Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation

Julien C.  Mirivel; Avinash Thombre; Tusty ten  Bensel; Kirk Leach; Benjamin Wood

doi:10.29333/ajqr/13115

Julien C. Mirivel ¹ ^* , Avinash Thombre ², Tusty ten Bensel ², Kirk Leach ², Benjamin Wood ³

More Detail

AM J QUALITATIVE RES, Volume 7, Issue 2, pp. 163-184

https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

OPEN ACCESS 920 Views 1101 Downloads

Download Full Text (PDF)

Abstract

The United Nation (UN) lists ending poverty in all its forms as the number one prerogative among seventeen sustainable development goals. One organization that is seeking to make an impact on those who live in poverty is Heifer International, a global nonprofit organization based in the United States, whose mission is “to end world hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth.” By using Values-Based Holistic Community Development, Heifer has helped to lift millions of people out of poverty. In this article, we present the results of a study we conducted in Bihar, India to assess the impact of Heifer International programming on participants’ communication competency. Grounded in over 100 interviews with women across four time periods, the results show that women who have partnered with Heifer International experience significant qualitative changes in communication competency across five areas: expressiveness, assertiveness, persuasiveness, openness, and positiveness. We discuss the implications of this work on communication competency and empowerment for women living in poverty and its impact on personal transformation.

Keywords: communication competency, poverty, community development, personal transformation

