future research and policy directions

Policy Impact and Future Directions for Behavioral Economics — New Report

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine calls for increased collaboration between behavioral economists and policymakers and examines the future research directions for the field of behavioral economics.  

While economists consider behavioral influences in their work, behavioral economics is a narrower field that incorporates insights from the behavioral sciences into economic models of human behavior. These insights can be applied to policies to encourage people to make choices that, for example, promote health, support financial well-being, or protect the environment. The new report highlights how behavioral economics has built invaluable evidence about why people may act in seemingly irrational ways, how they respond to interventions, and how public policy can be designed to help people make better decisions. 

The committee that wrote the report explored current research in health, retirement benefits, social safety net benefits, climate change, education, and criminal justice. The report provides recommendations for researchers, policymakers, universities, and government units to increase collaboration, pursue research about the application of behavioral economics, integrate behavioral specialists into policy development, and increase investment in interdisciplinary research. 

The report,  Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions ,  is  now available for immediate release .  Members of the committee that wrote the report will present their conclusions and recommendations during a  webinar  on Tuesday, April 25,   starting at 1 p.m. EDT. Speakers are:  

• Alison M. Buttenheim  (committee co-chair), professor and scientific director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, University of Pennsylvania
• Robert A. Moffitt  (committee co-chair), Krieger-Eisenhower Professor, Johns Hopkins University, and member of the National Academy of Sciences  

For inquiries, reporters can contact the Office of News and Public Information at tel. 202-334-2138 or email  [email protected] . 

Featured Publication

Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions

Behavioral economics - a field based in collaborations among economists and psychologists - focuses on integrating a nuanced understanding of behavior into models of decision-making. Since the mid-20th century, this growing field has produced research in numerous domains and has influenced policymaking, research, and marketing. However, little has been done to assess these contributions and review evidence of their use in the policy arena.

Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions examines the evidence for behavioral economics and its application in six public policy domains: health, retirement benefits, climate change, social safety net benefits, climate change, education, and criminal justice. The report concludes that the principles of behavioral economics are indispensable for the design of policy and recommends integrating behavioral specialists into policy development within government units. In addition, the report calls for strengthening research methodology and identifies research priorities for building on the accomplishments of the field to date.

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The future of research: Emerging trends and new directions in scientific inquiry

The world of research is constantly evolving, and staying on top of emerging trends is crucial for advancing scientific inquiry. With the rapid development of technology and the increasing focus on interdisciplinary research, the future of research is filled with exciting opportunities and new directions.

In this article, we will explore the future of research, including emerging trends and new directions in scientific inquiry. We will examine the impact of technological advancements, interdisciplinary research, and other factors that are shaping the future of research.

One of the most significant trends shaping the future of research is the rapid development of technology. From big data analytics to machine learning and artificial intelligence, technology is changing the way we conduct research and opening up new avenues for scientific inquiry. With the ability to process vast amounts of data in real-time, researchers can gain insights into complex problems that were once impossible to solve.

Another important trend in the future of research is the increasing focus on interdisciplinary research. As the boundaries between different fields of study become more fluid, interdisciplinary research is becoming essential for addressing complex problems that require diverse perspectives and expertise. By combining the insights and methods of different fields, researchers can generate new insights and solutions that would not be possible with a single-discipline approach.

One emerging trend in research is the use of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to enhance scientific inquiry. VR/AR technologies have the potential to transform the way we conduct experiments, visualize data, and collaborate with other researchers. For example, VR/AR simulations can allow researchers to explore complex data sets in three dimensions, enabling them to identify patterns and relationships that would be difficult to discern in two-dimensional representations.

Another emerging trend in research is the use of open science practices. Open science involves making research data, methods, and findings freely available to the public, facilitating collaboration and transparency in the scientific community. Open science practices can help to accelerate the pace of research by enabling researchers to build on each other’s work more easily and reducing the potential for duplication of effort.

The future of research is also marked by scientific innovation, with new technologies and approaches being developed to address some of the world’s most pressing problems. For example, gene editing technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 have the potential to revolutionize medicine by allowing scientists to edit DNA and cure genetic diseases. Similarly, nanotechnology has the potential to create new materials with unprecedented properties, leading to advances in fields like energy, electronics, and medicine.

One new direction in research is the focus on sustainability and the environment. With climate change and other environmental issues becoming increasingly urgent, researchers are turning their attention to developing sustainable solutions to the world’s problems. This includes everything from developing new materials and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to developing sustainable agricultural practices that can feed the world’s growing population without damaging the environment.

Another new direction in research is the focus on mental health and wellbeing. With mental health issues becoming increasingly prevalent, researchers are exploring new approaches to understanding and treating mental illness. This includes everything from developing new therapies and medications to exploring the role of lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, and sleep in mental health.

In conclusion, the future of research is filled with exciting opportunities and new directions. By staying on top of emerging trends, embracing interdisciplinary research, and harnessing the power of technological innovation, researchers can make significant contributions to scientific inquiry and address some of the world’s most pressing problems.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, covid-19 and public policy and entrepreneurship: future research directions.

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy

ISSN : 2045-2101

Article publication date: 19 July 2021

Issue publication date: 28 October 2021

Public policy has been an integral part of the response mechanisms used to manage the COVID-19 crisis. As a result, greater attention has been placed on policy planners in terms of how they can enact entrepreneurial ideas that help to alleviate the turmoil surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, the crisis management literature is utilised as a way of understanding future research directions regarding entrepreneurial behaviour in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the existing research on crisis management is conducted with the aim of identifying future research trends. Thus, this article will enable a better understanding of potential future research tracks such as (1) the consequences of the crisis, (2) environmental context, (3) empirical advancement and methodological change, (4) entrepreneurial marketing and branding, (5) crisis management, (6) policy and governance and (7) stress and wellbeing.

There a numerous ways research on COVID-19 can make theoretical, empirical and policy advancement. Therefore, an interdisciplinary perspective is required in order to consider alternative points of view regarding the link between COVID-19, entrepreneurship and public policy.

Originality/value

The ways research on COVID-19, entrepreneurship and public policy can be advanced are discussed in relation to the identified research tracks but also potential theoretical implications for new research.

• Crisis management
• Entrepreneurship
• Environmental context
• Public policy

Ratten, V. (2021), "COVID-19 and public policy and entrepreneurship: future research directions", Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy , Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 445-454. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-12-2020-0102

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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• < Previous chapter

35 Language Policy and Planning: Directions for Future Research

Miguel Pérez-Milans is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Centre for Applied Linguistics in the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, and is currently linked to The University of Hong Kong as Honorary Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education. His latest research projects involve the ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of language ideology, identity, and social interaction in institutional spaces in London, Madrid, Mainland China, and Hong Kong, with specific attention to instability, social change, and interpersonal collusion under conditions of late modernity. He is author of the book Urban Schools and English Language Education in Late Modern China: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography (Routledge Critical Series in Multilingualism, 2013). He has also edited the following monographs in the form of special issues: Multilingual Discursive Practices and Processes of Social Change in Globalizing Institutional Spaces (International Journal of Multilingualism 11[4], 2014); Language Education Policy in Late Modernity: Insights from Situated Approaches (Language Policy 14[2], 2015); and Reflexivity in Late Modernity: Accounts from Linguistic Ethnographies of Youth (AILA Review 29[1], 2016).

James W. Tollefson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His many publications include Planning Language, Planning Inequality (Longman, 1991); Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues (2nd edition, 2013); and, with Amy B. M. Tsui, Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? (2004) and Language Policy, Culture and Identity in Asian Contexts (2007). His books have also been translated into Chinese, Arabic, and Japanese. His current research focuses on language and inequality, mass media in language policy processes, and the role of language in the history of progressive and pacifist movements in the United States.

• Published: 08 May 2018
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The closing chapter explores the consequences that the processes of change taking place under the conditions of late modernity may have for language policy and planning (LPP) research. In particular, it addresses seven key strands of discussion that emerge from the chapters in this Handbook , and which the editors believe will be important in the future of the field, namely (1) the continued importance of critical approaches; (2) the paradox of agency; (3) the need for ethnographic approaches to move from recognition of their value to further engagement with epistemological awareness; (4) the challenge of creating new links between LPP and alternative philosophical traditions, beyond European political theory; (5) the increasing role of media in LPP; (6) the need for expanding collaborations and revisiting long-standing assumptions about community-based research, language rights, and activism; and (7) the imperative of addressing ethical issues in contemporary LPP research through researchers’ reflexivity.

This   Handbook has explored the links between language policy and planning (LPP) and the socioeconomic, institutional, and discursive processes of change taking place under the conditions of late modernity. A key organizational principle of the Handbook has been the tensions between these processes of change and the still-powerful ideological framework of modern nationalism—with its related discourses and policies about language, culture, and identity.

We set out not to produce a retrospective survey of LPP, but rather to explore in detail the important processes of change currently taking place in LPP and the social sciences more broadly (see Chapter 1 by Tollefson & Pérez-Milans). These processes include the following: the growing importance of non-state actors within political and administrative systems that continue to sustain a central role for nation-states; economic neoliberalization, which extends the logic of the market to all spheres of social life, including language, education, and the family, affecting individuals, in Martín Rojo’s words, “even at their most personal levels of existence” (Chapter 27 of this volume); the accompanying forms of resignification of language and communication that reconfigure the role of language in social life, with subsequent impact on the unequal access that different socioeconomic groups have to institutional spaces and symbolic/material resources; new patterns of intensified transnational migration and their shaping of long-standing discourses about language, security, speakers, communities, and language learning; and new media technologies, along with the unpredictable relationships of power that they sometimes introduce in policymaking.

The consequences for LPP of such profound social, economic, and political transformations must be a central focus for LPP research in the years ahead. Although the chapters in this Handbook reveal the diverging circumstances for LPP under different configurations of global and local forces, they also point to several recurring key issues that we believe will be important in the future of LPP research.

Issues for Language Policy and Planning Research

These recurrent issues are concerned with both ontological and epistemological dimensions in LPP research. They can be grouped into seven major strands: (1) the continued importance of critical approaches; (2) the paradox of agency; (3) the need for ethnographic approaches to move from recognition of their value to further engagement with epistemological awareness; (4) the challenge of creating new links between LPP and alternative philosophical traditions, beyond European political theory; (5) the increasing role of media in LPP; (6) the need for expanding collaborations and revisiting long-standing assumptions about community-based research, language rights, and activism; and (7) the imperative of addressing ethical issues in contemporary LPP research through researchers’ reflexivity. In the following, we address each of these issues.

