Anthropological Investigation of Social Determinants of Knowledge

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在哈佛大学劳伦斯·博博博士的赞助下。亚利桑那州立大学的Tricia Redeker-Hepner和Heather Smith-Cannoy，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家在地区警察部门和非营利组织的社会倡议中调查知识生产的社会条件。在过去的几十年里，工作场所项目越来越受欢迎，有望产生更有利的制度结果。然而，一些学者批评这些努力为结构性问题提供了个人解决方案，而且，我们对参与这些倡议的人如何回应以及他们的回应如何挑战正在进行的问题知之甚少。拟议的研究将通过对两个不同机构的社会倡议进行比较、多地点的民族志分析来解决这些问题。对这些背景下系统问题如何持续存在的民族志理解有可能改善结果。本研究的目标是促进理论和公众对工作场所知识的社会决定因素的理解。该项目旨在通过收集民族志数据来实现这一目标，这些数据包括对工作场所培训的观察、对项目文件的分析，以及对来自多个地区警察局和非营利组织的培训师、员工、招聘和培训经理的半结构化访谈。本研究将探讨不同的概念如何有助于参与者招募，以及它们如何在不同机构之间进行比较；如何应对挑战；以及培训师和员工如何协商参与。它将建立在不断增长的社会科学努力的基础上，以检查集体知识生产的条件，从而为知识的社会决定因素与结构结果之间的关系提供新的见解。此外，本项目的比较框架将有助于理论化系统问题在不同机构之间的差异，以及统一的政策如何不能在不同类型的组织之间转换。通过这些贡献，本研究旨在丰富关于如何在工作场所最好地促进更有利的结构性结果的公共和学术对话。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Lawrence Bobo at Harvard University, and Drs. Tricia Redeker-Hepner and Heather Smith-Cannoy at Arizona State University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the social conditions of knowledge production across social initiatives at regional police departments and nonprofit organizations. In the past several decades, workplace programs have increased in popularity promising to produce more favorable institutional outcomes. However, some scholars have criticized these efforts as offering individual solutions for structural problems, and, we understand little of how those involved respond to the initiatives and how their responses challenge ongoing issues. The proposed research will address these questions via a comparative, multi-site ethnographic analysis of social initiatives across two distinct institutions. An ethnographic understanding of how systemic issues persist within these contexts has the potential to improve outcomes. The goal of this proposed study is to contribute to theory and public understanding of social determinants of knowledge within the workplace. The project aims to do so by collecting ethnographic data—including observations of workplace trainings, analyses of program documents, and semi-structured interviews with trainers, employees, and hiring and training managers—from multiple regional police departments and nonprofit organizations. This research will ask how various conceptualizations contribute to participant recruitment and how they compare across institutions; how challenges are managed; and how trainers and employees negotiate participation. It will build upon growing social scientific efforts to examine the conditions of collective knowledge production and will thereby offer fresh insight into the relation between social determinants of knowledge and structural outcomes. Furthermore, this project’s comparative framework will facilitate theorizing about how systemic issues vary across institutions, as well as how uniform policies may not translate across different types of organizations. Through these contributions, this study seeks to enrich public and scholarly conversations about how to best promote more favorable structural outcomes in the workplace.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.