Alliances internationales de recherche universités-communautés (ARUC internationales)

 

Despite exposure to poverty, violence, mental illness, marginalization due to race, ethnicity, ability, divorce or death of their parents, cultural dislocation, and other risks, research shows that many at-risk youth still become active contributors to their families and as citizens in their communities. What would locally designed interventions look like that promote resilience (citizenship, prosociality, safety, etc.) for youth exposed to significant risk associated with their social and physical ecologies? As well as conducting research responding to this question, Pathways participants, researchers and students/interns were afforded 20 opportunities to learn and enhance their research-related skills.

Despite exposure to poverty, violence, mental illness, marginalization due to race, ethnicity, ability, divorce or death of their parents, cultural dislocation, and other risks, research shows that many at-risk youth still become active contributors to their families and as citizens in their communities. What would locally designed interventions look like that promote resilience (citizenship, prosociality, safety, etc.) for youth exposed to significant risk associated with their social and physical ecologies? As well as conducting research responding to this question, Pathways participants, researchers and students/interns were afforded 20 opportunities to learn and enhance their research-related skills.

Objectives: We review the value of using visual data in a dialogue with youth, to reflect, explore and find language to better understand processes of resilience. Methods: The argument is demonstrated with examples from the Negotiating Resilience Project (NRP): an international study of 16 youth which uses video recording a day in the life of youth participants, photographs produced by youth, and reflective interviews with the youth about their visual data. Results: Three examples from the NRP are used to show the ways that visual methods can capture and elucidate previously hidden aspects of youth’s positive psychosocial development in stressful social ecologies. Conclusion: Incorporating images as research data can aid in understanding previously unarticulated constructions of youth resilience. When the researcher is reflexive about power dynamics and their role in co-constructing the research environment, visual methods have the potential to reduce power imbalances in the field, meaningfully engage youth in the research process, and help to overcome language barriers.

Objectives: We review the value of using visual data in a dialogue with youth, to reflect, explore and find language to better understand processes of resilience. Methods: The argument is demonstrated with examples from the Negotiating Resilience Project (NRP): an international study of 16 youth which uses video recording a day in the life of youth participants, photographs produced by youth, and reflective interviews with the youth about their visual data. Results: Three examples from the NRP are used to show the ways that visual methods can capture and elucidate previously hidden aspects of youth’s positive psychosocial development in stressful social ecologies. Conclusion: Incorporating images as research data can aid in understanding previously unarticulated constructions of youth resilience. When the researcher is reflexive about power dynamics and their role in co-constructing the research environment, visual methods have the potential to reduce power imbalances in the field, meaningfully engage youth in the research process, and help to overcome language barriers.

A spatial-temporal model is developed for modeling the impacts of simulated coastal zone storm surge and flooding, using a combined spatial mapping and system dynamics approach. By coupling geographic information systems (GIS) and system dynamics, the interconnecting components of the model are used with limited historical data, to evaluate storm damage. For the purpose of illustrating this model, the research is applied specifically to the case of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, a vulnerable coastal city subject to considerable impacts from pending sea level rise and more frequent severe storm surge attributed to the changing climate in the coastal zone.