February 26, 1999

Pioneering research lays foundation for public policy

Dr. Susan McDaniel

Fresh off the plane from an international conference in South Africa, Dr. Susan McDaniel is so jet-lagged she's not sure it all has sunk in. But the Kaplan award winner says: "It's really fun. I'm really excited about the whole thing."

McDaniel completed her PhD at the University of Alberta but had no plans to return until the university's persistence and the outstanding growth of the Department of Sociology lured her back. "Eventually, they said 'Well, why don't you come here for a year and we will see what happens.'" That was a decade ago.

Since then, McDaniel has become internationally recognized for her pioneering work in social and demographical issues, often with an emphasis on gender. She balks, however, at the idea her focus is only on women's issues. "My early interest was in the unexpected contradiction between individuals' behaviors and outcomes, and it still fascinates me. I have tried to infuse everything I do with some kind of gender aspect, but the intent of my research is this individual/structure thing."

Some of McDaniel's early research focused on fertility, but it was her inclusion of gender issues in her research that were revolutionary. "The ways women made or did not make decisions about childbearing had never fully been looked at. The entire perspective was seen through the eyes of the male researcher, not deliberately biased but also not fully expanded to what it could be. It was not fully inclusive."

It was an early interest in mathematics, people's behaviors and a course in introductory demography for a student originally intent on studying engineering that led to McDaniel's new research frameworks. "I realized it was possible for me to apply this mathematical interest to something human," remembers McDaniel.

The professor takes enormous pride in her current work measuring the social impact of science and technology. Her research has given Canada the leading role in this area, and she has presented at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), NATO and the Presidential Symposium on Science and Technology in Washington, D.C. In addition, McDaniel's research was instrumental in reshaping the discourse on family policy studies during the United Nation's International Year of the Family (IYF) in 1994. She has also worked with Census Canada on marital status and unpaid work questions.

"The research, although it is not intended to be policy oriented, has been scooped up as policy relevant at the conceptual level. This also means that research has a life of its own," she says with a smile. "It grows up like a child and you can't really control it."

McDaniel is also a dedicated teacher, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and for this received a Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1995. "There is a sort of synergy between [research and policy] that is much like the synergy between teaching and research. If you bring the main research questions and the latest research findings into the classroom, the conversation broadens and everyone benefits, including my conceptual frameworks and my research."

"She pushes you, but always in the right direction," says sociology PhD student, Teresa Abada. "She always pushes you to look at the broader picture and to investigate a different angle. She is extremely supportive of students and very encouraging."

"I really admire the way she is well informed about international issues," adds Kwame Bodau, another graduate student who has been under McDaniel's supervision for the past two years. "There are very few other professors interested in developing countries as she is." An international student studying hospitals in his native Ghana, Bodau says McDaniel "makes you feel at home," with personal touches such as cards to celebrate Christmas or the passing of an exam.

It was the impact on national and international public policy that attracted the attention of the selections committee for both1999 Kaplan winners, says Dr. Roger Smith, vice-president (research and external affairs). "This is research that provides the foundation for the policy decisions to be made. It was the contribution their research has made to understanding the issues of our country."

McDaniel agrees with the idea of research as a contribution. "It's more about a contribution than accomplishments. Research is rather like building a glass wall - it's not brick," she says. "It is permeable. You can see through it but the light is somewhat refracted. Each brick you produce is a new sort of insight, a clue if you like, to a big puzzle, and then someone else puts on another glass brick, and so what you are doing is contributing."

The Kaplan award, says McDaniel, "means we are celebrating one another's achievements. It is recognition on the home front."

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