasm. The dessert tray, our discussion about survival of the intervention and the interventionist (Chapter 7), has some tidbits that you will enjoy and others that you may not.
Welcome to our table, Seeker. Enjoy the meal.
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Contact:
Dr. Dé Bryant,
Director
Social Action Project
Psychology Department, Indiana University South Bend
1700 Mishawaka Avenue, South Bend, IN 46634
(574) 520-4447 -- tel (574) 520-4538 -- fax
dbryant@iusb.edu