From Theory to Practice: Implementing the CHILD Project

Abstract

The phrase “collaborative interdisciplinary research” is used increasingly in the health and social sciences but there was little to guide us in the process of operationalizing and implementing the coordination of the 10 distinct studies under one organizational framework. While each of the studies was keen to get under way in setting out and implementing its own program of research, it was also important to create the ways in which the 10 studies would communicate with one another. In this chapter we review the different approaches we took to enable each of the 10 studies to both contribute to and learn from the other studies in the CHILD Project. In a Piagetian sense, we were asking each study to begin the process of decentring in order to understand more about the other studies in the CHILD Project. In this chapter we discuss how these rituals evolved in response to various challenges in different phases of the project.

In this view, ritual is more complex than the mere communication of meanings and values; it is a set of activities that construct particular types of meanings and values in specific ways.

Bell (1997, p. 82)