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1.
ABSTRACT

Purpose: This article explores how voluntary certifications influence the way cooperatives provide advisory services to their members and the influence of these services on agricultural practices. Design/Methodology/Approach: Case studies were conducted in four representative Costa Rican cooperatives interviewing twenty interviewed cooperative administrators and members to determine changes in advisory services and farming practices over the past twenty years and factors which influenced those changes. Findings: Certifications induce cooperatives to offer new services to support farmers. Cooperatives form collaborations with new stakeholders or reconfigure existing collaborations to provide advisory services to their members. These services have helped to shape farmers’ attitudes about sustainable farming practices, though farm-level changes may be small. The main change at the cooperative level is adding new topics for group training, and certification issues are directly linked with practices such as maintaining a farm record book or wearing a mask when applying pesticides. Practices which compete with productivity are unlikely to change. Practical Implications: The results are useful to improve the advisory services provided by cooperatives by better identifying the key issues to be addressed to fulfill the certifications’ requirements. Theoretical implications: Cooperatives are a relevant player to induce more sustainable practices, by providing or coordinating advisory services, but their efforts cannot be seen disconnected from a broader institutional environment. Originality/Value: We demonstrate that certifications change the intensity and scope of advisory services and induce cooperatives to engage with a more diverse network of stakeholders.  相似文献   

2.
Purpose: In this paper, we explore the strategic role of Multi-stakeholder processes (MSP) in agricultural innovations and how it has impacted livelihood assets’ (LAs) capital dynamics of stakeholders in platforms in West Africa.

Design/Methodology/Approach: We demonstrate how LA capitals and socio-economic dynamics induced by MSP can enhance cassava production efficiency but also create opportunities and challenges that influence platform dynamics and impacts. We use a multistage sampling procedure and sustainable livelihood model (e.g. stochastic frontier functions and Tobit regression) to analyse LA capital dynamics of the stakeholders.

Findings: We showed that the LA of the MSP participants (0.72) was found to be significantly higher (χ2?=?3.732, p?Practical implications: We recommend the institutionalization of MSP in the Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) with more extension follow-up services so as to adequately and appropriately unleash the potentials in social capital networks that enable the development, effective dissemination and adoption of agricultural innovations.

Theoretical implications: This study suggests that soft-transfer of technologies seems to dominate at MSP inception. But at maturity, the results of the struggle between researchers and farmers would lead to co-reaction and community-based research. Consequently, the knowledge and power dynamics that take place within the MSP should be considered the centre of co-construction and platform dynamics.

Originality/Values: The study provided a practical experience on how MSP can be institutionalized in the AR4D programmes to support agricultural innovation systems and foster pro-poor growth and livelihoods.  相似文献   

3.
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4.
Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of farmer-oriented policies as regards the Iranian agricultural extension system. Methodology: To fulfill this objective, a Delphi technique was utilized. The study used a series of three steps, engaging a panel of experts on farmer-oriented policies of agricultural extension system. Finding: The characteristics of farmer-oriented policies in agricultural extension system were classified into six categories including: need-based programs, proper interaction among stakeholders, decentralization and higher stakeholders’ participation, enabling stakeholders with emphasis on smallholder farmers, market-oriented programs and integrated policies. The findings indicated that ‘enabling farmers to solve their technical problems’ and ‘engaging farmers in planning, executing and evaluating of the programs’ had the highest percentage of agreement. Theoretical implication: From a theoretical point of view, the finding of this research has introduced six categories as characteristics of a farmer-oriented policy that could have practical implications for agricultural extension system in Iran. Also, this paper proposes a framework for future studies in the field of farmer-oriented policies in agricultural extension system. Practical implications: Recognizing the characteristics of farmer-oriented intervention of agricultural extension shows that targeted extension approaches are needed to pay attention to these characteristics in various stages of planning, delivering and evaluation of extension programs. Originality/value: This paper provides a comprehensive list of characteristics of farmer-oriented policies of agricultural extension that can be helpful for agricultural policy-makers in devising programs of extension services.  相似文献   

