does not require formal review. An exception would be for data where the individual can be identified with his or her data. If there was no way for the researcher to identify the data for a given subject, the study normally would not be subject to review.
If you collect data from human subjects (surveys, interviews, etc.) on a research topic where the results will be made public, you will normally be expected to engage in the procedures required by your IRB. It does not matter if the data are obtained anonymously or if confidentiality is assured. If you collect data from human subjects for the purpose of advancing knowledge, and if you plan to make these data public, then you must complete the forms used by your IRB. The members of the IRB will review your information to see the level of review that is necessary.
The IRB Review Process
For some situations, the procedures for IRB review will be simple; for others, it will be more complex. The greater the danger that ethical rights will be violated, the more complex will be the process you will encounter.
The IRB typically has several levels of review. Some proposals for studies will be exempted from full review because of the limited nature of the study procedures. For example, if you are conducting a social survey of adults where the questions posed are not the ones that could put study subjects at risk of harm or violation of privacy, you may find that your IRB has an expedited review process whereby your report is not presented to the full board for review. This normally takes less time. The full review, of course, takes much more time because the entire board must review your proposal, and the board will normally have regular meetings where it reviews as many proposals as time permits.
Advice for the Social Work Researcher
The social work researcher must, of course, abide by the principles enumerated in this part of the chapter. This means achieving voluntary participation from nonvulnerable populations, protecting privacy, and causing no harm by your research procedures.
Your interaction with your IRB will be less complicated if certain things are present in your research situation. If you are engaging in a study where the results are not being made public (publication, poster presentation, newsletter, etc.), you are in a situation where some IRBs will not consider your work to be subject to review by the board because it is not designed for the achievement of general knowledge.
If you intend to make your research results public, you are likely to be expected to provide some form of report to your IRB. You will be in better shape if you can collect your data anonymously, use a harmless questionnaire or scale, and obtain the voluntary participation of adults who are not in a place like a prison where people are considered especially vulnerable. Failure to achieve any of these elements of research will make your interaction with your IRB more complicated.
Section B: Cultural Competence in Social Work Research
In this section, you will examine the nature of cultural competence and understand why you should be attentive to this subject. The second theme is the influence of cultural competence on how you conduct research, including a reference both to the types of research and to the research process. The third theme is a set of recommendations for strategies for culturally competent research. The final topic is how we might rethink the concept of cultural competence.
The Nature of Cultural Competence
Cultural competence refers to your ability to take culture into consideration in your practice. This requires sufficient knowledge of culture to engage in practice that is well informed. It also requires sufficient self-awareness to avoid the interference of your own life experiences with regard to culture. Being aware of the similarities and differences between your culture and that of others is a critical part of this self-awareness.
Culture has a major influence on all aspects of social work practice. The National Association of Social Workers has articulated 10 standards related to cultural competence among social workers. These are as follows: (1) ethics and values, (2) self-awareness, (3) cross-cultural knowledge, (4) cross-cultural skills, (5) service delivery, (6) empowerment and advocacy, (7) diverse workforce, (8) professional education, (9) language and communication, and (10) leadership. There are suggestions within each of these 10 categories. For example, embracing culture as essential to effective practice is one of the values enumerated for the first item of this list. The standard about self-awareness suggests that social workers must demonstrate an appreciation of their own cultures as well as the cultures of others. In addition, social workers must develop both knowledge and skills related to cultural competence.
Cultural Competence Among Types of Research
You have viewed purpose as a guide for classifying research studies. Descriptive studies, for example, are designed only to describe people, while explanatory studies attempt to explain by the examination of relationships among variables. Exploratory studies review relatively unknown themes where research and theory are not well developed. Moreover, evaluative studies examine the success of social work programs and interventions.
When we undertake exploratory studies, we start with little information on the details of the phenomenon under investigation. We should always consider culture as a theme in these studies because of the widespread influence of culture on human behavior. To what extent have we developed a research methodology that is suitable for the inclusion of culture as a theme? Will we examine things that will reveal this?
When we conduct descriptive studies, we must construct measurement tools that are sensitive to cultural differences. An advantage of the descriptive study is that it is easily undertaken by way of a social survey with a large sample. Therefore, measurement sensitivity and sampling are concerns with regard to cultural sensitivity. A key purpose of descriptive research is to obtain an accurate portrayal of the people being described. Culture will surely be a key theme for such studies.
The explanatory research study deals with causation. With these studies, you examine relationships among variables because you have reason to believe that one of these variables explains the other one. In other words, you are dealing with the issue of causation. Does being in a certain culture, for example, cause a person to have a lower salary?
A caution with these studies, however, is that a simple relationship between two variables is not itself a complete portrayal of causation. It is one of the three features of causation. You also must address the possibility that other variables may do a better job of explaining the key variable or serve as an intervening variable between the two identified. A third feature of causation is that the cause should precede the effect in time order. Therefore, a complete portrayal of causation would be one that showed that there was a relationship between the cause and the effect, that this cause is not explained by other variables, and that a change in this cause comes before a change in this effect.
The evaluative research study seeks to examine the success of a program or an intervention. Did the grades of the at-risk middle school students improve after the clients received the special after-school program? When you are examining a single client, you need to be sensitive to the cultural influences on this client’s behavior. When you are examining an entire program, you should be concerned with the distribution of people in your sample concerning culture.
Cultural Competence and the Research Process
In social work research, cultural competence means knowing how cultural factors have meaning for different aspects of the research process. This begins with the research question. Does it adequately reflect culture? People from a certain culture may have