References

Adler, R. P., & Goggin, J. (2005). What do we mean by “civic engagement”? Journal of Transformative Education, 3(3), 236–253. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344605276792
Alberti, R. E., & Emmons, M. L. (2001). Your perfect right: Assertiveness and equality in your life and relationships. Impact Publishers.
Arasaratnam, L.A., and Doerfel, M. L. (2005). Intercultural communication competence: Identifying key components from multicultural perspectives. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(2), 137–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2004.04.001
Arroyo, A., & Segrin, C. (2011). The relationship between self-and other-perceptions of communication competence and friendship quality. Communication Studies, 62(5), 547-562.
Balani, K. (2017, January). Bihar has the most illiterate people in India, but spends the least per elementary school student. Scroll.in. https://scroll.in/article/825848/bihar-has-the-most-illiterate-people-in-india-but-spends-the-least-per-elementary-school-student
Baumgartner, L. M. (2001). An update on transformational learning theory. In S. B. Merriam (Ed.), The new update on adult learning theory: New directions for adult and continuing education (No. 89, pp. 15–24). Jossey-Bass.
Beamer, L. (1992). Learning intercultural communication competence. Journal of Business Communication, 29(3), 285–303. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194369202900306
Bennett, M. J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (2nd ed., pp. 21–71). Intercultural Press.
Biss, D. C., Dykstra-DeVette, T. A., & Geist-Martin, P. (2022). Bridging trauma-informed care and organizational accommodations: an ethnographic analysis of tensional knots in an anti-violence nonprofit. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 50(2), 129-148.
Brower, R. L., Jones, T. B., Osborne-Lampkin, L. T., Hu, S., & Park-Gaghan, T. J. (2019). Big Qual: Defining and debating qualitative inquiry for large data sets. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919880692
Carter, M. J., & Marony, J. (2021). Examining self-perceptions of identity change in person, role, and social identities. Current Psychology, 40, 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9924-5Clements, P. (2012). Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of Heifer International country programs. Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation, 8(18), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.56645/jmde.v8i18.341
Clair, R. P., & Anderson, L. B. (2013). Portrayals of the poor on the cusp of capitalism: Promotional materials in the case of Heifer International. Management Communication Quarterly, 27(4), 537-567.
Collier, M. J., & Lawless, B. (2016). Critically reflexive dialogue and praxis: Academic/practitioner reflections throughout a formative evaluation of Circles® USA. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 44(2), 156–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2016.1155724Creswell, J., & Poth, C. (2017). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. SAGE Publications.
Davidson, E., Edwards, R., Jamieson, L., & Weller, S. (2019). Big data, qualitative style: A breadth-and-depth method for working with large amounts of secondary qualitative data. Quality & Quantity, 53, 363–376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-018-0757-y
Davis, E. P., & Sanchez-Martinez, M. (2014). A review of the economic theories of poverty (Discussion Paper No. 435). National Institute of Economic and Social Research. https://www.niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/dp435_0.pdf DeVries, J. (2011) Passing on the gift as an approach to sustainable development programmes. Development in Practice, 22(3), 373–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2012.664626
Dierolf, T. S., Kern, R., Ogborn, T., Protti, M., & Schwartz, M. (2002). Heifer International: Growing a learning organization. Development in Practice, 12(3-4), 436–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/0961450220149780
Drumheller, K., & McQuay, B. (2010). Living in the buckle: Promoting LGBT outreach services in conservative urban/rural centers. Communication Studies, 61(1), 70-86.
Grootaert, C., Narayan, D., Jones, V. N., & Woolcock, M. (2004). Measuring social capital: An integrated questionnaire. World Bank.
Harter, L. M., Edwards, A., McClanahan, A., Hopson, M. C., & Carson-Stern, E. (2004). Organizing for survival and social change: The case of StreetWise. Communication Studies, 55, 407-424. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/10510970409388627.
Heifer International. (n.d.). Heifer International and world food day. https://www.heifer.org/about-us/media-center/press-releases/heifer-international-and-world-food-day-.html
Hershfield, A. F., Rohling, N. G., Kerr, G. B., & Hursh-Cesar, G. (1993). Fieldwork in rural areas. In M. Bulmer & D. P. Warwick (Eds.), Social research in developing countries: Surveys and censuses in the third world (pp. 241–252). Routledge.
Jablin, F. M., & Sias, P. M. (2001) Communication competence. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication (pp. 819–864). SAGE Publications.
Jones-Bodie, A. (2020). Methodist Hospital’s Rhetoric of Atonement: Examining an Organization’s Response to NICU Overdoses. Communication Studies, 71(4), 584-600.
Kitchenham, A. (2008). The evolution of John Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. Journal of Transformative Education, 6(2), 104–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344608322678
Koschmann, M. A. (2012). Developing a communicative theory of the nonprofit. Management Communication Quarterly, 26(1), 139-146.
Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. SAGE Publications.
Kvam, D. S. (2017). Supporting Mexican immigrants’ resettlement in the United States: An ethnography of communication approach to building allies’ communication competence. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 45(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2016.1248469
Martin, E. (2022, April 12). Another quarter billion people will fall into poverty this year, Oxfam says. Time. https://time.com/6166028/covid-poverty-hunger-war-inflation/
McNeilis, K. S. (2001). Analyzing communication competence in medical consultations. Health Communication, 13(1), 5-18.