The Continuing Importance of Critical Approaches

Once considered to be marginal to LPP scholarship, critical approaches have become central to some of the most productive research, as evident in many of the chapters in this Handbook . Since the 1990s, the range of critical approaches has broadened from the early focus on historical-structural analysis and language rights to approaches that shed light on everyday interactions in varying local contexts that are linked with national and global policies and discourses (see, in this volume, Kamusella, Chapter 8 , and Chen, Chapter 10 ). During this time, critical approaches have evolved considerably. For example, the analysis of governmentality, which has been productive in critical scholarship since the first decade of the 2000s, has shifted decisively from discourse analysis (e.g., Pennycook, 2002 ) to ethnography, particularly with recent calls for closer attention to new forms of political economy related to late capitalism (see Codó, Chapter 23 ; Pujolar, Chapter 24 ; Relaño-Pastor, Chapter 25 ; Del Percio, Chapter 26 ; and Martín Rojo, Chapter 27 ). Contemporary research on the processes of securitization, insecuritization, and desecuritization (see Chapter 31 by Charalambous, Charalambous, Khan, & Rampton) has also evolved, drawing from ethnography and practice theory in order to bring context and ideology into the conceptualization of security for a better grasp of the ways in which security and language policy are likely to be related in the period ahead.

Although the value of its evolving tradition in LPP seems clear, critical research continues to be misinterpreted. Among the most persistent of these misinterpretations is that it offers a “conspiracy theory” of LPP (e.g., Kamwangamalu, 2013 , p. 548; Spolsky, 2004 , p. 78). This dismissive term misleadingly suggests that critical scholars explain LPP with reference to “semi-secret” policies ( Kamwangamalu, 2013 , p. 548) developed by behind-the-scenes LPP agents who seek to disguise their efforts so that the negative effects of policies they support cannot be linked to them. On the contrary, critical approaches investigate the (usually) open pursuit of policy goals that are in line with the responsibilities, roles, and authorities of powerful institutions, groups, and individuals who dominate policymaking processes. In fact, some misunderstood critical work (e.g., on the role of British state educational authorities [ Pennycook, 1998 ] and the British Council [ Phillipson, 1992 ]) reveals English-promotion efforts over many decades that were almost entirely open to public view, and not at all conspiratorial or secretive in any meaningful sense.

Apart from such misunderstandings, critical approaches are widely recognized as offering useful analyses of some of the most important processes in LPP today: neoliberalism (including the neoliberalization of education), English under globalization, language commodification, the role of multinational corporations, linguistic governmentality, and class and inequality. Several chapters in this volume (by Ricento, Chapter 11 ; Tollefson & Tsui, Chapter 13 ; Frost & McNamara, Chapter 14 ; Codó, Chapter 23 ; Pujolar, Chapter, 24; Relaño-Pastor, Chapter 25 ; Del Percio, Chapter 26 ; and Martín Rojo, Chapter 27 ) demonstrate how critical approaches can productively engage with such processes. These chapters also challenge our understanding of the ways in which critical research shapes the meaning of LPP. As LPP becomes a window for exploring how old forms of socioeconomic inequality get (re)produced and legitimated under changing institutional and cultural conditions, the field is positioned as a discursive domain. That is to say, the prevalent ideas about what counts (and what does not) as LPP, at a given time, cannot be detached from the processes of inequality that LPP scholarship investigates (see Chapter 2 by Heller).

Nevertheless, the many achievements of critical research do not prevent critical approaches from needing to continue to evolve. As Jaspers points out in Chapter 34 , too often critical scholars’ attention to social (in)equality is reduced to an educational issue, which thereby ignores economic class or other factors that may severely constrain the ability of educational institutions and individuals working in them to confront the deep roots of inequality. In this regard, Block’s call in Chapter 28 for critical scholars to develop a more explicitly theorized notion of class may permit more productive engagement with these broader forces that extend far beyond the institutions of education.

The Paradox of Agency

As David Cassels Johnson notes in Chapter 3 , beginning in the late 1990s, historical-structural approaches were criticized for specific limitations that tended to make them overly deterministic, thereby underestimating the role of human agency, particularly of teachers, and for not fully describing language-planning processes in which local actors may exert significant influence over policy and practice. Following this critique, an increasing focus on situated practices has opened a wider window into the full complexity of language policymaking. Indeed, much of the most productive recent work in LPP has involved shedding light on new examples of tensions and contradictions arising from the localized production, circulation, and appropriation of language policies across different institutional and geographical contexts. This greater interest in situated practice has also revealed how the institutional and social are (re)produced, enacted, and made sense of in the discourses of everyday life, thereby expanding the critical lens beyond the historical and structural approaches of the 1990s (see, e.g., Jaworski, Chapter 33 ).

Yet this epistemological shift in LPP is not free from dilemmas concerned with a recurring question in the social sciences: How do we conceptualize the relationship between the theorization of agency and the one who acts (i.e., the self)? In contrast to cognitive-based developments that shaped European and North American concepts of the self in the social sciences from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, 1 alternative approaches began in the late twentieth century to emphasize the self as a function of social and political context. But these approaches have often given different prominence to agency or structure in the explanation of how the self and the social world interact, depending on whether they align more closely with research philosophies stemming from objectivism, in which attention to societal structures predominates over analysis of social actors’ actions (e.g., scientific realism), or subjectivism, which prioritizes agency (e.g., social constructionism). Marxist approaches, for example, have leaned more toward structural forces and determinism, while postmodernism has drawn more heavily from constructionism.

These two broad trends in research philosophies have been influential in LPP, where the foregrounding of social actors’ practices and forms of making sense coexists with approaches that give greater attention to historical and structural forces. We do not argue that this paradox must be resolved, though we believe there are existing developments in the social sciences that address this paradox and deserve further attention in LPP research. One such development is contemporary social theory, which, for some decades now, has made serious theoretical efforts to account for the intersections of agency and structure, thus counterbalancing the long-standing polarization of agency/structure that often appears in LPP studies in the form of the micro/macro dichotomy, still widely in use in the field (see explicit discussions of this issue in Johnson, Chapter 3 ; Martin-Jones & da Costa Cabral, Chapter 4 ; and Pérez-Milans, Chapter 6 ). Alternative sociological theories are available to LPP scholars, among which the two most influential are structuration ( Giddens, 1982 ) and critical realism ( Archer, 1998 ; Bhaskar, 1989 ; Elder-Vass, 2015 ; Hartwig, 2007 ); whereas the former argues for the mutually constitutive nature of human agency and structural properties of social systems, the latter maintains that they should be analyzed separately, because structure precedes agency in social structure reproduction and therefore in analytical importance.

Although more work needs to be done in the epistemological formalization of critical realism in the language/discourse disciplines, the underpinnings of structuration theory have explicitly permeated contemporary developments in areas such as micro-sociology (Cicourel, 1978 , 1980 , 1992 , 1996 ; Goffman, 1971 , 1974 , 1981 ), sociolinguistics ( Blommaert, 2010 ; Heller, 2002 ; Martín Rojo, 2010 ; Rampton, 2006 ), and linguistic anthropology ( Agha, 2007 ; Silverstein, 2005 ). Such work has provided relevant analytical perspectives with which to capture the ways in which historical products of institutions and socioeconomic structures, such as moral orders and conventional models/systems of social relations, get produced, recontextualized, entextualized, legitimated, and shaped within daily intersubjective discursive practices ordered across space and time (see, for instance, the analyses offered in Pérez-Milans, Chapter 6 ; Unamuno & Bonnin, Chapter 19 ; Relaño-Pastor, Chapter 25 ; Del Percio, Chapter 26 ; and Jaworski, Chapter 33 ). Increased effort to incorporate such work in LPP promises important benefits for theoretically informed agency/structure analysis.

Despite important work revealing the problematic consequences of the agency-structure distinction, the tension between different approaches to agency in LPP is not likely to disappear any time soon. The challenge for future research is therefore to sort through and make explicit the underlying ontological, epistemological, and personal/social underpinnings for researchers’ claims. This effort may involve engagement with approaches that no longer privilege discourse in the study of social change, but instead focus more explicitly on the material realities of people understood not merely as disembodied life forms embedded in discursive systems, but rather as concrete human beings with substantial and inescapable material needs (cf. critical realism). 2 We look forward to future research that grapples with these important issues.

Ethnographic Research: From Recognition to Further Epistemological Awareness

With the 1990s and beginning of the twenty-first century as the key turning points, ethnography has gained momentum relatively late in LPP research, particularly if compared to the social sciences more widely, in which the ethnographic turn was initiated in the 1960s. Yet, there is a well-established consensus today in our field on the contributions of ethnographic approaches to understanding the ways in which policies are interpreted and appropriated by social actors, and the consequences of these local processes for participants and institutions involved (see overviews in Johnson, Chapter 3 ; and Martin-Jones & da Costa Cabral, Chapter 4 ). The value of ethnographic approaches is well attested in this Handbook through numerous chapters that report ethnographically on case studies in different contexts, including online (e.g., Lenihan, Chapter 32 ) and offline environments (e.g., Wodak & Savski, Chapter 5 ; Unamuno & Bonnin, Chapter 19 ; Relaño-Pastor, Chapter 25 ; and Del Percio, Chapter 26 ) or a combination of both (e.g., Pérez-Milans, Chapter 6 ). There are also calls for integrating ethnographic orientations into the study of relatively new LPP areas such as that of linguistic landscapes (see Hult, Chapter 17 ). Together, these contributions remind us that there is no such a thing as one way of doing ethnography of LPP. Instead, different ethnographic traditions, each with its own disciplinary roots, coexist in language policy research.

While all of the ethnographic chapters in this volume look at the discursive organization of institutions with the main goal of describing the links between local practices, institutional orders, and wider socioeconomic processes of change, they draw from different bodies of literature, depending on whether they stress critical discourse studies (Wodak & Savski, Chapter 5 ), ethnography of communication (Johnson, Chapter 3 ), linguistic anthropology of language ideologies (Martin-Jones & da Costa Cabral, Chapter 4 ), linguistic anthropology/sociolinguistics of the indexicality of language (Pérez-Milans, Chapter 6 ), ethnographic sociolinguistics (Unamuno & Bonnin, Chapter 19 ) or institutional ethnography (Del Percio, Chapter 26 ). In some cases, the boundaries between these approaches are fuzzy, though overall they reveal slightly different analytical sensitivities with regard to the analysis of the interrelation of texts, contexts, and meanings (see Pérez-Milans, Chapter 6 , for a discussion of this issue).

