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Applying “Place” to Research Ethics and Cultural Competence/Humility Training

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Abstract

Research ethics principles and regulations typically have been applied to the protection of individual human subjects. Yet, new paradigms of research that include the place-based community and cultural groups as partners or participants of environmental research interventions, in particular, require attention to place-based identities and geographical contexts. This paper argues the importance of respecting “place” within human subjects protections applied to communities and cultural groups as part of a critical need for research ethics and cultural competence training for graduate research students. These protections and benefits are extensions of the Belmont Principles and have been included in recent recommendations from research regulatory committees.

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Notes

  1. Training slides on these theories can be found at http://brown.edu/research/research-ethics. Users will need to fill out an online material request form and then have immediate access to slides.

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Acknowledgment

The author is grateful to the support of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (EESE) Program, GEO-1338751 to the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (http:www.brown.edu/research/research-ethics/neep) and to Phil Brown, PhD at Northeastern University for manuscript review.

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Quigley, D. Applying “Place” to Research Ethics and Cultural Competence/Humility Training. J Acad Ethics 14, 19–33 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-015-9251-5

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