From Their Perspective: Alaskan Grandparents' Roles, Strengths, and Needs

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

Using a participatory action research model the research team will investigate the roles, strengths, and needs of Alaska Native grandparents residing in rural, semi-urban, and urban areas of Alaska. The research project will explore how grandparent roles, strengths, and needs have been shaped by larger factors, such as traditional practices, community changes, out migration, subsistence, and others factors defined by the participants.

After meeting with communities and various levels of governing authorities,the investigators hope to gain additional insights into the factors that prove significant to lives of Alaska Native grandparents. The research team will use those insights to modify their research plan and instruments. This iterative process between researcher and community is the hallmark of participatory action research. The research team has chosen the participatory action model for this project because it gives the participant community a stronger voice in the research and the scientific researchers deeper insight into the project's potential. The project team believes this model is key in the case of working with Alaska Native grandparents, a population about which little has been written in the scientific literature. In addition the project leaders are obligated to developing outreach documents and fully informing communities about the research and the research results.

The current project serves to enhance the professional development of undergraduate and graduate students, mentor future Arctic scientists, and develop culturally appropriate and respectful researchers, which improves communication between scientists and Alaskan Native communities. Data from the current project will be made available to others to enhance the dissemination of knowledge and wisdom offered by Alaska Native elders and grandparents.

It is projected that the research will bring to light the similarities and unique aspects of grandparents in an arctic region and contribute to the body of literature on grandparenting, grandparents rearing grandchildren, and diversity among grandparenting, and the general literature in these and other disciplines: Gerontology, Psychology, Human Development and Family Science, Multicultural Diversity, and Anthropology.