The implications of acknowledging this apparently minor variation are vast, in our view, since such different sensitivities reveal an aspect of ethnographic research sometimes ignored in the social sciences: that ethnographic research is not just a methodological tool, but rather an epistemological framework ( Mason, 2002 ); that is to say, ethnographic research entails more complexity than just adding interviews or observations to a given research design. Instead, doing ethnography of LPP involves asking particular types of questions that are tied to specific assumptions about what counts as relevant knowledge and, accordingly, about what are the most appropriate ways of collecting and analyzing data (even if interview-based, as pointed out by Pérez-Milans in Chapter 6 ), and these in turn have ramifications for different subdisciplines and areas of inquiry in language and communication studies. Accordingly, we believe that LPP would benefit from more epistemologically informed discussions of ethnographic alternatives. This would help the field move beyond recognition of the ethnographic lens as appropriate, toward a more detailed exploration of existing ethnographic traditions and their corresponding intellectual foundations. These discussions would allow room for more explicit acknowledgment of the different analytical sensitivities that such traditions bring with them, which in turn may create better conditions for a fruitful dialogue among ethnographically oriented approaches in LPP research.

Creating New Links between Language Policy and Planning and Alternative Philosophical Traditions

Several chapters in this Handbook (Peled, Chapter 7 ; Kamusella, Chapter 8 ; Ives, Chapter 9 ; and Ricento, Chapter 11 ) argue that LPP scholarship should work to develop more nuanced understandings of the important philosophical traditions that underlie theorizing in the social sciences, and specifically to systematically explore the links between LPP and political theory. In particular, they make the case for explicit attention to the value of European political philosophy for critically examining fundamental concepts such as language, speaker, nation , and community . We concur with these calls for greater connections between LPP and political theory and for continuing analysis of the philosophical foundations of nationalism. Yet it is also important to acknowledge that the chapters in this volume reveal a major limitation in LPP: the almost exclusive attention to European philosophical traditions.

This limitation is particularly problematic when LPP scholarship examines contexts outside Europe. In mainland China, Southeast Asia, or Japan, for example, Herderian (or other European) concepts of language, nation , and state may be less useful than Confucian or Daoist understandings of these concepts. Ives points out in Chapter 9 , for example, that Mozi, the fifth-century b.c.e . pre-Confucian Chinese philosopher, offered a theory of language in which the emperor played a central role in planning for language unification ( Pocock, 1973 , p. 42); in many forms, the issue of language planning was addressed repeatedly during the subsequent history of Confucian philosophy (see Hall & Ames, 1998 ). A second area in which the Confucian tradition may be relevant to critical review of LPP is language rights. As many analyses explain (e.g., Laitin & Reich, 2003 ), the European language rights discourse rests on a liberal democratic notion of autonomous individuality and prioritizes a universal set of individual political freedoms and privileges over communal and environmental responsibilities. In response, the 1993 ASEAN Bangkok Declaration adopted a discourse that prioritized economic and cultural rights and rejected human rights universalism (see de Bary, 1998 ). This alternative conception of rights, however, must be understood in conjunction with its declared philosophical tradition, as well as with the political economies that underpin it (see Pérez-Milans, 2013 , for a critique of the re-contextualization of Asian alternatives in the official discourse of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”). 3 In order for LPP to more fully explore its links with political philosophy, such a tradition deserves attention. Other contexts, such as India and Malaysia, offer equally relevant platforms for the exploration of links between LPP and political theory.

A closely related issue is that LPP scholars are emerging in greater numbers from educational systems outside Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. For this reason, too, it is important for the field of LPP to examine through a broader lens the ontological and epistemological traditions that underlie LPP research, and to work toward systematically incorporating alternative traditions such as Confucianism or Daoism into LPP theory. A project to widen the lens of LPP may benefit from creating new links between, for example, LPP, national studies in China, and Sinology. Such an explicit effort to move scholarship from China and elsewhere in East, South, and Southeast Asia toward the center of LPP research may also have the advantage of helping to moderate the privileged position currently held by European and North American scholars.

The Role of Media in Language Policy and Planning

As Chapter 15 by Gao and Shao points out, although there is a vast scholarly literature in media studies focused on framing and media effects, very little research in LPP has examined the impact of mass media on language policymaking. How do mass media shape the policies that are adopted in different social and political contexts? How may mass media be a policy actor in policymaking processes? Such questions focus attention on language policy debates as a form of political communication ( Chilton, 2004 ) in which multiple state and non-state actors articulate their competing social visions, comprising discursive representations of languages, speakers, competing actors in policymaking, and specific language policy alternatives (e.g., see the analysis of the role of Man Wui Ho in Chen’s Chapter 10 , about Hong Kong). These competing representations are usually grounded in social, economic, and political antagonisms, articulated by the state and by political actors aligned with the state, and by actors who resist or subvert dominant state discourses and the policies they promote. As Gao and Shao reveal in Chapter 15 , mass media in some contexts may play a decisive role in articulating these competing representations and the language policies associated with them, and in determining which policies are legitimized in public debates.

One focus of LPP research on mass media, therefore, should be the political and discursive processes by which diverse actors may establish a “plurality of struggles” ( Laclau, 2005 ) in which their separate efforts combine into broader language movements. In the United States, for example, middle-class English speakers who support bilingualism for ideological reasons and dual-language immersion for instrumental reasons have joined forces with poor and working-class Latinos who support Spanish-language maintenance, language rights, and bilingual education. Under what conditions do groups with such divergent social networks, economic statuses, and language repertoires form alliances to support specific language policies? Answering this question is central to understanding how particular policy alternatives are legitimized and adopted.

In addition, Silberstein argues in Chapter 16 that mass media often constrain the voices that may be heard in policy debates, legitimizing some actors and delegitimizing others. How are some groups blocked from effective participation in policymaking? This question, which requires applications of discourse analysis to the mass media context, raises fundamental issues about policy actors’ access to policymaking processes and to the networks of power that determine policy alternatives.

Whereas social media raise similar questions about the role of media in policymaking, Lenihan demonstrates in Chapter 32 that access to social media differs from access to mass media. With opportunities for direct participation as media producers, individuals and groups on social media potentially have direct access to participation in policymaking that may not be available in the mass media context. Individuals on social media can serve as policy practitioners and as policy analysts, in some cases replacing official actors, as Lenihan shows in the case of Irish translation. In the still emerging research area of social media, LPP scholarship can focus attention on social media as a form of language policymaking with new affordances for policy actors.

Community-Based Research, Language Rights, and Activism: Expanding Collaborations, Revisiting Assumptions

Since its origins, LPP has always been closely connected with the struggles, concerns, and dilemmas faced by various types of communities, ranging from families (see Curdt-Christiansen, Chapter 21 ) to indigenous groups and linguistic minorities (May, Chapter 12 ; McCarty, Chapter 18 ; Unamuno & Bonnin, Chapter 19 ; and Watson-Gegeo, Gegeo, & Fitoʻo, Chapter 20 ), to Deaf communities (Quadros, Chapter 22 ). These chapters reveal the links between policies promoting language maintenance and revitalization, on the one hand, and democratic forms of political participation and decision making, on the other.

McCarty, for example, in Chapter 18 , not only analyzes the forces contributing to language endangerment and the opportunities for language maintenance; in addition, she advocates forms of sociolinguistic and sociopolitical change that are necessary to sustain endangered languages. Her decades of commitment to language maintenance efforts among speakers of Navajo, as well as her work to extend what she has learned to other communities, exemplifies a complex mix of analysis and action, of research and activism, and of professional and personal commitments. Similarly, Watson-Gegeo, Gegeo, and Fitoʻo (Chapter 20 ) articulate their commitment to critical community language policy and planning in education in Malaita, Solomon Islands. Their decades of research in their home community (Gegeo and Fitoʻo are from Malaita) involve not only scholarly analysis of language in education, but also direct action within community organizations to develop alternatives to the failed state educational system.

Though research and activist agendas may not always overlap, we believe it is necessary that LPP researchers continue to foster collaborations with those who engage in political work to challenge dominant language ideologies that reinforce entrenched systems of linguistic inequality. Indeed, we agree with Piller (2016) when she reminds us that bringing social justice into our research agendas requires understanding linguistic disadvantage as a form of structural disadvantage.

But bringing a social justice focus is not free from dilemmas and contradictions. First, academic research is not always perceived by activists as the most suitable platform for addressing social inequality, particularly in the context of contemporary academic institutions, which increasingly play a role in the unequal distribution of wealth by adopting corporate forms of organization that primarily serve the interests of privileged groups (see, for instance, Holborow, 2015 ). Nevertheless, in our view, there is still room for action, and these very institutions that LPP scholars work for are also made publicly accountable based on their ability to reach out to non-academic stakeholders and other community organizations that tackle peoples’ pressing life struggles. Second, pursuing a social justice agenda in LPP research is fraught with ontological and epistemological tensions, forcing LPP scholars to continuously revisit our own assumptions so that we do not end up reinforcing the entrenched systems of linguistic inequality that we are trying to confront.

With this self-revisiting spirit in mind, and in line with Li Wei’s Chapter 29 , we believe LPP researchers interested in community-based work should critically reconsider long-standing conceptions of language, dialect , and identity that may fail to capture the complicated linguistic ecology and patterns of mobility of multilingual groups. In fact, LPP scholarship will be well served by this process of continually revisiting important concepts in light of ongoing collaborations with community activists. This effort equally applies to language revitalization actions, which, in their attempt to empower linguistic minorities, have long privileged so-called native speakers, as argued by O’Rourke, Soler, and Darquennes in Chapter 30 when they encourage LPP researchers to foreground the lived experiences and challenges that individuals face as they become (and are recognized as) speakers of another language.

Reconsideration of conceptions of language, dialect, and identity also demands careful engagement with notions of language rights that are linked with ideas of European nationalism and that may not be relevant to actual language use in many multilingual communities. Thus, while acknowledging Stephen May’s argument in Chapter 12 that policies promoting language rights offer potential for social and political stability and the protection of certain linguistic minorities, we also note Freeland’s (2013) important finding that groups supporting language rights may fundamentally disagree about what that means. Accordingly, Freeland calls for LPP to deconstruct and reinvent the language rights discourse “in light of the local language ideologies of the target groups whose rights are to be vouchsafed” (p. 109).