5.
Editorial     
Abstract

The availability of adequate knowledge is an important prerequisite for the achievement of sustainable forms of agriculture. It will be shown that the nature of the knowledge necessary for this differs from that which forms the basis for conventional agricultural practices. The generation of such knowledge requires other forms of research and extension than those that are currently widespread. It is now necessary, more than ever before, to direct efforts towards the organisation and support of joint learning processes aimed at the development of new technologies (and accompanying social‐organisational arrangements) at local level. While the first part of this article outlines some basic methodological elements that may be relevant in this respect, the second part addresses the question of whether changes occurring in the Dutch agricultural knowledge network are helpful in bringing about the required forms of experiential learning and interactive technology development at local level. It is argued that market‐oriented knowledge policies in agriculture (e.g. in the form of privatisation of research and extension institutions and ‘output‐financing') pose a number of threats to this. It is suggested that the idea of a ‘knowledge market’ is logically connected to outdated forms of linear thinking with regard to the source of innovation processes. In relation to this, a number of aspects causing friction are identified in the co‐operation between fanners, extensionists and researchers. With reference to insights from (institutional) economics, it is concluded that other institutional arrangements than markets are probably more suitable when the aim is to support experiential learning and interactive design towards sustainable agriculture. In such processes, applied knowledge and information cannot be treated as marketable ‘end‐products’, but are better regarded as ‘building‐blocks’ that need to be re‐arranged and re‐shaped through numerous creative ‘transactions’ and exchanges. If all of these transactions have to be paid for, innovation is unlikely to emerge.  相似文献   

6.
Purpose: This paper examines if and how agricultural researchers and extension officers can see, understand and change processes that exclude some people and influence marginalisation.

Design and methodology: We used participatory action research (PAR) in a programme building sustainable farming practices for nutrition and income in Solomon Islands as our case study. Two qualitative PAR data streams were analysed: (i) documentation of community activities over three years including action planning, learning activities, training workshops, focus group discussions, key informant and informal interviews and (ii) documentation of the research teams’ own learning and reflection sessions.

Findings: Agricultural research and learning activities facilitated through PAR can help researchers and extension officers see, understand and challenge processes that cause social exclusion and marginalisation and lead to inequitable access to agricultural opportunities. A combination of (i) starting with a collective vision; (ii) facilitating systematic reflection exercises; and (iii) having locally tuned facilitators creating safe spaces; makes processes of social exclusion tangible, discussable and ultimately actionable, illustrating the potential of the research and extension processes to facilitate social change in real time.

Theoretical Implications: The paper makes a contribution to the growing body of theory and literature on innovation systems and people-centred approaches to agricultural development, by highlighting the facilitation challenges and opportunities that can create more learning focused and power-aware agricultural programming.

Practical Implications: Our approach, examined in this paper, can improve implementation of policies such as the Solomon Islands Agriculture and Livestock Sector Policy (2015–2019), which aims for active participation of women and youth in agricultural development.

Originality: Using a PAR approach to discover how agricultural research and extension activities can help transform the processes that cause social exclusion and create disadvantage and marginalisation.  相似文献   


7.
ABSTRACT

Purpose: Little is known about effective ways to operationalize agricultural innovation processes. We use the MasAgro program in Mexico (which aims to increase maize and wheat productivity, profitability and sustainability), and the experiences of middle level ‘hub managers’, to understand how innovation processes occur in heterogeneous and changing contexts. Design/methodology/approach: We use a comparative case study analysis involving research tools such as documentary review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and reflection workshops with key actors. Findings: Our research shows how a program, that initially had a relatively narrow technology focus, evolved towards an innovation system approach. The adaptive management of such a process was in response to context-specific challenges and opportunities. In the heterogeneous context of Mexico this results in diverse ways of operationalization at the hub level, leading to different collaborating partners and technology portfolios. Practical implications: MasAgro experiences merit analysis in the light of national public efforts to transform agricultural advisory services and accommodate pluralistic agricultural extension approaches in Latin America. Such efforts need long-term coherent macro level visions, frameworks and support, while the serendipitous nature of the process requires meso-level implementers to respond and adapt to and move the innovation process forward. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the debate on how to operationalize large programs by showing that the innovation support arrangements enacted in the field should allow for diversity and have a degree of flexibility to accommodate heterogeneous demands from farmers in different contexts as well as continuous changes in the politico- institutional environment.  相似文献   

