A Culture-Centered Approach to Health and Nutrition Among Low-Income

Groups: Recommendations for Land-Grant University Engagement

Abigail S. BorronDoctoral Defense

June 25, 2012

Defining Poverty

Four Definitional Approaches to Poverty1

• Monetary• Capability• Social Exclusion• Participatory

1Laderchi, Saith, & Steward (2003)

Study Context

State of Poverty in 2010 Census, • 9.2 million (11.7%) of U.S. families and • 22% total population of children1

1DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith (2011)

Study Context

1989 1995 2000 2005 20100

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18

United StatesIndiana

% o

f Pop

ulati

on

Indiana and U.S. Small Area Poverty Estimates, 1989 – 20101

1U.S. Census Bureau (2012)

Study Context

State Rank

County Pop. Below Poverty

Threshold

Below Poverty Threshold

Overall Pop. Total Pop.

Monroe 30,049 1 12 138,422

Delaware 26,339 2 14 117,669

Tippecanoe 33,184 3 7 172,963

Marion* 184,537 4 1 904,878

Wayne 13,419 5 25 68,853

Lake* 86,577 11 2 495,981

Top Five Indiana Counties below Poverty Threshold and Overall Population, 20101

1U.S. Census Bureau (2012)

Theoretical Perspective

• A Culture-Centered Approach– Dutta, 2008 & 2010

• Grounded Theory– Charmaz, 2006

• Solidarity, Social Justice and Reflexivity– Benson & O’Neill, 2007

• Culture in Anthropology– Das, 1998

A Culture-Centered Approach

Culture

Agency

StructureSocial organization aspects that constrain and enable the capacity of cultural participants to seek out choices and engage in activities.

Constituted day-to-day practices of members through their interpretations of given issues and to engage in these day-to-day practices.

Ability of individuals/communities to be active participants in determining agendas and solutions to a variety of problems, as these are perceived by the community.

A Culture-Centered Approach

Culture

AgencyStructure

Purpose of Study

“A Culture-Centered Approach to Health and Nutrition Among Low-Income Groups: Recommendations for Land-Grant University Engagement”

• To critically examine the contested nature and ongoing intersections of culture, structure and agency as they relate to Purdue University’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)

Purpose of Study

Three sets of Actors• EFNEP Participants• EFNEP Paraprofessionals• EFNEP Administrators

Purpose of Study RO1: To gain a deeper understanding of the culture of EFNEP participants, as it relates to their held meanings and practices of nutrition and food insecurity, and their negotiation of the structure in which they are situated.

RO2: To gain a deeper understanding of the culture of EFNEP paraprofessionals and administrators, as well as their perceptions of the EFNEP audience, the program, and the overall university structure.

Purpose of Study RO3: To gain a deeper self-awareness as it relates to the role of the researcher and how personal epistemology regarding the EFNEP audience and university engagement may affect the researcher’s ability to move in and out of the discursive spaces of different worldviews.

RO4: To demonstrate the ongoing and dynamic nature of structure, culture and agency as it relates to the EFNEP participants and university engagement efforts.

Purpose of Study RO5: To explore the use of the culture-centered approach and its guiding principles as a methodology to guide the Land-Grant system engagement efforts.

Culture-Centered Approach to Engagement

A. Borron (2011)

Methodology

• In-Depth Interviews– EFNEP participants – EFNEP paraprofessionals – EFNEP administrators

• Participant Observation • Workgroup Series + Photovoice • Reflexive Journaling

MethodologySubjects’ Involvement in Research Process and Timetable of Methods

Methodology

• What makes this CCA is:– The constant comparative analysis– The objective of disrupting the common discursive

spaces– The way all methodologies come together,

including the reflexivity of the researcher, to develop a holistic understanding

Results

• 28 in-depth interviews– Participants: n=15, 29 minutes– Paraprofessionals: n=8, 57 minutes– Administrators; n=5, 70 minutes

• 534 single-spaced transcribed pages• 31 single-spaced reflexive journaling pages

Results

Data analysis based on five sets of data:• Participants• Paraprofessionals• Administrators• Workgroups and Community Forum• Participant Observation

Coding:Open Focused Selective Axial

Results: Participants

Who are they?• 6 African American, 9 Caucasian• Early 20’s to mid-50’s• 1 to 6 children, 3 mos. to 18 years old.• 10 had been homeless at one point• 10 lived in a transitional housing apartment

complex• 14 receive food stamps• All unemployed

Results: Participants

Themes:• The realities of eating and nutrition• Personal testimony: Past and present

obstacles• Interpreting EFNEP’s teaching• A hopeful outlook on the future

“I just feel it in my heart that it’s time for him to start suffering consequences because he hasn’t suffered none. You know, he can’t carry that on to his adulthood and not knowing what suffering the consequences is because, if he do, he is just gonna keep running around, doing what he’s doing…

Participants Personal Testimony: Past and Present Obstacles

it’s hard because, today, I’m trying to be a parent and it’s just hard and it makes you cry, it makes you scream, it makes you holler, it makes you cuss, and it makes you do a lot of things being a parent. You know, you love your child so much it hurts down within because you only want what’s best for them.”