Ethical Issues and Researchers’ Reflexivity

Combining research and activism raises important ethical issues that are increasingly foregrounded in LPP scholarship. In their introductory textbook on research methods in LPP, Hult and Johnson (2015) encourage LPP researchers’ “public engagement” (p. 233) by acknowledging their potential contribution to schools and communities, to public policy debates (including various forms of media involvement and public appearances), and to interactions with politicians and policymakers. Such engagement has a long history in LPP, perhaps most notably in Joshua Fishman’s decades-long commitment to language policies supporting language maintenance and multilingualism. Despite the esteem with which Fishman’s public commitments have been viewed by LPP practitioners and researchers, however, engaged scholars are sometimes criticized for their failure to maintain objectivity in their research; such criticisms emerge from the positivist tradition in the social sciences, which assumes that objective data and analysis must be the focus of research, and that researchers should remain disinterested and neutral about issues of power, inequality, and social justice (see Miller et al., 2012 , for a discussion of relevant issues). In addition, qualitative research, which raises important issues about scholars’ positionality ( Lin, 2015 ), increasingly entails notions of reflexivity that must be incorporated into the research process.

A consideration of the researcher’s positionality requires what Peled in Chapter 7 calls “ethical reflection” through systematic forms of moral reasoning about the researcher’s role. This attention to ethical issues extends beyond a concern for analyzing power relations and structural systems; instead, its aim, according to Peled, is to “identify the moral wrongs that [systems] may exhibit, and develop alternative structures that are capable of righting them.” Such ethical judgments require consideration of a full range of epistemological issues, such as how knowledge is represented in research, whose knowledge counts as relevant to research, and the ways that participants are involved in designing research questions and gathering and reporting data. Thus standards for LPP scholarship increasingly require consideration of how the researcher’s subjectivity, including ideologies, experiences, and values, can shape the research process. In addition, researchers are expected to reflect carefully on how communities’ voices can be integrated into research: what research may be important to them, how it should be conducted and reported, and what benefits may accrue to the community (see Canagarajah & Stanley, 2015 ).

Commitments by researchers to community needs have led some LPP scholars to reconceptualize the research process as collaborative and transformative social practice, involving deep engagement with communities and requiring of researchers a continuing personal and epistemological reflexivity (see Langemeyer & Schmachtel-Maxfield, 2013 ). Scholarship thus driven by the effort to find alternatives to all forms of structural inequality places the ethical concern for social justice and the researcher’s reflexivity at the center of the research agenda. Doing so ultimately may require that researchers take on new roles as apprentices to community mentors in experiences that matter to the community ( Bishop, 2005 ). Accordingly, the process of ethical reflection may demand profound changes in researchers’ identities. Expressing the close connection between the processes of social change and personal transformation, Man-Chiu Amai Lin wrote after more than two years of activist research on a community-driven language revitalization initiative in a Truku village in eastern Taiwan: “The project can effect change only to the extent that I have been changed” ( Lin & Yudaw, 2016 , p. 761).

We began this Handbook by acknowledging that particular forms of LPP emerged from the historic juncture at the middle of the twentieth century—the end of the colonial period—characterized by what were considered at the time to be the emerging “language problems” of new developing nations, requiring national language policies for the specific stated goals of modernization, development, and political and sociocultural integration. Now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the world is at another historic juncture, characterized by globalization, the apparent triumph of neoliberalism, the rise of neo-fascist social movements and political parties, and a depth of economic inequality not seen since the 1920s. LPP must respond to this crisis—which is a crisis of both capitalism and democracy 4 —with new research directions, the forms of which are still emerging. We have tried in this volume to articulate the outlines of some of these new directions.

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to John O’Regan for reading an earlier draft of this chapter.

Two cognitive approaches were particularly influential in this understanding of the self. One, traceable in the European philosophical tradition to Thomas Hobbes, may be termed the materialist discourse, evident in neurophysiology, sociobiology, and Freudian and behaviorist psychology, and exemplified in language studies by the work of B. F. Skinner as well as in recent advances in neurobiology. The second is the mentalist or formalist discourse, evident in Platonic idealism, Cartesian philosophy, and phenomenology, and exemplified in language studies by Chomsky’s theory of mind.

One criticism of discursive approaches in the social sciences and humanities is their tendency to understate the importance of individuals’ material reality. For example, the concern that the concrete life problems of real people may be ignored in speculative discussions in philosophy is succinctly captured by Hall and Ames (1998) as follows: “It is one thing . . . to realize in some abstract and speculative manner a vision of the harmony of . . . value and . . . self-expression . . . and quite another thing to come to grips with the concreteness of temporal experience. At the level of lived experience there seems to be no way of overcoming the concrete conflicts between the knowledge-bearing institutions, the propertied interests, and those technological activities that order the instrumentalities of society” (p. 13).

The European model of human rights tends to be state-centered and founded on the tradition of natural law and essentialist concepts of individual agency. In contrast, the Confucian critique of universal human rights involves not only a greater emphasis on communal responsibility, social harmony, and economic/cultural rights over individual political rights; it also entails a different foundational moral philosophy, grounded not on transcendent concepts of the rationalism of autonomous individuals, but rather on a presumption of social identity in which the individual cannot be separated from the social, cultural, and historical context. Henry Rosemont Jr. (1988) captures the Confucian critique of rational individualism as follows: “Contemporary [European] moral philosophy, the Confucian texts suggest, is no longer grounded in the real hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, ideas and attitudes of flesh and blood human beings. Since the time of Descartes, Western philosophy—not alone moral philosophy—has increasingly abstracted a purely cognizing activity away from persons and determined that this use of logical reasoning in a disembodied ‘mind’ is the choosing, autonomous essence of individuals, which is philosophically more foundational than are actual persons; the latter being only contingently who they are, and therefore of no great philosophical significance” (p. 175). An analysis of language rights controversies, particularly those involving China, Japan, and Taiwan, requires attention to such underlying issues.

Richard Posner, a conservative economist and a judge in the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, terms the current period a crisis of “capitalist democracy” (2010), whereas Wolfgang Streek, in the New Left Review , refers to the crisis of “democratic capitalism” (2011). The difference in terminology may reflect their differing underlying social theories, particularly the relative importance of structural economic factors.

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Donaldson MS, Mohr JJ; Institute of Medicine (US). Exploring Innovation and Quality Improvement in Health Care Micro-Systems: A Cross-Case Analysis. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001.

Exploring Innovation and Quality Improvement in Health Care Micro-Systems: A Cross-Case Analysis.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND POLICY

• Limitations of This Research

There are limitations to all sampling strategies and to qualitative research, in particular. The strength of this method was that the sample selection used input from a pool of reognized experts in the organization, delivery, and improvement of health care. Even with a pool of recognized experts, it is reasonable to expect that some high performing micro-systems were overlooked. It was also possible that less than high performing micro-systems were included. In fact, a concern was how to ensure that the micro-systems included in the study were high performing or successful micro-systems, and probes were included in the interview to assess what evidence micro-systems might offer to validate statements about their level of performance. We did not, however, seek validation from documents or other written materials. Although the intent of the sampling strategy was to study high performing micro-systems, a very small number of apparently negative cases were useful for comparison. More importantly, as expected, each site had some areas of very strong performance and other areas that were undistinguished, and they formed a natural cross-case comparison group. Although the sites were selected because of expert opinion, the database is limited by being self report. It is possible that the leaders of the micro-systems had an interest in making their micro-system appear to be better than it is, and we did not have any independent verification of their assertions. For this reason, we did not make any judgments about the validity of respondents' assertions and have limited the analysis to descriptive summaries and themes based on the respondents' own words.

TABLE 18 Micro-System Examples of Investment in Improvement

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TABLE 19 Micro-System Examples of Alignment of Role and Training

A second limitation of this study was that the interviews were not tape-recorded to provide a raw data “gold standard” for later reference. For this reason, we went to considerable effort to ensure the quality of note taking as described in the methods section, and we obtained respondents' consent to follow-up with them to clarify notes. Follow-up was necessary in only a few instances. The notes were voluminous and rich in detail.

A third limitation is that for most of the interviews, one respondent represented each of the forty-three micro-systems. A more comprehensive assessment would include interviews with at least one person from each of the key roles within the micro-system, including patients. Such tradeoffs in qualitative analysis between breadth and depth are inevitable, 31 but given that this was an exploratory study, we decided to include as many micro-systems as possible with follow-up in later studies.

Research currently underway will expand on this work by taking a more comprehensive look at individual micro-systems and the outcomes of care provided to determine if high performing micro-systems achieve superior results for patients.

• Directions for Further Research

This research has been exploratory in that it is the first systematic look at health care micro-systems. The power of the research is that it gave a voice to individual micro-systems and provided a way to explore them while creating constructs that may be generalizable to other micro-systems. It has begun the work of defining and characterizing health care micro-systems. The greater value of this analysis will be to go beyond the findings of this research to develop tools to help existing micro-systems improve and to replicate and extend the achievements of these micro-systems.

The basic concept of health care micro-systems—small, organized groups of providers and staff caring for a defined population of patients—is not new. The key components of micro-systems (patients, populations, providers, activities, and information technology) exist in every health care setting. However, current methods for organizing and delivering health care, preparing future health professionals, conducting health services research, and formulating policy have made it difficult to recognize the interdependence and function of the micro-system.

Further analysis of the database would likely yield additional themes. All can be the basis of hypothesis testing for continued work. For example, further work might establish criteria of effectiveness and test whether the features identified as the eight themes are predictive of effectiveness. More refined or additional questions might clarify aspects of the general themes that are critical. More intensive data gathering, for example, of multiple members of the micro-system, including patients could validate results and expand our understanding of these micro-systems.

Two questions were central as we undertook this study: (1) would the term micro-system be meaningful to clinicians in the field? (2) Would they participate and give us detailed enough information to draw inferences? The answers to both questions were clearly: Yes.

Overall, we discovered that the idea of a micro-system was very readily understood by all we interviewed. They had no difficulty in identifying and describing their own micro-systems and, when appropriate because they directed several (such as several intensive care units), differentiating among them in terms of their characteristics.

The study was assisted in its work by an extremely able and distinguished steering group and Subcommittee whose reputations in the field unquestionably enabled us to secure the participation of nearly all who were invited despite our requesting an hour and a half of a busy clinician's time. Many of those interviewed willingly went on for a longer than the allotted 90 minutes and sent us additional materials. Some who were interrupted by urgent clinical business rescheduled time to complete the interviews.

Although this was a selected—not a randomly sampled—group, and there was clearly great enthusiasm and of innovative work going on at the grass-roots level. Many of those interviewed expressed clear ideas about how they were reorganizing practices, their principles for doing so, and their commitment to an ongoing process. Respondents described their early limited successes or outright failures. We heard what had and had not been successful as they tried to disseminate their practices throughout their organizations. We believe there is much that could profitably learned and shared beyond the individual sites that has not been yet been pulled together by a unifying conceptual framework or effective mechanism for deploying what is being learned.

