Understanding a Community One Door at a Time

When applying for a Muskie fellowship, Marianna Tanina never imagined that she would soon be knocking on unfamiliar doors in a North Texas neighborhood.   Tanina’s expectations changed after she enrolled in her first semester at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).  This fall, Tanina worked with other graduate students to conduct an assessment of community participation in city planning.  After gathering input from community members, Tanina made recommendations for improvements to the City of Mesquite. 

The project was an assignment in Qualitative Research Methods, a course in UTA’s Department of Public and Urban Affairs.  “I didn’t expect this assignment,” said Tanina.  “When you do research in Tajikistan, you are given very specific instructions.  Here, we were given a much more general task and we had to figure out how to do it.”

In order to better understand the needs of the community, Tanina and her classmates decided to conduct door-to-door interviews with 25 households in Mesquite’s Casa View Heights neighborhood.  Tanina learned that the increasingly diverse Casa View Heights area is home to a mix of elderly English-speaking residents and younger Hispanic families for whom English is not a first language.  Through interviews, the students found that language barriers prevented some residents from communicating with city officials.

After completing the study, Tanina and her fellow student-researchers presented their findings to the Mesquite City Council and city workers.

   Tanina recommended that Mesquite better publicize English-language classes and establish a community center to bring residents together. 

“I learned that qualitative research is valuable,” explained Tanina, who sees a connection between the research in Mesquite and her career monitoring development projects in Tajikistan.  “This is what is lacking [there].  Sometimes you want to share the views of individuals, their voices can be powerful in changing policy.”

The Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program is administered by IREX and funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State.