8.
Purpose: The sector-wide approach currently dominates as the strategy for developing the agricultural sector of many African countries. Although recognised that collaborative agricultural research is vital in ensuring success of sector-wide agricultural development strategies; there have been few efforts to understand the dynamics of national agricultural research/development networks in Africa. This study fills this gap by analysing the dynamics of networking and interactions between institutions in the National Agricultural Research System in Malawi. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study sampled actors in the National Agricultural Research System in Malawi, which included the main public agricultural research department, academic institutions, semi-autonomous research institutions, private companies and international agricultural research institutions. Data was analysed using Social Network Analysis. Findings: Results demonstrate that public agricultural research departments play a central coordinating role in facilitating information sharing; with other actors remaining on the periphery. However, it also shows the important role other actors play to relay information to a wider network of stakeholders. These secondary information pathways can play a very crucial role in ensuring successful implementation of the national agricultural research agenda. Practical implication: Policy-makers are called upon to integrate other research actors into the mainstream national agricultural research information network. This is vital as other research actors are, at the global level, increasingly taking up a greater role in financing and disseminating research and research results. Originality/Value: The study contributes greatly towards knowledge needed for continuing the transformation of African agricultural research; and aligning the African agricultural research vision and practice with the emerging global agricultural research paradigm.  相似文献   

9.
This article explores an understanding of learning as authentic enquiry and language as a social practice of meaning construction as the theoretical perspectives underlying an educational initiation beyond mainstream tertiary language education. With a general ethnographic approach and relying on multiple data sources, we investigate critical practices of teaching medical English in an Iranian university and illustrate a contextualized instance of enquiry-based language learning that embodies enquiry and discovery in two senses: students’ research and learning about the content for oneself, and moving away from spoon-feeding views of academic language education to experience language in real social contexts. On this basis, we argue for stepping beyond predetermined content-based approaches to university language teaching and call for living the language that is being learned, which involves enquiring, experiencing, discovering, challenging, and owning it.  相似文献   

10.
ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the power landscapes within Chinese universities, against the larger backdrop of China’s attempt to build modern university governance systems for developing world-class universities. Drawing upon Fairclough’s three-dimensional conceptions of discourse and informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s key conceptual notions of field and capital, the paper provides a critical discourse analysis of statutes of 10 top Chinese universities in terms of their texts, discursive practices and social practices and thus analyses existing power relations. The statute texts construct a hierarchical field of power by wording the ‘core’ stakeholder Party Committee as the leadership, using content sequence as a measure of power ranking, and including only limited stakeholders in the joint governance mechanism. Regarding discursive practices, faculty members’ participation in the formulation and distribution of university statutes is insufficient. The social practices identify with statute texts in terms of power relationships between Party Committee members, administrators and academics.  相似文献   

11.
Purpose: Approaches to build farmers' analytical capacities are said to trigger wide-ranging changes. This article reports on the communication process between participants and non-participants in one such approach, related to the technical and management skills learned by participants and the changes these participants subsequently made, and the outcomes in terms of non-participants' learning.

Design/Methodology/Approach: In this study, we analysed the following: (1) participants' learning and changes in social practices; (2) communication between participants and non-participants regarding technical and management skills and changes in social practices; (3) non-participants' learning and changes in social practices. The case study was a management advice to family farm project in three villages in Benin.

Findings: Most participants learned management skills, which led them to reassess their objectives and to reduce traditional social practices they now considered unproductive. Even in the case of frequent communication, non-participants found it difficult to learn management skills, which hindered their experiential learning. Non-participants consequently had difficulty understanding why participants changed their social practices such as reduction of their traditional gift giving, leading to limited well-argued discussion about these changes in practices between participants and non-participants.

Practical Implications: This study shows that, due to the limited learning process of non-participants communicating with participants, there is a need to design and test approaches to achieve capacity-building while including more participants at a similar cost, and to stimulate explicit discussion at village level about the changes in values and social practices that these approaches may trigger.