We were struck by two findings in particular: First, the importance of leadership at the macro-system as well as clinical level; and second, the general lack of information infrastructure in these practices. Micro-system leaders repeatedly stressed the importance of executive and governance-level support. This support was singled out repeatedly as a sine qua non to their ability to succeed. It was also apparent that although some steps have been taken to incorporate the explosion of information technologies that are being deployed for managing patient information, free-standing practices as well as much of clinical practice within hospitals have only begun to integrate data systems, use them for real-time clinical practice, or as information tools for improving the quality of care for a patient population. The potential is enormous, but as yet, almost untapped. They appear to be at a threshold of incorporating information technologies into daily practice. The potential created by the development of knowledge servers, decision support tools, consumer informatics 32 continuous electronic patient-clinician communication, and computer-based electronic health records puts most of these micro-systems almost at “time zero” for what will likely be dramatic changes in the integration of information for real-time patient care and a strong baseline for future comparison.

As research on micro-systems moves forward, it will be important to transfer what has been learned from research on teams and organizations to new research that will be conducted on micro-systems. For example, research that will be helpful includes information about the different stages of development and maturity of the organization, creating the organizational environment to support teams, socializing new members (clinicians and staff) to the team, environments that support micro-systems, the characteristics of effective leadership, and how micro-systems can build linkages that result in well-coordinated care within and across organizational boundaries.

• IOM Quality of Care Study

This study was intended to provide more than a database for research, however. It was undertaken to provide an evidence base for the IOM Committee on the Quality of Health Care in America in formulating its conclusions and recommendations. Because that committee was charged with the formulation of recommendations about changes that can lead to threshold improvement in the quality of care in this country, its members believed that it was extremely important to draw not only on their expertise and the literature but also on the best evidence it could find of excellent performance and to do so in a systematic way as exemplified by this study. As that study was not limited by type of health care, the goals of such a project necessitated drawing from a wide range of sites serving a variety of patient populations. It also suggests a sample size that for qualitative analytic methods was quite broad but not unwieldy. The number of sites interviewed—43—served these purposes well. We had several of each “kind” of micro-system (e.g., primary care, critical care) but they varied in location, composition, and in their own approaches to organizing and delivering care, thus providing a very rich database of observation. That report, which is expected to be published in early 2001, will use the responses and analysis described in this technical report to underpin its recommendations about how health care micro-systems, macro-systems, and other organizational forms that have not yet emerged, can improve their performance.

• Cite this Page Donaldson MS, Mohr JJ; Institute of Medicine (US). Exploring Innovation and Quality Improvement in Health Care Micro-Systems: A Cross-Case Analysis. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001. CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND POLICY.
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Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice (2016)

Chapter: 7 future directions for research, policy, and practice, 7 future directions for research, policy, and practice.

The committee was charged with critically examining the state of the science on the biological and psychosocial consequences of bullying and on the risk factors and protective factors that, respectively, increase or decrease bullying behavior and its consequences. The previous chapters in this report have addressed these two primary tasks. Despite the challenges, as detailed in Chapter 2 , in deriving consistent prevalence rates for bullying across major national-level surveys, bullying and cyberbullying in the United States is common and warrants commensurate attention at the federal, state, and local levels. Chapter 3 focused on the social contexts that can either attenuate or exacerbate (i.e., moderate) the effect of individual characteristics on bullying behavior. In addition, as described in Chapter 3 , bullying does not just affect the children and youth who are most directly involved in the bullying dynamic. Bullying is a group phenomenon in which peers play a number of different complex roles. As discussed explicitly in Chapter 4 and reflected throughout this report, bullying behavior is a serious public health issue with significant negative consequences, in both the short and long term, for the children who are bullied, the children who perpetrate bullying behavior, and children who are both perpetrators and targets of bullying.

As stated in Chapter 5 , the committee finds that universal prevention programs do exist that either have demonstrated effectiveness or hold promise for reducing bullying and related behavioral and mental health problems, although the effectiveness of current programs is relatively modest. Multicomponent schoolwide programs appear to be most effective at reducing bullying. Moreover, the committee finds that while federal civil rights and antidiscrimination laws can offer some protections against bul-

lying, these laws have important limitations. State anti-bullying laws differ substantially with regard to how bullying is defined and the scope of schools’ authority to respond to bullying, as noted in Chapter 6 .

In this chapter, the committee presents its overall conclusions and recommendations as they relate to the study’s statement of task. In addition, the committee provides recommendations for addressing the research needed to improve policy and practice that address bullying behavior. Finally, the committee summarizes a proposed research agenda, in which gaps in the current evidence base are noted.

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING SCIENCE, POLICY, AND PRACTICE

Although the committee identified specific conclusions in each chapter, below are the major overall conclusions for the report.

Definitional and measurement inconsistencies in national datasets lead to a variation in estimates of the prevalence of youth being bullied; considerably less is known about the number of perpetrators, and even less is known about the number of bystanders. The prevalence of bullying at school ranges from 17.9 percent to 30.9 percent of youth, whereas the prevalence of cyber victimization ranges from 6.9 percent to 14.8 percent of youth. However, the prevalence of bullying among some groups of youth (e.g., youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender [LGBT], youth with disabilities) appears to be even higher. ( Chapter 2 )

Youth are embedded in multiple contexts, ranging from peer and family to school and community. Each of these contexts can affect individual characteristics of youth (e.g., race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and being the perpetrator or target of bullying, or both. ( Chapter 3 )

Bullying behavior has significant negative consequences on physical, mental, and behavioral health and on academic performance. Bullying behavior leads to biological changes, although more research is needed to fully understand how changes in the brain associated with bullying lead to increased risk for mental and physical health problems . ( Chapter 4 )

Multicomponent schoolwide programs appear to be the most effective approach for reducing bullying and should be implemented along with rigorous evaluations of their effects when applied to large populations of youth. Some widely used approaches such as zero tolerance policies and school assemblies are not effective at reducing bullying and may even be harmful; they should be discontinued with resources redirected to evidence-based programs. ( Chapter 5 )

Law and policy can play a significant role in strengthening state and

local efforts to prevent, identify, and respond to bullying . However, data on how these laws and policies affect the prevalence of bullying and its consequences are extremely limited. ( Chapter 6 )

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MOVING FORWARD

The committee has developed seven recommendations to make progress in monitoring, preventing, and intervening in bullying. These recommendations are organized around the following four categories: Surveillance and Monitoring, State and Local Policies, Preventive Intervention Programming, and the Social Media Industry. The committee’s recommendations are described in more detail below, and the chapter-specific conclusions that support these recommendations are identified.

Surveillance and Monitoring

The first two recommendations are concerned with addressing the challenges in reliably and ethically measuring the incidence of bullying and surveilling its prevalence.

Recommendation 7.1: The U.S Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission, which are engaged in the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention interagency group, should foster use of a consistent definition of bullying. These agencies should

• Promote wide adoption and use of this definition by all federal surveillance efforts on bullying prevalence, by investigators studying bullying, and by schools and other organizations.
• Encourage research that compares different methods and operational definitions of bullying to determine the impact of different definitions on prevalence and incidence rates, change over time, or effects of interventions on outcome behaviors.
• Mandate that prevalence of bullying behaviors be included with other outcome measures in any evaluations of youth violence prevention programs, in order to also determine their effects on bullying.

There are many violence prevention programs that have been implemented to reduce youth interpersonal violence. While these programs may very well have an effect on bullying behavior, few of these programs explicitly measure bullying behavior as an outcome. As described earlier in this

report ( Chapter 1 ), bullying behavior is characterized by an imbalance of power, an intention to harm, and repeated perpetration.

Supporting Evidence for the Recommendation:

Conclusion 2.3: Cyberbullying should be considered within the context of bullying rather than as a separate entity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition should be evaluated for its application to cyberbullying. Although cyberbullying may already be included, it is not perceived that way by the public or by the youth population.

Conclusion 2.4: Different types of bullying behaviors—physical, relational, cyber—may emerge or be more salient at different stages of the developmental life course.

Recommendation 7.2: The U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, and other agencies engaged in the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention interagency group should gather longitudinal surveillance data on the prevalence of all forms of bullying, including physical, verbal, relational, property, cyber, and bias-based bullying, and the prevalence of individuals involved in bullying, including perpetrators, targets, and bystanders, in order to have more uniform and accurate prevalence estimates.

• This should include at a minimum all school-age children (ages 5-18) who might be involved in or affected by bullying behavior.
• This should include nationally representative data on groups that are identified in this report as being at increased risk for bullying behavior (for example, but not limited to, LGBT students, students with disabilities, and youth living in poverty).
• These agencies should develop mechanisms for sharing bullying data at geographic units of analysis other than the national level (e.g., state and school district level) that will allow communities, organizations, and researchers to evaluate the implementation and impact of policies and programs.

The committee has stated in Chapter 6 that there is much to be learned about the effectiveness of anti-bullying policies and about the factors that can contribute to their successful implementation. The committee also articulated the methodological challenges involved in conducting research on the implementation of anti-bullying policies, including the creation of data structures that permit the evaluation of anti-bullying policies. Sharing data at geographic units of analysis that align with policies and programs (e.g.,

state, school district, school) will provide important uniform and economical information that can be used to evaluate the impact of programs and policies, guide investigators and policy makers to high prevalence areas in need of intervention, serve to improve the methodological rigor of the studies, and promote further research in this area.

Conclusion 2.1: Definitional and measurement inconsistencies lead to a variation in estimates of bullying prevalence, especially across disparate samples of youth. Although there is a variation in numbers, the national surveys show bullying behavior is a real problem that affects a large number of youth.

Conclusion 2.2: The national datasets on the prevalence of bullying focus predominantly on the children who are bullied. Considerably less is known about perpetrators, and nothing is known about bystanders in that national data.

Conclusion 3.1: Youth are embedded in multiple contexts, ranging from peer and family to school, community, and macrosystem. Each of these contexts can affect individual characteristics of youth (e.g., race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and perpetrating and/or being the target of bullying behavior.

Conclusion 3.2: Contextual factors operate differently across groups of youth, and therefore contexts that protect some youth against the negative effects of bullying are not generalizable to all youth. Consequently, research is needed to identify contextual factors that are protective for specific subgroups of youth that are most at risk of perpetrating or being targeted by bullying behavior.

State and Local Policies

The following recommendation addresses state and local policies.