Merriam, S., & Bierema, L. (2014). Experience and learning. In Adult learning: Linking theory and practice. Jossey-Bass.
Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult education, 28(2), 100-110.
Mezirow, J. (1981). A critical theory of adult learning and education. Adult Education Quarterly, 32(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171368103200101
Mikkelson, A. C., Sloan, D., & Tietsort, C. J. (2021). Employee perceptions of supervisor communication competence and associations with supervisor credibility. Communication studies, 72(4), 600-617.
Mirivel, J. C. (2014). The art of positive communication: Theory and practice. Peter Lang Publishing.
Mirivel, J. C., & Thombre, A. (2019). On the nature of personal transformation in Nepal: An executive report [report]. Little Rock, AR: Heifer International.
Mwambari, D., Purdekova, A., & Bisoka, A. N. (2021). Covid-19 and research in conflict-affected contexts: Distanced methods and the digitalisation of suffering. Qualitative Research, 22(6), 969–978. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794121999014
Norton, R., & Warnick, B. (1976). Assertiveness as a communication construct. Human Communication Research, 3(1), 62–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1976.tb00504.x
Novek, E. M. (1995). West Urbania: An ethnographic study of communication practices in inner‐city youth culture. Communication Studies, 46(3-4), 169-186.
Poverty Eradication. (2022, January 27). United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://www.un.org/development/desa/socialperspectiveondevelopment/issues/poverty-eradication.html
Quetulio-Navarra, M., van der Vaart, W., & Niehof, A. (2015). Can third-party help improve data quality in research interviews? A natural experiment in a hard-to-study population. Field Methods, 27(4), 426–440. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X15572096
Quinn, W. R., & Quinn, R. E. (2015). Lift: Becoming a positive force in any situation. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Rubin, R. B., & Martin, M. M. (1994). Development of a measure of interpersonal communication competence. Communication Research Reports, 11(1), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824099409359938Sahay, S. (1998). Women and empowerment: Approaches and strategies. Discovery Publishing House.
Schraedley, M. K., Bean, H., Dempsey, S. E., Dutta, M. K., Hunt, K. P., Ivancic, S. R., LeGreco, M., Okamoto, K., & Sellnow, T. (2020) Food (in)security communication: a Journal of Applied Communication Research forum addressing current challenges and future possibilities. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 48(2), 166–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2020.1735648
Shefner‐Rogers, C. L., Rao, N., Rogers, E. M., & Wayangankar, A. (1998). The empowerment of women dairy farmers in India. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26(3), 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909889809365510
Spitzberg, B. H. (1997). A model of intercultural communication competence. In L. A. Samovar & R. E. Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 375–387). Wadsworth Publishing.
Spitzberg, B. H. (2014). A model of intercultural communication competence. In L. Samovar, R. Porter, E. McDaniel, & C. Roy (2014, Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 375-387). Cengage learning.
Spitzberg, B. H. (2015). Assessing the state of assessment: Communication competence. In A. F. Hannawa & B. H. Spitzberg (Eds.), Communication competence (pp. 559–584). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110317459-023
Sumner, A., Hoy, C., & Ortiz-Juares, E. (2020, April). Estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on global poverty. WIDER Working Paper 2020/43. Helsinki: UNU-WIDER.
Thombre, A., & Rogers, E. M. (2009). Transformative experiences of cancer survivors. In M. Wills (Eds.,) Communicating spirituality in health care (pp. 251–272). Hampton Press.
United Nations. (2021). Global multidimensional poverty index 2021: Unmasking disparities by ethnicity, caste, and gender. https://ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/Waldron, R. V., & Yungbluth, S. (2015). Training and intervention. In A. F. Hannawa & B. H. Spitzberg (Eds.), Communication competence (pp. 629–654). De Gruyter.
Wade, G. H. (1998). A concept analysis of personal transformation. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(4), 713-719.
World Bank. (2020, October 7). Poverty and shared prosperity 2020: Reversals of fortune. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1602-4Zeng, Y., & Xia, L.-X. (2019). A longitudinal exploration of the relationship between interpersonal openness and anger rumination. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 47(11), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.8541
Worley, D., Titsworth, S., Worley, D. W., & Cornett-DeVito, M. (2007). Instructional communication competence: Lessons learned from award-winning teachers. Communication studies, 58(2), 207-222.

Citation

Mirivel, J. C., Thombre, A., Bensel, T. T., Leach, K., & Wood, B. (2023). Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 7(2), 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

Mirivel, J. C., Thombre, A., Bensel, T. T., Leach, K., and Wood, B. (2023). Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 7(2), pp. 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

Mirivel JC, Thombre A, Bensel TT, Leach K, Wood B. Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2023;7(2), 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

Mirivel, Julien C., Avinash Thombre, Tusty ten Bensel, Kirk Leach, and Benjamin Wood. "Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation". American Journal of Qualitative Research 2023 7 no. 2 (2023): 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

Mirivel, Julien C. et al. "Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation". American Journal of Qualitative Research, vol. 7, no. 2, 2023, pp. 163-184. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115

Mirivel JC, Thombre A, Bensel TT, Leach K, Wood B. Qualitative Changes in Communication Competency Among Women in Bihar, India: Heifer International’s Impact on Personal Transformation. AM J QUALITATIVE RES. 2023;7(2):163-84. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/13115