The proposal for a new Core Unit on Multicultural and Comparative Research grows out of Center experiences curing the first five years of its existence. The multicultural nature of the research populations studies in Center projects led individual project directors and faculty toward discussions of matters of common concern on multicultural and comparative methods.
The specific aims of the multicultural and Comparative Research Unit are: 1. To provide direction, standards, and assistance in establishing multicultural comparisons in studies of human development. The Unit will assist researchers in the employment of culture-sensitive assessments and analyses across Center projects, and it will provide consultation in individual project directors to enhance the understanding of culture, ethnic background, and gender. 2. To establish a network of scholars concerned with multicultural and comparative issues. Building on the nucleus provided by Center faculty, the Core will establish an international and interdisciplinary network of investigators. This network will help ensure that the projects of the center are informed with respect to issues of comparison across time, region, and contexts. 3. To facilitate the development of culturally-sensitive instruments to measure the effects of the introduced programs on adolescents. It is our aim to ensure appropriate cultural minority representation to ensure an interface between the research and prevention tasks of the Center. 4. To enhance the multicultural training experience of Center pre- and post-doctoral fellows in the Center for Developmental Science. In addition, individual consultation will be available for individual faculty at the Center I project design, measure development and measure selection, and discussions of meaningfulness and implications. 5. To promote research publications that directly address culturally relevant issues through the continuation of the monograph, volumes, and journal articles that have already been initiated in the Center. The themes of such public actions will include, for example, the ethics considerations involved in obtained informed consent from diverse populations, the interaction of the effects of gender and race across different cultural setting, and biosocial comparisons across temporal periods as a function of changing societal values.
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