Recommendation 7.3: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, the state attorneys general, and local education agencies together should (1) partner with researchers to collect data on an ongoing basis on the efficacy and implementation of anti-bullying laws and policies; (2) convene an annual meeting in which collaborations between social scientists, legislative members, and practitioners

responsible for creating, implementing, enforcing, and evaluating antibullying laws and policies can be more effectively facilitated and in which research on anti-bullying laws and policies can be reviewed; and (3) report research findings on an annual basis to both Congress and the state legislatures so that anti-bullying laws and policies can be strengthened and informed by evidence-based research.

The committee believes that state-level laws and policies aimed at reducing bullying should be evidence-based. Establishing best practices for this legislation will involve an iterative process of conducting additional research on and evaluation of anti-bullying laws outlined in this report, followed by fine-tuning of the laws, followed by more research and evaluation. Such an endeavor will also involve more interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaborations between social scientists, practitioners, and legislative members than currently exist.

These researchers should come from varied disciplines including public health, justice, law, behavioral health, implementation science, and economics. These public-private collaborations should also focus on the dissemination and sharing of what is learned through their data collection efforts.

Conclusion 6.1: Law and policy can play a significant role in strengthening state and local efforts to prevent, identify, and respond to bullying.

Conclusion 6.2: The development of model anti-bullying laws or policies should be evidence-based. Additional research is needed to determine the specific components of an anti-bullying law that are most effective in reducing bullying, in order to guide legislators who may amend existing laws or create new ones.

Conclusion 6.4: Additional research is needed to further evaluate the effectiveness of anti-bullying laws and policies, including determining: (1) whether anti-bullying laws and policies are effective in reducing bullying perpetration; (2) the mechanisms through which anti-bullying laws and policies reduce bullying (e.g., change in perceptions of school safety or norms around bullying); (3) whether anti-bullying laws and policies impact all forms of bullying (e.g., relational, physical, reputational, and cyberbullying) or merely a subset; (4) whether the beneficial consequences of these laws and policies also extend to other forms of youth violence (e.g., weapons carrying, fighting) and risky behaviors (e.g., drug/alcohol use); (5) whether, among those who are bullied, antibullying laws and policies are effective in reducing the adverse sequelae

associated with exposure to bullying (e.g., poor academic achievement, depression, suicidal ideation); and (6) subgroups for whom anti-bullying laws and policies are most, and least, effective—and in particular, whether these laws and policies are effective in reducing disparities in bullying.

Conclusion 6.5: Future studies are needed to more fully elucidate the institutional, contextual, and social factors that impede, or facilitate, the implementation of anti-bullying laws and policies. Such studies should be grounded in social science theory and conducted with larger and more representative samples, and with state-of-the-science methods.

Conclusion 6.6: Evidence-based research on the consequences of bullying can help inform litigation efforts at several stages, including case discovery and planning, pleadings, and trial.

Preventive Intervention Programming

The following three recommendations address preventive intervention programming.

Recommendation 7.4: The U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, working with other relevant stakeholders, should sponsor the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based programs to address bullying behavior. These programs should

• Include the needs of students already involved in bullying, either as individuals who bully, who are targets of bullying, or who are bystanders.
• Be specifically evaluated to determine their impact on vulnerable populations, including but not limited to children living in poverty and children with disabilities.
• Include parents, other adult caregivers, and families.
• Test and incorporate the use of emerging and innovative technologies to reach youth.

Ineffective or harmful programs and practices such as zero tolerance should be immediately discontinued.

These should include programs consistent with a public health approach to bullying, which includes universal, targeted, and indicated prevention programming. It is also important to address the need for more intensive

interventions and mental health services for youth already involved in bullying and experiencing behavioral and mental health consequences.

There should be a particular emphasis on research that identifies effective programs for youth who appear to be at elevated risk for involvement in bullying (e.g., youth with disabilities, LGBT youth, and culturally diverse youth). There is also a need for studies that can enhance understanding of the extent to which extant, empirically supported selective and indicated preventive interventions for violence, aggression, and delinquency could be leveraged to meet the needs of students involved in bullying behavior or experiencing the mental and behavioral health consequences of bullying.

Research should also assess the impact of preventive interventions and how these impacts interplay with the factors known to influence bullying behavior (e.g., age, gender, school climate, peers). In addition, it should assess the extent to which novel technologies (e.g., social media), innovative approaches, and youth voice could be leveraged to improve the impact of prevention programs.

Conclusion 5.1: The vast majority of research on bullying prevention programing has focused on universal school-based programs; however, the effects of those programs within the United States appear to be relatively modest. Multicomponent schoolwide programs appear to be most effective at reducing bullying and should be the types of programs implemented and disseminated in the United States.

Conclusion 5.5: The role of peers in bullying prevention as bystanders and as intervention program leaders needs further clarification and empirical investigation in order to determine the extent to which peer-led programs are effective and robust against potentially iatrogenic effects.

Conclusion 5.7: Since issues of power and equity are highly relevant to bullying, fully developed prevention models that target these issues as an approach for preventing bullying should be conducted using randomized controlled trial designs.

Conclusion 5.8: Additional research is needed on the effectiveness of programs targeted to vulnerable populations such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgende youth, youth with chronic health problems such as obesity, or those with developmental disabilities (e.g., autism), as well as variation in the effectiveness of universal programs for these subpopulations.

Conclusion 5.9: There is a strong need for additional programming and effectiveness research on interdisciplinary collaboration with health care practitioners, parents, school resource officers, community-based organizations (e.g., scouts, athletics), and industry to address issues related to bullying and cyberbullying.

Conclusion 5.10: Regardless of the prevention program or model selected, issues related to implementation fidelity, spanning initial buy-in and adoption through taking programs to scale and sustainability, need careful consideration and an authentic investment of resources in order to achieve outcomes and sustained implementation.

Conclusion 6.7: There is emerging research that some widely used approaches such as zero tolerance policies are not effective at reducing bullying and thus should be discontinued, with the resources redirected to evidence-based policies and programs.

Recommendation 7.5: The U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, working with other relevant stakeholders, should promote the evaluation of the role of stigma and bias in bullying behavior and sponsor the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based programs to address stigma- and bias-based bullying behavior, including the stereotypes and prejudice that may underlie such behavior.

As noted in Chapter 3 of this report, bias-based bullying due to one or more stigmatized social identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, LGBT, weight, disability status) is understudied in the bullying literature, and the committee believes that greater cross-fertilization between the stigma and bullying literatures is needed to advance the effectiveness of anti-bullying efforts.

Conclusion 3.2: Contextual factors operate differently across groups of youth, and therefore contexts that protect some youth against the nega-

tive effects of bullying are not generalizable to all youth. Consequently, research is needed to identify contextual factors that are protective for specific subgroups of youth that are most at risk of perpetrating or being targeted by bullying behavior.

Conclusion 3.4: Other conceptual models—particularly stigma—have been under-utilized in the bullying literature and yet hold promise (1) for understanding the causes of disproportionate rates of bullying among certain groups of youth, (2) for identifying motivations for some types of bullying (i.e., bias-based bullying), and (3) for providing additional targets for preventive interventions.

Conclusion 3.5: Studying experiences of being bullied in particular vulnerable subgroups (e.g., those based on race/ethnicity or sexual orientation) cannot be completely disentangled from the study of discrimination or of unfair treatment based on a stigmatized identity. These are separate empirical literatures (school-based discrimination versus school-based bullying) although often they are studying the same phenomena. There should be much more cross-fertilization between the empirical literatures on school bullying and discrimination due to social stigma.

Recommendation 7.6: The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, working with other partners, should support the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-informed bullying prevention training for individuals, both professionals and volunteers, who work directly with children and adolescents on a regular basis.

Training should occur on an ongoing basis (1) to ensure retention of information and to sustain competence, (2) to account for turnover of personnel in these positions, and (3) to promote high quality implementation of evidence-informed bullying prevention practices. The competence of these individuals to address bullying behavior appropriately should be periodically monitored.

These individuals can include educators; education support professionals such as school bus drivers, school resource officers, and others who interact on a regular basis with children and youth; health care professionals, including pediatricians, school nurses, and counselors; and other adults such as youth development staff at after-school programs, sports coaches, religious staff, Scout leaders, camp counselors, and the like. As described in earlier chapters, especially Chapter 5 , these paid and unpaid professionals are often at the “front lines” and may witness bullying or want to intervene but feel poorly equipped to do so. In some cases, their interventions

may actually be harmful to both the child who is bullied and the child who perpetrates the bullying behavior. A more consistent, intentional, and evidence-based system of training is needed to support these professionals.

Social Media Industry

The following recommendation addresses the social media industry.

Recommendation 7.7: Social media companies, in partnership with the Federal Partners for Bullying Prevention Steering Committee, should adopt, implement, and evaluate on an ongoing basis policies and programs for preventing, identifying, and responding to bullying on their platforms and should publish their anti-bullying policies on their Websites.

This report has illustrated that the majority of U.S. adolescents are online and most use social media sites. Social media sites such as Facebook provide a venue in which adolescents communicate with others, observe peers, build an online identity, and may be exposed to cyberbullying. Some of these social media sites provide bullying reporting options and resources, but little is known regarding how that information is used by the sites and whether their resources are effective. Previous research work confirms that the prevalence of cyberbullying is high, particularly among adolescents, and that being online more is associated with a higher risk of exposure to cyberbullying. Therefore, the online context now appears to be the

second most common venue where bullying takes place. Evidence suggests that traditional adult role models such as teachers may not be effective in supporting youth in the online context. Thus, it is important that social media companies, whose platforms provide a venue for bullying, become proactively involved in this issue and provide transparency in their efforts.

Supporting Evidence for the Recommendation

Conclusion 2.5: The online context where cyberbullying takes place is nearly universally accessed by adolescents. Social media sites are used by the majority of teens and are an influential and immersive medium in which cyberbullying occurs.

Conclusion 3.1 : Youth are embedded in multiple contexts, ranging from peer and family to school, community, and macrosystem. Each of these contexts can affect individual characteristics of youth (e.g., race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and perpetrating and/or being the target of bullying behavior.

Conclusion 5.6: The role of online resources or social marketing campaigns in bullying prevention or intervention needs further clarification and empirical investigation in order to determine whether these resources and programs are effective.

RESEARCH NEEDS

Throughout the report, the committee has identified specific research gaps and future needs that will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the consequences of bullying for the children and youth who are engaged in the bullying dynamic; more fully elucidate the dynamic between the bullying perpetrator and target; and more systematically examine factors that contribute to resilient outcomes of children and youth involved in bullying,

whether as the child who bullies, the child who is bullied, or a bystander. Table 7-1 summarizes the research needs identified by the committee.

