STUDENT PAPER COMPETITON

Deadline: 1/31/24

The Community Research and Development Division announces its 2024 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Paper topics can focus on various aspects of communities, including their capacity, development, renewal, and relationship with other social issues or problems. Qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses, applied research, and theoretical papers are welcome. To be eligible for submission, a paper must not be published nor accepted for publication. Papers must be student-authored; they may be authored by a single student or co-authored by more than one student but may not be co-authored by a faculty member or other non-student. Papers must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and tables), and should include a brief abstract. To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must make a commitment to present the paper at a session during the 2024 SSSP Annual Meeting in Montréal.

To be considered, submit (a) a copy of the manuscript, (b) a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the Community Research and Development Division Graduate Student Paper Competition, and (c) a short letter from each author’s advisor certifying the person’s status as a student and including some brief comments about the research. All materials must be submitted electronically to the Annual Meeting Call for Papers on the SSSP conference website by January 31, 2024 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Michael O. Johnston e-mail: johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu. Please note that students may only submit to one division. The winner will receive a $300 cash award, a one-year student membership to SSSP, conference registration fees, and a plaque of recognition.

COMMUNITY PARTNER PAPER AWARD

Deadline: 1/31/24

The Community Research and Development Division announces its 2024 Community Partner Paper Competition. Consistent with our division’s mission, this paper award is intended to recognize rigorous academic work that has practical implications for members of marginalized communities and specifically, to celebrate community-engaged work.

Paper topics can focus on various social issues and problems related to community, such as the causes and consequences of communities’ exclusion or marginalization from processes and resources, the capacities and strengths of communities and community movements, and the development and changes within communities. Qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses, applied research, and theoretical papers are welcome.

The following criteria for this award were developed based on standards of Community Based Research. Although papers do not need to meet all of these criteria, greater consideration will be given to research that demonstrates more of these criteria:

  • Research questions and/or focus reflects priorities of community partners;
  • Research encourages involvement of community in all aspects of research design including data collection methods to incorporate language, perspectives and experiences of participants;
  • Research encourages involvement of community in analysis and writing of paper, including co-authorship with community;
  • Research process provides member access to one another’s expertise, demonstrating an appreciation of academic and local community knowledge;
  • Results are ‘owned’ by the community;
  • Research has consequences for guiding social action, policy or program change for community;
  • Research democratizes and decolonizes the knowledge creation process by re-imagining relationships between researchers and subjects of research.

Papers may be pre-published or published in 2022-present. Papers may be coauthored by more than one faculty member, community member and/or student. Community partners are characterized by any community-based entity or representative that is outside of the academy. Papers must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and tables), and should include a brief abstract. To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must make a commitment to present the paper at a session during the 2024 SSSP Annual Meeting in Montréal.

To be considered, submit (a) a copy of the manuscript, (b) a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the Community Research and Development Division Community Partner Paper Competition, and (c) a brief letter from the community partner commenting on their role in the paper. All materials must be submitted electronically to the Annual Meeting Call for Papers on the SSSP conference website by January 31, 2024 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Susan Halverson email: shalver2@pdx.edu. The winner will receive a plaque of recognition at the Community Research and Development Division business meeting.