Originality/Value: The article analyses both participants and non-participants' experiential learning, and looks at the two sides of the interaction between the communication processes and non-participants' learning.  相似文献   


12.
Professional leaders have identified clear roles for social workers involved in advance care planning (ACP), a facilitated process whereby individuals identify their preferences for future medical care; yet information about effective teaching practices in this area is scant. This study reports on the experiences of 14 social workers who participated in a nationally recognized, evidence-based ACP facilitator certification program. Researchers first analyzed data consisting of participants’ in-depth reflective writings using an inductive thematic analysis process. Identified themes were subsequently grouped into three categories to characterize the “novice” experience of participants: theoretical knowledge, skill development, and self-reflection. Findings underscore the importance of ACP training in social work education and the need for teachers to help learners better understand the process of professional skill development.  相似文献   

13.
Purpose: The present study was undertaken to assess academic achievement, teaching aptitude and research attitude of Indian agricultural universities’ faculty, to predict indicators for successful teachers and researchers, and thereby enhancing the quality of higher agricultural education. Methodology: Five hundred faculty members were selected to elicit information on academic, teaching and research achievements. Teaching aptitude and attitude of faculty towards research were measured through standard psychometric tests. Correlation and regression analysis was carried out to establish the relationship among selected variables. Findings: Combination of academic achievement and teaching aptitude was a superior predictor for the teaching achievement compared to either of them alone. Similarly, research achievement of faculty was predicted better by the combination of academic achievement and research attitude. Practical Implications: The study showed the need for training faculty members in interpersonal relationships for effective teaching, and in research methodology and research processes for improving research attitude of faculty. Theoretical Implications: The expectancy-value model provides a useful framework to understand the role of attitude/aptitude in better prediction of research and teaching behavior. Originality/Value: The present study showed that teaching aptitude and research attitude be considered along with academic achievements for promoting quality teaching and research and hence the educational programmes.  相似文献   

14.
Environmental educators are challenged by how to teach children about global environmental crisis such as the Gulf oil spill, which only serves to engender children’s fears and apprehensions about the negative impact of humans on ecosystems. Eduardo Dopico and Eva Garcia-Vazquez’s article presents an interesting context from which to analyze and reflect on the connections between local and global environmental education issues. The authors’ study involves student researchers in actively learning about place-based, sustainable agricultural practices in rural Spain that are passed down through generations. These ecofriendly, culturally mediated farming practices, referred to as “traditional” by the farmers, were contrasted to “modern” practices that are used throughout market-based globalized economy. The connection between local (traditional) and global (modern) practices became very important in the reflections and learning of the student participants about sustainability and ecojustice issues associated with traditional farming. Students learned from the local farmers a positive, non-dualistic approach to sustainable agriculture in which human activity and culture is connected to ecological sustainability. Further, the students’ active research of sustainable and culturally medicated agricultural practices at the local level provided a frame of reference to understand global environmental crises.  相似文献   

15.

To better understand the sustainable development of open educational resources (OER), this paper aimed to break through the original ‘fixed’, highly structured evaluation system and develop an open and flexible “1?+?X” evaluation framework of OER by using the modified Delphi method. “1” refers to the mandatory basic criteria that the repository must reflect essential attributes and core functions, which are consist of four components: information content, learning process, system technology, and user experience. “X” refers to optional distinctive criteria that the repository shall focus on one or more developmental orientations, which may include: resource evolution, international collaboration, inclusiveness and equality, open educational practices, and value-added services. Optional “X” criteria, in line with the criteria’s diversity aims, can lead to the sustainable development of OER and globalized lifelong learning. The framework of this study provides a basis for the evaluation and optimization of existing OER repositories, and also serves as functional scaffolding for the construction of new repositories.

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16.
Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to reveal, and contribute to an understanding of, the processes that connect learning and innovation networks in sustainable agriculture to elements of the mainstream agricultural regime. Drawing on the innovations and transition literature, the paper frames the analysis around niche-regime interaction using the notion of niche-regime compatibility.

Design/Methodology/Approach: 17 Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture (LINSA) engaged in agricultural food production, non-food and rural development were analyzed. In line with the project's transdisciplinary approach data were collected in a series of participatory workshops.

Findings: Five modes of LINSA-regime interaction are distinguished based on compatibility. The level of LINSA-regime compatibility influences the extent of the diffusion of LINSA ideas and practices into the regime. However, interaction processes within these modes reveal multiple and diverse connections between LINSA and regime entities suggesting a more complex relationship exists.

Practical implications: A range of connecting processes and activities (for example, certification, exemption from regulation, facilitation of networking) can bring about effective LINSA-regime interaction and could be externally supported.