TABLE 7-1 Research Needs to Inform Policies and Programs to Improve Bullying Outcomes

While the study of bullying behavior is a relatively recent field, much has been learned over the past few decades that has significantly improved evidence-based knowledge of what bullying behavior is, how it can be measured, and the contexts that can ameliorate or potentiate the association between individual characteristics and being a bully, a target of bullying, or a bystander to the behavior. This research has established that bullying negatively impacts the child who is bullied, the child who is the bully, the child who is both a bully and a victim, and the bystanders. Finally, the research is beginning to show ways in which law and policy can play an important role in strengthening state and local efforts to prevent, identify, and respond to bullying. This is a pivotal time for bullying prevention, and there is not a quick fix or one-size-fits-all solution. Nevertheless, science and

policy have provided, and will continue to improve, tools needed to tackle this complex and serious public health problem.

Reducing the presence and impact of bullying in the lives of youth will involve multifaceted efforts at the level of federal and state governments and agencies, communities, schools and families, health care, media and social media. The committee believes the recommendations laid out in this report are an important roadmap for achieving this goal.

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life.

Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication.

Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

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Future Research – Thesis Guide

Table of Contents

Future Research

Definition:

Future research refers to investigations and studies that are yet to be conducted, and are aimed at expanding our understanding of a particular subject or area of interest. Future research is typically based on the current state of knowledge and seeks to address unanswered questions, gaps in knowledge, and new areas of inquiry.

How to Write Future Research in Thesis

Here are some steps to help you write effectively about future research in your thesis :

• Identify a research gap: Before you start writing about future research, identify the areas that need further investigation. Look for research gaps and inconsistencies in the literature , and note them down.
• Specify research questions : Once you have identified a research gap, create a list of research questions that you would like to explore in future research. These research questions should be specific, measurable, and relevant to your thesis.
• Discuss limitations: Be sure to discuss any limitations of your research that may require further exploration. This will help to highlight the need for future research and provide a basis for further investigation.
• Suggest methodologies: Provide suggestions for methodologies that could be used to explore the research questions you have identified. Discuss the pros and cons of each methodology and how they would be suitable for your research.
• Explain significance: Explain the significance of the research you have proposed, and how it will contribute to the field. This will help to justify the need for future research and provide a basis for further investigation.
• Provide a timeline : Provide a timeline for the proposed research , indicating when each stage of the research would be conducted. This will help to give a sense of the practicalities involved in conducting the research.
• Conclusion : Summarize the key points you have made about future research and emphasize the importance of exploring the research questions you have identified.

Examples of Future Research in Thesis

SomeExamples of Future Research in Thesis are as follows:

Future Research:

Although this study provides valuable insights into the effects of social media on self-esteem, there are several avenues for future research that could build upon our findings. Firstly, our sample consisted solely of college students, so it would be beneficial to extend this research to other age groups and demographics. Additionally, our study focused only on the impact of social media use on self-esteem, but there are likely other factors that influence how social media affects individuals, such as personality traits and social support. Future research could examine these factors in greater depth. Lastly, while our study looked at the short-term effects of social media use on self-esteem, it would be interesting to explore the long-term effects over time. This could involve conducting longitudinal studies that follow individuals over a period of several years to assess changes in self-esteem and social media use.

While this study provides important insights into the relationship between sleep patterns and academic performance among college students, there are several avenues for future research that could further advance our understanding of this topic.

• This study relied on self-reported sleep patterns, which may be subject to reporting biases. Future research could benefit from using objective measures of sleep, such as actigraphy or polysomnography, to more accurately assess sleep duration and quality.
• This study focused on academic performance as the outcome variable, but there may be other important outcomes to consider, such as mental health or well-being. Future research could explore the relationship between sleep patterns and these other outcomes.
• This study only included college students, and it is unclear if these findings generalize to other populations, such as high school students or working adults. Future research could investigate whether the relationship between sleep patterns and academic performance varies across different populations.
• Fourth, this study did not explore the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between sleep patterns and academic performance. Future research could investigate the role of factors such as cognitive functioning, motivation, and stress in this relationship.

Overall, there is a need for continued research on the relationship between sleep patterns and academic performance, as this has important implications for the health and well-being of students.

Further research could investigate the long-term effects of mindfulness-based interventions on mental health outcomes among individuals with chronic pain. A longitudinal study could be conducted to examine the sustainability of mindfulness practices in reducing pain-related distress and improving psychological well-being over time. The study could also explore the potential mediating and moderating factors that influence the relationship between mindfulness and mental health outcomes, such as emotional regulation, pain catastrophizing, and social support.

Purpose of Future Research in Thesis

Here are some general purposes of future research that you might consider including in your thesis:

• To address limitations: Your research may have limitations or unanswered questions that could be addressed by future studies. Identify these limitations and suggest potential areas for further research.
• To extend the research : You may have found interesting results in your research, but future studies could help to extend or replicate your findings. Identify these areas where future research could help to build on your work.
• To explore related topics : Your research may have uncovered related topics that were outside the scope of your study. Suggest areas where future research could explore these related topics in more depth.
• To compare different approaches : Your research may have used a particular methodology or approach, but there may be other approaches that could be compared to your approach. Identify these other approaches and suggest areas where future research could compare and contrast them.
• To test hypotheses : Your research may have generated hypotheses that could be tested in future studies. Identify these hypotheses and suggest areas where future research could test them.
• To address practical implications : Your research may have practical implications that could be explored in future studies. Identify these practical implications and suggest areas where future research could investigate how to apply them in practice.

Applications of Future Research

Some examples of applications of future research that you could include in your thesis are:

• Development of new technologies or methods: If your research involves the development of new technologies or methods, you could discuss potential applications of these innovations in future research or practical settings. For example, if you have developed a new drug delivery system, you could speculate about how it might be used in the treatment of other diseases or conditions.
• Extension of your research: If your research only scratches the surface of a particular topic, you could suggest potential avenues for future research that could build upon your findings. For example, if you have studied the effects of a particular drug on a specific population, you could suggest future research that explores the drug’s effects on different populations or in combination with other treatments.
• Investigation of related topics: If your research is part of a larger field or area of inquiry, you could suggest potential research topics that are related to your work. For example, if you have studied the effects of climate change on a particular species, you could suggest future research that explores the impacts of climate change on other species or ecosystems.
• Testing of hypotheses: If your research has generated hypotheses or theories, you could suggest potential experiments or studies that could test these hypotheses in future research. For example, if you have proposed a new theory about the mechanisms of a particular disease, you could suggest experiments that could test this theory in other populations or in different disease contexts.

Advantage of Future Research

Including future research in a thesis has several advantages:

• Demonstrates critical thinking: Including future research shows that the author has thought deeply about the topic and recognizes its limitations. It also demonstrates that the author is interested in advancing the field and is not satisfied with only providing a narrow analysis of the issue at hand.
• Provides a roadmap for future research : Including future research can help guide researchers in the field by suggesting areas that require further investigation. This can help to prevent researchers from repeating the same work and can lead to more efficient use of resources.
• Shows engagement with the field : By including future research, the author demonstrates their engagement with the field and their understanding of ongoing debates and discussions. This can be especially important for students who are just entering the field and want to show their commitment to ongoing research.
• I ncreases the impact of the thesis : Including future research can help to increase the impact of the thesis by highlighting its potential implications for future research and practical applications. This can help to generate interest in the work and attract attention from researchers and practitioners in the field.

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Future Directions in Research and Practice

• First Online: 25 September 2019

Cite this chapter

• Andrés Jiménez-Gómez 5 &
• J. Martin Maldonado-Duran 6  

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There are multiple avenues in which the approach to children and families can be improved, from a clinical point of view, in contemplating the social and cultural elements that influence patient care. Three key elements include clinical practice and care within a transcultural framework; clinical research on said issues; and education of staff. The latter two elements of utmost significance in the context of an explosive globalization demand that health care providers quickly adapt and adjust to novel patient populations with their intrinsic social, cultural, and religious baggage—which may even starkly contrast or contradict those of the health care worker. Education and research—leading to adapted cultural practice—focuses on understanding local needs (whether at global settings or one’s own, based on demographics) and sustainable practices that do not alienate but rather support the naturally occurring demographic heterogeneity. This chapter explores some of these processes and the current and proposed future trends in research and practice in a globalized setting.

• Research in poor countries
• Transcultural care
• Education of health care staff
• Global health
• Meaningful needs assessment
• Health project sustainability
• Diversity in therapeutics

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Jiménez-Gómez, A., Maldonado-Duran, J.M. (2019). Future Directions in Research and Practice. In: Maldonado-Duran, J.M., Jiménez-Gómez, A., Maldonado-Morales, M.X., Lecannelier, F. (eds) Clinical Handbook of Transcultural Infant Mental Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23440-9_22

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FutureVU: Sustainability

Vanderbilt creates Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate

Posted by hamiltcl on Monday, April 1, 2024 in featured , FutureVU , GHG , Research .

Vanderbilt University will harness its global expertise in scientific discovery, technological innovation, public policy, law and education to launch the Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate (VSEC).

The multimillion-dollar investment follows a recommendation by an interdisciplinary working group to address the crucial societal challenge of ensuring a sustainable world. It is the latest center to be launched through  Discovery Vanderbilt , an initiative of the  Office of the Provost  and one of three pathways in the university’s  Dare to Grow  campaign to support and extend the resources underpinning Vanderbilt’s most innovative research and education.

Previously announced centers include the  Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research , the  Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator , and the  Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health .

“One of the defining hallmarks of Vanderbilt is our spirit of ‘radical collaboration’ where researchers across a wide range of disciplines join together with local and global partners to tackle some the most urgent issues of our time,” Provost C. Cybele Raver. “VSEC exemplifies this spirit, where this group of brilliant faculty members are taking on and solving complex and pressing challenges for climate, energy, and sustainability. It makes me so proud to see Vanderbilt so powerfully positioned to make tremendous contributions in these areas.”

Raver added that the university is embarking on a global search for an accomplished researcher and administrative leader to direct the center.

VSEC’s primary mission will focus on advancing multidisciplinary research that includes partnerships with communities, government, industry, national laboratories and other research universities. The center will also engage Vanderbilt’s world-class engineering, science, law, policy and education expertise to investigate areas such as:

• Energy Integration
• Resource Sustainability
• Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
• Systems Risk, Reliability, and Resilience

“Vanderbilt’s School of Engineering is the ideal setting for this forward-thinking cross-disciplinary center,” said  Hiba Baroud , who co-led the strategic planning committee that recommended the creation of VSEC and who is serving as its interim director, said the center is unique because it tackles complex challenges that require advances in basic science as well as broad interdisciplinary applied research.

