It's the Fulfillment of a Dream Posted on February 14, 2006 Oscar A. Barbarin (bio) tells us why he got involved in doing research in South Africa

I've been involved in a longitudinal project in South Africa, and it was actually the fulfillment of a dream to go to South Africa. So in some ways I was more like a tourist who wanted to go, but there were some substantive issues connected to it.

I was very strongly interested in the issues of poverty and violence and the effect on child development here in the United States, and the transition in South Africa offered an opportunity to look at similar issues. I grew up in the United States during the civil rights era, and this period of transition in the United States was something that I had experienced as a child.

So I wanted to go to South Africa to experience it as an adult. So the first point is that often interest in doing international collaborations often begin with personal reasons, curiosity, a desire to reach beyond, probably more often than methodological or substantive issues.

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