Translation That Transforms: Leadership and the Working Poor

• Author: Steven D. Mills
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12275
• Published date: 01 October 2017
• Date: 01 October 2017

S D. M Florida State University

Translation That Transforms: Leadership

and the Working Poor

Translational science, at its core, is about

knowledge making a positive difference in the

well-being of others (Evans, 2012). This article

explores how student attitudes, beliefs, and

actions toward impoverished and working poor

Americans were inuenced by a data- and

experience-driven understanding of this popu-

lation. The context is an undergraduate course

called ADE 4930: Leadership and the Work-

ing Poor, a 3-credit, service-learning course

requiring students to become Internal Revenue

Service–certied tax preparers and provide

40 hours of free tax preparation assistance to

the working poor. Students translated empirical

evidence and data offered by ADE4930 through

three primary applications: (a) behavioral guid-

ance related to tax preparation and the Earned

Income Tax Credit, (b) attitudinal shifts about

poverty related to structural disadvantages and

the psychological impact of scarcity, and (c)

social policy sophistication related to political

compromise and the complexity of personal

experience.

Rarely before have I had an experience where I

jumped into learning about a topic as deeply and

as intently as we did in this class. It was difcult

because we live in a society that ignores many of

Center for Leadership and Social Change, 100 S. Wood-

ward, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306

(smills@fsu.edu).

KeyWords: economic distress, low income, pedagogical and

curriculum issues, poverty and welfare, racial and ethnic

(minority) issues, social change, translational science.

the facts that we studied and the struggles that

these cause everyday Americans. Doing so, how-

ever, allowed me an opportunity to realize a pas-

sion for understanding these facts, particularly in

how they intersect with other social problems—the

school-to-prison pipeline, for one example.

—ADE 4930 student

This article employs the concept of translational

science in its most expansive sense—as a con-

sistent practice in social science education with a

helping focus. Family and consumer sciences, as

well as other social services, were born from the

desire and need to translate knowledge to human

well-being (American Association of Family &

Consumer Sciences, 2001; Reisch & Andrews,

2002). Students in these elds are saturated with

information targeted for translation into beliefs,

attitudes, and actions helpful to the well-being

of those they will serve. Further, in our expe-

rience, professors in these elds often want to

both educate and inuence students, especially

regarding their grasp of behavioral context and

its often-unrealized implications.

The eld of translational science is straining

at the boundaries of its current, limited concep-

tion. Woolf (2008) described “T1” translational

research as mining results from basic scientic

research to create practical and effective meth-

ods (primarily in the context of medicine) and

“T2” translational research as a focus on how

T1 methods become everyday clinical practice

among practitioners. He further suggested that

a narrow focus on health care is inadequate,

given that science informs choices around a

host of human concerns, from environmental

Family Relations 66 (October 2017): 753–765 753

DOI:10.1111/fare.12275