“We are taking a holistic approach to achieve sustainable development by examining how different aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation affect each other,” said Baroud, who is the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation Faculty Fellow and Associate Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering. “We envision the center doing this not just in terms of making advances in different focus areas, but by pairing scientific discoveries and transformative technologies with implementation and policy adoption.”

Jonathan Gilligan , who was vice chair of the strategic planning committee and is director of the Vanderbilt Climate and Society Grand Challenge Initiative, said it is imperative for VSEC to view sustainability solutions through a wide lens, engaging all the schools and disciplines of the university on equal footing, as well as connecting with community, industry, and government partners.

“VSEC’s success will be measured by how deeply it engages the expertise of the entire university, including engineering, natural and social sciences, humanities, and professional disciplines such as law, management, and healthcare,” said Gilligan, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences whose work explores the intersection of the natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and public policy. “Its success will not be measured solely by the number of academic papers published or the amount of grant money it attracts, but on its ability to draw upon Vanderbilt’s distinctive strengths in trans-institutional and trans-disciplinary collaboration in order to advance the frontiers of transdisciplinary research on sustainability, to provide students with a world-class holistic education on climate change and environmental sustainability, and to apply the results of its research to delivering tangible benefits to society.”

Already, the center’s strategic planning committee has identified opportunities to perform rigorous testing of novel concepts and technologies by leveraging existing testbeds at Vanderbilt and developing new ones that address sustainable transportation, materials science, microgrid energy development and biomanufacturing.

The university seeks to hire a permanent director. Interested candidates should contact  [email protected] .

Tags: climate change , featured , FutureVU , GHG , Research

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EDITORIAL article

This article is part of the research topic.

Neuroscience and Neurological Machine Learning for Cognitive Assessment: Advancements, Challenges, and Future Directions

Editorial for Special Issue "Neuroscience and Neurological Machine Learning for Cognitive Assessment: Advancements, Challenges, and Future Directions" Provisionally Accepted

• 1 Brandon University, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

on subjec�ve interpreta�on. These models provide objec�ve and accurate assessments by using datadriven approaches to iden�fy cogni�ve impairments, leading to personalized and accurate assessments, beter treatment outcomes, and improved pa�ent care. Further research is needed to address limita�ons and explore the full poten�al of neurological learning models in cogni�ve assessment.Neuro-learning, on the other hand, is a rela�vely new field that focuses on the use of neuroscien�fic techniques and tools to improve learning and cogni�ve performance. Together, these two fields have the poten�al to revolu�onize the way we understand and enhance human learning. This research topic aims to explore the intersec�on of cogni�ve learning and neuro-learning, highligh�ng emerging trends and applica�ons in the field. Given these facts and developments, this research topic collates original research and review ar�cles with a focus on inves�ga�ng and sharing groundbreaking ideas, approaches, hypotheses, and prac�ces centred on cogni�ve healthcare applica�ons. The collec�on received a total of 20 total submissions, of which 7 manuscripts were chosen for the final collec�on. The next few paragraphs summarize their contribu�ons.In "Towards Human-like Walking with Biomechanical and Neuro-control Features: Personalized Atachment Point Op�miza�on Method of Cable-Driven Exoskeleton", Chen et al. leverage principles from neuroscience and biomechanical analysis to select atachment points for cable-driven so� exoskeletons. By extrac�ng key features of human movement, the objec�ve is to develop a subjectspecific design methodology that provides precise and personalized support in the atachment points op�miza�on of the cable-driven exoskeleton to achieve natural gait, energy efficiency, and muscle coordina�on controllable in the domain of human mobility and rehabilita�on. To achieve this, the study first analyzes human walking experimental data and extracts biomechanical features. These features are then used to generate trajectories, allowing beter natural movement under complete cable-driven exoskeleton control.In "A Screening Method for Mild Cogni�ve Impairment in Elderly Individuals Combining Bioimpedance and MMSE", Jun et al. inves�gate a screening method for mild cogni�ve impairment (MCI) that combines bioimpedance features and the Korean Mini-Mental State Examina�on (K-MMSE) score. Data was collected from 539 subjects aged 60 years or older at the Gwangju Alzheimer's & Related Demen�as (GARD) Cohort Research Center, A total of 470 par�cipants were used for the analysis, including 318 normal controls and 152 MCI par�cipants. The authors focused on measuring bioimpedance, K-MMSE, and the Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Batery (SNSB-II). Finally, they developed a mul�ple linear regression model to predict MCI by combining bioimpedance variables and K-MMSE total score and compared the model's accuracy with SNSB-II domain scores by the area under the receiver opera�ng characteris�c curve (AUROC).In "A deep learning model for brain age predic�on using minimally preprocessed T1w-images as input", Dartora et al. develop and validate a convolu�onal neural network (CNN)based biological brain age predic�on model that uses one T1w MRI preprocessing step when applying the model to external datasets, to simplify implementa�on and increase accessibility in research se�ngs. Their model only requires rigid image registra�on to the MNI space, which is an advantage compared to previous methods that require more preprocessing steps, such as feature extrac�on.In "Human-to-Monkey Transfer Learning Iden�fies the Frontal White Mater as Key Determinant for Predic�ng Monkey Brain Age", He et al. focused on the applica�on of ar�ficial intelligence (AI) to summarize a whole-brain magne�c resonance image (MRI) into an effec�ve "brain age" metric can provide a holis�c, individualized, and objec�ve view of how the brain interacts with various factors (e.g. gene�cs, lifestyle) during aging. Brain age predic�ons using deep learning (DL) have been widely used to quan�fy the developmental status of human brains, but their wider applica�on to serve biomedical purposes is under cri�cism for requiring large samples and complicated interpretability.In "The Use of the Integrated Cogni�ve Assessment (ICA) to Improve the Efficiency of Primary Care Referrals to Memory Services in the Accelera�ng Demen�a Pathway Technologies (ADePT) Study", Modarres et al. summarize The Accelera�ng Demen�as Pathways Technologies (ADePT) Study which was ini�ated to address this challenge and develop a real-world evidence basis to support the adop�on of ICA as an inexpensive screening tool for the detec�on of cogni�ve impairment and improving the efficiency of the demen�a care pathway. The primary outcome of the study compared GP referral with specialist diagnosis of mild cogni�ve impairment (MCI) and demen�a. Of those the GP referred to memory clinics, 78% were necessary referrals, with ~22% unnecessary referrals, or pa�ents who should have been referred to other services as they had disorders other than MCI/demen�a.In "Machine Learning-Based Predic�on of Post-stroke Cogni�ve Status Using Electroencephalography-Derived Brain Network Atributes", Lee et al. enrolled consecu�ve stroke pa�ents who underwent both EEG during the acute stroke phase and cogni�ve assessments 3 months post-stroke. The authors preprocessed acute stroke EEG data to eliminate low-quality epochs, then performed independent component analysis and quan�fied network characteris�cs using iSyncBrain®. Cogni�ve func�on was evaluated using the Montreal Cogni�ve Assessment (MoCA). They also ini�ally categorized par�cipants based on the lateraliza�on of their lesions and then developed machine learning models to predict cogni�ve status in the le� and right hemisphere lesion groups.In "Altered Brain Func�onal Connec�vity in Vegeta�ve State and Minimally Conscious State", Yang et al. used res�ng-state func�onal magne�c resonance imaging data, the weighted brain func�onal networks for normal control subjects and pa�ents with a vegeta�ve state (VS) and a minimally conscious state (MCS) for evalua�on. Global and local network characteris�cs of each group were analyzed. A back-propaga�on neural network was employed to iden�fy MCS and VS pa�ents.The editors would like to express their deepest apprecia�on to all the authors and reviewers for their �mely contribu�ons, which made this Special Issue a great success. The editors have done their best to add poten�al value to the exis�ng literature in this domain. They are very grateful to the Editor-in-Chief of Fron�ers in Aging Neuroscience as well as the Journal staff for their support and for offering us the privilege to edit a Special Issue in this reputed journal. The editors hope that the novel and scien�fic contribu�ons presented in this Special Issue will add value to the interna�onal scien�fic research community.

Keywords: cognitive, Neuroscience, machine learning (ML), Neurological, assessement

Received: 24 Mar 2024; Accepted: 02 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Srivastava. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Gautam Srivastava, Brandon University, Brandon, Canada

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Simple equations clarify cloud climate conundrum

New analysis based on simple equations has reduced uncertainty about how clouds will affect future climate change.

Clouds have two main effects on global temperature -- cooling the planet by reflecting sunlight, and warming it by acting as insulation for Earth's radiation.

The impact of clouds is the largest area of uncertainty in global warming predictions.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Exeter and the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique in Paris created a model that predicts how changes in the surface area of anvil clouds (storm clouds common in the tropics) will affect global warming.

By testing their model against observations of how clouds impact warming in the present day, they confirmed its effectiveness and thereby reduced uncertainty in climate predictions.

The model shows that changes in the area of anvil clouds have a much weaker impact on global warming than previously thought.

However, the brightness of clouds (determined by their thickness) remains understudied, and is therefore one of the largest obstacles to predicting future global warming.

"Climate change is complex, but sometimes we can answer key questions in a very simple way," said lead author Brett McKim.

"In this case, we simplified clouds into basic characteristics: either high or low, their size and the temperature.

"Doing this allowed us to write equations and create a model that could be tested against observed clouds.

"Our results more than halve uncertainty about the impact of the surface area of anvil clouds on warming.

"That's a big step -- potentially equivalent to several years' difference in when we expect to reach thresholds such as the 2°C limit set by the Paris Agreement.

"We now need to investigate how warming will affect the brightness of clouds. That's the next stage of our research."

McKim's work at Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique was supported by a Fulbright Scholarship.

• Global Warming
• Environmental Issues
• Severe Weather
• Environmental Awareness
• Environmental Policy
• Consensus of scientists regarding global warming
• Climate change mitigation
• Global warming controversy
• Global climate model
• Temperature record of the past 1000 years
• IPCC Report on Climate Change - 2007
• Kyoto Protocol
• Weather forecasting

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Exeter . Original written by Alex Morrison. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Brett McKim, Sandrine Bony, Jean-Louis Dufresne. Weak anvil cloud area feedback suggested by physical and observational constraints . Nature Geoscience , 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01414-4

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