{"id":454,"date":"2016-02-17T11:51:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T16:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.elon.edu\/aidworkervoices\/?p=454"},"modified":"2017-11-05T09:04:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T14:04:34","slug":"failed-attempts-at-inclusiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elon.edu\/aidworkervoices\/?p=454","title":{"rendered":"Getting our survey out: exploratory research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting our survey out: \u00a0exploratory research<\/h3>\n

Aid Worker Voices: \u00a0Survey Results and Commentary
\n<\/strong>I’ll start with some very deep and reflexive background. \u00a0In 2000 I published a book that was used by colleagues here at my university in a required course by the same name, Understanding the Global Experience<\/em>. \u00a0When I was asked to teach one section of the pilot for this course in 1994 I used that moment to begin taking a deep interest in global affairs. \u00a0I recall reading Benjamin Barber’s The<\/em>\u00a0Atlantic<\/em> article Jihad vs McWorld<\/a>\u00a0and being immediately absorbed by the vague (or is that vacuous?) concept of global citizenship. \u00a0My interest in all things global only accelerated from there. \u00a0As past President of the Association for Humanist Sociology my attention\u00a0regarding social justice issues was already advanced.<\/p>\n

In 2003 I founded a program at my university designed to offer a three year pathway for students who wanted to do something<\/em> about global social issues as they deepened their knowledge. \u00a0Our program is now\u00a0well into its second decade of “creating and sustaining meaningful global partnerships.” \u00a0As director of this program I have made it part of my job to learn about humanitarian aid and development and have read, taught and written about this area for many years now.<\/p>\n

As part of my reading I encountered Missionary, Mercenary, Mystic Misfit<\/a> by this mysterious J person. Through networking I found a mutual friend and he and I met on line, immediately connecting on the idea of finding out more about the lives and views of aid workers.<\/p>\n

The survey
\n<\/strong>My collaborator (J) and I worked to construct the survey over many weeks, sending out versions to beta readers several times and making edits, adding and deleting questions, and finally ending\u00a0up with a 60 item survey with 41 forced choice questions and 19 “elaborate on your thoughts” open-ended questions. \u00a0The url for the survey was sent broadly via social media targeting at aid workers worldwide. \u00a0 At the end of the survey was\u00a0a link to the AidWorkerVoices blog so that people could see our reporting and comment on the results as they came in. \u00a0J gave a detailed clarification of who should take the survey\u00a0on the blog that casts a pretty wide net. \u00a0See here <\/a>his answer to the question “Who should take this survey?” \u00a0We stayed live\u00a0\u00a0for a little over a year and during that time we had 1010 responses, most coming in the first three months.<\/p>\n

There were a total of 8,162 total responses to the 19 open ended questions, an average of 430 per question, including nearly 900 on the last two open-ended questions (Q58 and Q60), indicating that the interest levels of the respondents remained high and consistent throughout this long survey.<\/p>\n

Our sample of aid workers<\/strong>
\nThere is no master list of aid and development workers around the world nor for that matter any clear consensus as to (1) where aid ends and development begins (what is Dadaab, exactly?), (2) who could or should be included under the umbrella term “aid workers” (do volunteers count??) or even (3) how one would define the “aid industry” (does corporate social responsibility count, for example?)<\/p>\n

To do\u00a0a representative\u00a0study of aid workers around the world we would need access to data bases of staff from everywhere in the aid industry, and effectively and efficiently get a culture and language specific version of the survey to a stratified random sample of these folks and hope that enough respond to make the results\u00a0meaningful. If\u00a0that were possible then we could\u00a0make scientifically valid generalizations about the\u00a0data.<\/p>\n

Our survey was never intended to yield results that one could -with certainty- generalize to all aid workers. From the very beginning we were sober about the fact that our\u00a0respondents were self-selected and, in the end, only fluent in English. \u00a0What you read throughout this blog are aid worker voices from women and men who graciously gave their time to complete the survey. \u00a0In my posts (soon to be book chapters) I summarize and\u00a0commented on the quantitative data and the themes that appear in the hundreds of responses to each open-ended follow-up question. \u00a0I make every attempt to present a balanced representation of the responses as a whole, highlighting particularly well articulated observations.<\/p>\n

That the 1010 respondents tend to overrepresent expat aid and development workers from “rich” countries \u00a0(the Global North and in particular the US, Canada and Western Europe) seems quote certain from both the quantitative and qualitative data. \u00a0The title for the blog is Aid Worker Voices because “Mostly international\u00a0aid and development worker voices from mostly ‘rich’ countries” was a bit too long.<\/p>\n

