The article reports the results of a Mokken Scale Procedure (MSP) developing a hierarchical cross-national scale to measure xenophobia, and a qualitative validation of this scale. A pool of 30 xenophobic scale items were collected from several sources and edited according to established unidimensional criteria. The survey was administered to 608 undergraduate students in the USA, 193 undergraduate students in the Netherlands, and 303 undergraduate students in Norway. Fourteen scale statements measuring perceived threat or fear and meeting the criteria of the Stereotype Content Model (e.g., Fiske et al. in Trends Cogn Sci 11:77-83, 2006) were selected for further analysis. A separate item analysis and subsequently MSP analysis yielded a cumulative scale with the same five items for each of the three samples meeting criteria for homogeneity in all samples with H >.40. The result, a cross-national 5-item scale measuring fear-based xenophobia, was tested by means of the Three-Step Test-Interview (Hak et al. in Surv Res Methods 2:143-150, 2008) with 10 students in The Netherlands and 10 students in Norway. The analysis of these qualitative interviews shows that individual respondents' criteria for the ranking of the scale items strongly depend on the way immigrants are framed. Ranking according to different levels of fear turned out to be only one criterion out of several possible ones used by individual respondents.
Inclusive research involves people with intellectual disabilities actively and strives for empowerment and normalisation. Less is written about the power dynamics in a research team consisting of researchers and people with intellectual disabilities and the possible value of such collaboration. In this autoethnography we reflect on these aspects and the challenges along the way. We conclude that striving for normalisation can be paralysing; 'doing the same' is not always possible and can be disempowering for all members of the research team. Acknowledging differences and uniqueness enriches research outcomes and makes us reflect on our own, sometimes rigid, academic frameworks.
The collective involvement of patients and clients in health care organizations is valued in our Western society. In practice, giving form to this involvement seems to be a complex process. In this paper we present our learning experiences with a process of enhancing the involvement of older people in a residential care home in the Netherlands, by using a participatory action research approach, called PARTNER. This approach is inspired by responsive evaluation and developed for the context of long-term care. We use concepts of Habermas’ theory to understand what happens when trying to create communicative spaces through dialogue. Our learning history shows that the involvement of residents is not an easy task, because power issues are at stake. System values seem to dominate the lifeworld and expert knowledge seems to be more valued than expressed emotions and narratives of residents. Researchers who use participatory action research must be aware of these issues of power, often hidden in language and discourse. Dialogue can be a vehicle to enhance mutual understanding, when attention is paid to underlying values, assumptions and meanings of all people. Then, the gap between system and lifeworld can be bridged and communicative spaces can be opened up.
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