~Penny

Results: Paraprofessionals

Who are they?• 6

Results: Paraprofessionals

Themes:• Negotiating participant conditions• Self-imposed responsibilities• Negotiating two worlds

“I was trying to leave because we’re only supposed to be there like 45 minutes to an hour, so I’m in it and she’s talking and I was looking in my bag and I said, ‘It’s time to go.’ And she keeps telling me how depressed she is and how sad she is and I’m like, ‘I enjoy talking to you but I have somewhere else to be.’ But then she finally expressed to me like her struggle and how she found out that she has HIV and so I stayed…

ParaprofessionalsSelf-Imposed Responsibilities

I pushed back everything else that I had to do just to like be there for them to talk to and sometimes that’s a good thing for them… I’m just there and that is my eye opener, that you just never take life for granted. You never know what could be thrown at you and she’s been thrown into a situation. All she needed that day was somebody to talk to and I just happened to be there.”

~Lorraine

Results: Administrators

Themes:• Traveling a two-way path in one direction• Recognizing they are a world apart• Struggling between a rock and a hard place

“They see moms fighting for their kids and boyfriends doing…. I mean, I walked into a home in Clark County last summer, the guy was shooting up when I walked in. I was like, ‘Uh… what is going on? What do I do? Rhonda, who is my staff person down there was just like, ‘Whatever, it’s just the way it is.’ He took off and she went in and did her thing… They had been in that house for three months without any utilities. They just got the utilities turned on the day before I came because I was coming…

AdministratorsRecognizing They Are a World Apart

So, you can imagine what that place looked like and smelled like. But Rhonda walked in there and, ‘Oh, the kids look good! Oh, you got some pictures on the wall!’ I mean, like it was just like she didn’t see any of that. She just saw somebody that needed her help. She does that every day. I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t know if I could walk into places like that day after day after day and smell like that and wonder what’s crawling on me for $10 an hour.”

~A4

Results: Workgroups and Community Forum

Themes:• Frustrations in a downtown food desert• Skewed meanings and ownership of issues• Privacy and protective instincts• Group dynamics and one-way communication

“… but moments throughout the forum made me really stop and consider the deeply grounded layers that were attached to the somewhat nonchalant comments being made. Each time one of my participants shared what I felt sounded like a rather superficial story with everyone, I found myself reflecting on the deeper layers I knew about him or her…

Workgroups and Community ForumGroup Dynamics and One-way Communication

They were sharing the tip of the iceberg, and I desperately wished that everyone could see more what existed below the surface. There was a deep and rich meaning behind the statements that were being made, which truly offered so much more to these participants as people.”

~Reflexive Journal Entry

Results: Participant Observation

Themes:• Working through judgment of the dominant

epistemology • Creating inadvertent dissention• Breaking the barrier

Because Amelia doesn’t like to cook.

“As I drove the hour and a half back home that day, I asked myself if Amelia is really getting anything out of this program. In my CCA-educated opinion, I say she has the opportunity to get a lot…

Participant ObservationBreaking the Barrier

But, it needs to be through her viewpoint and not the formality and structure of each lesson. What would make cooking fun and interesting? I can’t answer that for Amelia, nor can the paraprofessional or the university curriculum developers. Only Amelia knows that answer.”

~Reflexive Journal Entry

Discussion

“The scholarship of engagement means creating a special climate in which the academic and civic cultures communicate more continuously and more creatively with each other where the universe of human discourse is enriching the quality of life for us all” – (Boyer, 1996, p. 33).

Discussion

• Food Education: A traditional and longstanding component of Extension programs. – Culture is dynamic; audiences change– CCA critically deconstructs the contested nature of

culture, structure and agency within (even relevance of) the program

Discussion

• This methodology – perhaps never really used in Extension.– Has the potential to transform how Extension is

practiced, how engagement is enacted.

Discussion

• Professional development – listening– Credentialing/certificate of acquired skills– Recognizing opportunities for knowledge

production at the community level.• Program evaluation – measuring impact

Discussion

• Why I am excited about CCA:– A unique approach that captivated my imagination– Produces more than the sum of its parts– Applicable in non-research-based activities within

the system

Culture-Centered Approach to Engagement

A. Borron (2011)

Thank You

Questions?

Foreword of Researcher

• How do I know my audience?• How do I understand my audience?• What makes outreach efforts successful?