What we have in this body of work is a positive step forward in exploring and giving voice to\u00a0the views and lives of aid workers. \u00a0Our\u00a0results are scientific in the same sense as\u00a0much anthropological work and, in the end, adds to our knowledge about the aid industry. \u00a0The hope is that the book-length treatment of the results will be useful to students, journalists and academics wishing to learn more about the aid industry and will provide interesting and \u00a0perhaps affirming reading for those already in the sector.<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0attempts at inclusiveness<\/strong>
\nThough we were able to generate over 1,000 responses to our survey it is clear that we have nothing close to a representative sample of all aid workers, however defined. \u00a0Nor was that our goal. \u00a0We simply hoped to move forward conversations about the lives of aid workers and to\u00a0give voice to some of the concerns and perspectives of those willing to come forward, and I feel that that objective has been reached. \u00a0In the vernacular of my academic area of sociology, our efforts represent an example of exploratory research intended to do exactly that, explore and share information about the lives and views of aid and development workers. \u00a0More needs to be done, and a second version of our survey may happen at some point.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, looking back at our efforts to get a wide range of voices I see some failed attempts.\"fail\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Translations<\/strong>
\nA great deal of work was put into translating our\u00a0survey into Spanish and Arabic. \u00a0As soon as the translations were completed and vetted by native speakers we used various social media platforms to aggressively invite non-English speaking aid workers to respond to the survey.\u00a0 As we were putting the word out about the Spanish and Arabic versions we also spent time getting a version translated into French. Sadly, our energy and focus waned when our invitation on the Spanish and Arabic versions \u00a0received\u00a0literally zero reaction and the French version was never vetted or made public.<\/p>\n

Why this lack of response? \u00a0Two interrelated reasons are that (1) our social networking failed to get the word out effectively and (2) those that were reached felt unimpressed by our offer. But why? \u00a0There are many reasons from various cultural perspectives, one of which is that the trust in the confidentiality of an internet survey may be low. \u00a0Another is that the survey, if read at all, was seen as unworthy, off point,\"Screenshot<\/a> or otherwise not worth the investment in time.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a comparison note, though. \u00a0As part of another research project in 2008 and again in 2012 I put out an internet based survey targeting non-believers -atheists- that was of comparable length and depth to\u00a0our aid\u00a0worker project. \u00a0The survey was called “Coming Out as an Atheist” so there was little doubt as to our target respondents. \u00a0Using social media connections to get the word out in both 2008 and 2012\u00a0we were able to generate over 8,000 respondents for both versions – over 16,000 combined.<\/p>\n

Detailed analysis of the data indicates minimal trolling; the answers were consistent, sincere and detailed. \u00a0Over 92% of those who started the long surveys completed them. \u00a0And here’s the kicker: \u00a0though most of our respondents were from the US (about 70%) a good minority were from around the world. \u00a0Though a relatively few were from the global south, about 4%, this population was reached. \u00a0The massive success of both of these surveys (in terms of getting a robust response) even though the topic was potentially stigmatizing was what made me feel like we could get a good response from aid workers world wide.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we are comparing apples and oranges in terms of numbers here. \u00a0Globally there are likely far less than 500,000 aid workers, however defined, just now. \u00a0The number of nonbelievers\/atheists worldwide is in hundreds of millions, with as many as 30,000,000 in the United States alone. \u00a0That said, coming out as an atheist is far more risky in many places than coming out as an aid worker, so the fact we got so many responses is partially a function of the fact that, as expressed by many in the open ended questions, taking the survey was cathartic.<\/p>\n

We did find the same responses in our aid worker survey, though. \u00a0Here are a couple examples:<\/p>\n

“Very interesting survey and I appreciate the chance to share my views – it is surprising how little time (and few opportunities) one has to actually *think* about things in the busyness of the day-to-day. I wish your survey results could be shared in an open forum (not only virtual) where significant players can be present and honestly reflect for a moment.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“These are great questions; very thought-provoking. It’s rare to have an opportunity to share ‘my truth’ so I appreciate this initiative!”<\/em><\/p>\n

So, given that many people thanked us for the survey and appreciated the chance to share, the question remains why didn’t we get more responses overall and none from the translated versions?<\/p>\n

Local aid workers<\/strong>
\nWe were also concerned that we did not get many responses from local aid workers. Though our social media messaging about the survey was meant to reach all aid workers, the outcome was far more homogeneous and, well, white. \u00a0Over half of the local aid workers that responded to our survey worked
\nfor humanitarian aid organization and comprised a paltry 5% of our total sample. \u00a0How this could have been more effectively addresses is open to question, but certainly one large gap in our goal of hearing and reporting the voices of aid workers is the very critical local aid worker segment. \u00a0In some senses our blog [book] could be said to be “International\u00a0aid worker voices”, sadly so.\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Concluding thoughts about being inclusive<\/strong>
\nThat we had failed attempts at inclusiveness is obvious.\u00a0But what can we learn from these failures? Here are some final\u00a0thoughts:<\/p>\n