Originality/Value: Empirical evidence from 17 case studies provides valuable insights from a number of different contexts across Europe. By directing analysis of interaction at the level of LINSA (niche project), rather than at the macro level, the study offers an original perspective. It suggests that the transition to sustainable agriculture might be understood as a complex of interactive processes leading to a series of adaptive changes, rather than as regime change.  相似文献   

17.
Abstract

Purpose: This article explores the impacts of action learning on graduates’ abilities to use interdisciplinary knowledge to solve problems, practice teamwork on the job and become change agents through study in two MSc programmes at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB).

Design/methodology/approach: Electronic questionnaires were sent to students who had graduated from the Agroecology and Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture (MNRSA) MSc programmes between 2000 and 2007.

Findings: Both study programmes encouraged students to become change agents promoting sustainable practices through application of knowledge and methods from natural and social sciences. Agroecology graduates applied a greater range of creative research methods, and improved their capacity for holistic and systems thinking more than MNRSA graduates, while the latter were more skilled in building consensus. Graduates from both programmes increased their abilities to create a positive team environment, bring people together to express their views and take multiple views into consideration when making decisions.

Practical implications: This survey documents how action learning develops students’ skills and knowledge to handle complex social and environmental challenges and become change agents.

Originality/value: In the context of increasing challenges in agroecology and natural resource management the findings on how to translate knowledge into action are important for teaching/learning institutions dealing with education for sustainable development.  相似文献   

18.
Posthumanism, or the material turn, refuses to take the distinction between human and nonhuman for granted. Currently discourses in literacy education focus on the ways of incorporating new tools and technologies (products) but within a design perspective, which does not get at the social and participatory ways (processes) of students creating new relationships and realities with materials. A posthuman stance focuses on the processes of literacy artefacts coming into being and what is being produced in the process(es). The social is (re)imagined and (re)defined in processes that encompass social entanglements of humans/nonhuman materials creating newness, new realities. We put to work posthumanist concepts with data that we call the ‘solar system mural assemblage’ from a 7‐ to 8‐year‐old Writers' Studio in order to (re)imagine and (re)define social. We question what counts as ‘social’ when working from a posthumanist stance. Why does a ‘posthumanist social’ matter for literacy educators? How does this perspective not only change our research practices but also pedagogies? We wonder how literacies are produced – how realities come into being – in assemblages of human and nonhuman materials in Writers' Studio. We discuss how and why it matters that we (re)conceptualise the notion of social in literacy education by drawing on posthumanist views.  相似文献   

19.
ABSTRACT

Excellence has become a ‘hoorah’ word which is widely used in higher education institutions to legitimate practices related to the recruitment/progression of staff. It can be seen as reflecting an institutionalised belief that such evaluative processes are unaffected by the social characteristics of those who work in them or their relationships with each other. Such views have been challenged by gender theorists and by those researching informal power in state structures. The purpose of this article is to raise the possibility that excellence is an ‘idealised cultural construct’ and a ‘rationalising myth’. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 67 men and women, who were candidates or evaluators in recruitment/progression processes in five higher educational institutions (in Ireland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy), it conceptualises and illustrates masculinist, relational and ‘local fit’ micro-political practices that are seen to affect such recruitment/progression. Variation exists by gender and by contextual positioning in the process (i.e. as evaluator/candidate). These practices illustrate the perceived importance of the enactment of informal power. The article suggests that the construct of excellence is used to obscure these practices and to maintain organisational legitimacy in the context of multiple stakeholders with conflicting expectations.  相似文献   

20.
ABSTRACT

Sex education within the formal bounds of school curricula or clinic consultation is traditionally conceived as age-appropriate and accurate information, delivered by a sanctioned adult such as a nurse or teacher. This article explores another kind of curriculum – taught and learned among young men themselves in the kasi (township) in which they live. Findings are based on primary data gathered during interviews and research workshops with boys and young men (aged 14–22), including focus group discussions and participatory research exercises. In exploring young men’s sexual ideas, practices, hopes and fears, it focuses on three themes: (i) consent and coercion; (ii) pleasure and risk; and (iii) advice and authority. We examine diverse perspectives on these themes, and trace the tensions and ambiguities that surface within young men’s accounts. We focus in particular on contradictions between what is learned about sex through formal curricula, and what is learned through peers and older men, including within ulwaluko (a rite of passage of traditional initiation and circumcision for Xhosa men).  相似文献   

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