|  JANET
MANCINI BILLSON, PH.D., C.C.S.
Janet Mancini Billson, Director
of Group Dimensions International and Adjunct
Professor of Sociology at The George Washington
University, received her M.A. (1972) and Ph.D.
(1976) in Sociology from Brandeis University.
Dr. Billson has conducted social policy research
since 1981, serving a wide variety of clients
on education, development, health, environment,
and policy issues. She has conducted training
workshops in focus group research in the United
States, Japan, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Uganda,
Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe. She
conducts the annual focus group training for the
World Bank’s International Program for Development
Effectiveness Training in Ottawa.
Dr. Billson has recently been working on research projects for Bridgewater State College and Bristol Community College, funded respectively by the Carnegie Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education. She is also conducting a review of the United Nations Commission (Bangkok) annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. She has also conducted extensive research
in several Asian, African, European, and Latin
American countries for the World Bank and the
United Nations. In the United States, her clients
have included the Brown University Education Alliance,
the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department
of Energy, universities, hospitals, think tanks,
and other non-profits.
A sociologist with a strong
background in both research design and group dynamics,
Dr. Billson has developed a reputation as a research
consultant, a skilled moderator, and a highly
motivating trainer. Her work has contributed to
social policy shifts and program redevelopment
at the national level. She received the Society
for Applied Sociology’s “Award for
Sociological Practice” in 2000 and the District
of Columbia Sociological Society’s “Stuart
A. Rice Achievement Award” in 2001.
Dr. Billson is the author
of Female Well-Being: Towards a Global Theory
of Social Change (with Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban,
2005); Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit
in A Century of Change (with Kyra Mancini,
2007); Pathways to Manhood: Young
Black Males Struggle for Identity (1996); Keepers
of the Culture: The Power of Tradition in Women's
Lives (1995); Cool Pose: Dilemmas of Black Manhood
in America (with Richard Majors, 1992/1993); Strategic
Styles: Coping in the Inner City (1980), and numerous
articles and book chapters on women and identity.
She has lectured widely on women in Canada, Native
women, Inuit women and their families, and Nunavut
(Canada’s newly-created territory designed
give the Inuit greater political and economic
control over their destiny).
Dr. Billson is also Editor
of Skywood Press, a publishing house that specializes
in accessible, readable training materials for
evaluation research methods. Dr. Billson is the
author of The Power of Focus Groups for Social,
Policy, and Academic Research; the new World Bank
Institute (WBIES) Guidelines for Effective Focus
Group Research; “Conducting Focus Group
Research across Cultures: Consistency and Comparability,”
Research Paper No. 1, WeD--Well-Being in Developing
Countries Research Group, University of Bath,
England; and Making Sense of SPSS and Surveys—from
Design to Analysis. These training materials are
used in focus group and survey research training
workshops around the world.
|
