Beyond the Rhetoric of Empowerment: Speak the Language, Live the Experience of the Rural Poor

Growth in rural communities, along with attendant changes in social, economic and environmental conditions, challenges members of these communities to take even more responsibility for their lives than in the past. While there is a need to promote sustainable economic prosperity, it is important that developmental approaches should not compromise the potential of citizens to meet these challenges independently. The present contribution is based on a phenomenological study that explored approaches to community development in Botswana. One of the key findings was that these were dominated by a bureaucratized welfare scheme, as the government gave free food and farming implements to poor people in an approach referred to as atlhama-o-je (‘open-your-mouth-and-eat’). The present contribution reflects on the consequences of using this type of approach, arguing that instead of bringing real hope to the rural poor, it generated counterproductive attitudes. In conclusion, the authors suggest alternative strategies that take account of the life experiences of the rural poor and render them less dependent on government intervention for their well-being.     

What matters for rural teachers and communities? Educational challenges in rural Turkey

This research aims to unearth the educational challenges experienced by teachers and communities in rural Turkey. The research employs Nancy Fraser’s three dimensional justice approach – distribution, recognition and participation – to frame these challenges and to argue that rural challenges go beyond economic rationalities and concerns of infrastructure and resources. The study draws its data from 29 in-depth interviews with 20 teachers working in 16 different villages; 9 interviews with community members; and 2 focus group interviews, 1 with rural dwelling women and the other with rural dwelling men. The findings point out four significant difficulties that impede community and educational development: scarcity of resources; insufficient understanding of social, cultural and economic contexts that constrain educational attempts; lack of collaboration between teacher and communities; and irrelevant education. The study concludes by scrutinising how these difficulties interact with one another and result in marginalisation or casting out of rural lives.     

The Reality of Sustaining Community-Based Sport and Physical Activity Programs to Enhance the Development of Underserved Youth: Challenges and Potential Strategies

Many community-based sport and physical activity programs take a positive youth development approach when operating in underserved communities around the world (Forneris, Whitley, & Barker, 2013). However, one of the biggest challenges for these programs is sustainability (Lindsey, 2008). The purpose of this article is to present the 3 authors’ experiences related to program sustainability when working with community-based sport and physical activity programs using a positive youth development approach in underserved communities. The authors describe the challenges faced with program sustainability, including ineffective development approaches, building strong relationships with community partners, knowledge translation, and securing funding. Also described are the strategies used to overcome these challenges, such as planning, capacity building, recruitment, and evaluation. This article is intended to stimulate more open and honest discussions about the realities of positive youth development program sustainability around the world.     

农村社区养老支持体系的构建

随着我国老龄化进程的加快,现有的农村家庭养老模式面临严峻挑战,必须加快建立适合中国国情的农村社区养老支持体系。而要建立农村社区养老支持体系,应该结合新农村建设的现状,加大对农村社区养老支持体系建设的资金筹措力度,加强农村社区养老支持体系的组织建设,强调农村社区养老支持体系的个性化服务,以确保农村社区老人"老无所忧,老有所养"。     

The influence of personality in determining farmer responsiveness to risk

Abstract

Rural landholders are undergoing extended economic hardship, manifested in a range of social and ecological problems that limit the capacity of local areas to recover to economic levels necessary to sustain settlement. The uncertain influence of climate on production represents just one of the range of risk factors that landholders must face. Survival depends on the capacity of landholders to respond strategically to the stress which these risk factors generate. Our research indicates landholders’ capacity to modify land‐management practices, are dictated by their underlying personality traits and by presence or absence of other psychiatric morbidity. Where stresses exist, the capacity of people to respond actively to a planned problem solution diminishes. The psychological profiles of people tend to fall into three groups ‐ those who can generally cope; those who can usually cope but undergo dysfunctional episodes under acute stresses, and those who generally cannot cope.

In the grazing lands of central western Queensland, our findings suggest a predominant personality profile consistent with an ability to cope with isolation and the other particular challenges that characterise this way of life. There are two important implications in these results. The first relates to land stewardship and has significant lessons for government intervention in terms of rural policy and approaches to extension. In particular, there are lessons pertinent to the success of Landcare and associated community based initiatives. The second relates to the broad area of rural health as highlighted by the alarming rates of suicide found in rural Australia. In previous decades, those with personality styles less well‐suited to this industry, found employment in nearby rural towns. This option has declined as government policy has favoured the withdrawal of services and resources, hastening depopulation of rural areas. The resultant weakening of the social fabric of rural society is a cause of tension and stress with serious health implications. Previous approaches to rural sociology have not emphasised individual personality traits in seeking to understand the complexity of the human‐environment relationships which determine land use. Nor has personality been invoked is assessing the potential of landholders to adopt ecologically sustainable practices. Further research is planned to consolidate our findings through comparative investigations in other branches of rural industry. JAgr Educ Ext (2001, 7, 3, pp 167–178)     

“Para aquí today, para afuera tomorrow”: Uncertainty in urban bilingual paraprofessionals’ work in the age of NCLB

Urban paraprofessionals are often overlooked but key participants in the optimal functioning of schools. In light of the recent changes and increasing demands regarding paraprofessional qualifications stipulated by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), this study focuses on urban bilingual paraprofessionals and their beliefs about work in the context imposed by the law. The participants cite their own experiences with motherhood and insiders’ understanding of diverse communities as the most compelling skills they bring to their jobs, challenging NCLB’s requirements for instructional paraprofessional qualifications. Implications for policy-making that address the worth of “life experiences” as an asset for diverse settings are offered. Her research interests center on the possibilities and challenges that urban schools pose, on school reform approaches, on teacher preparation, and on effective educational approaches for low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse (LCLD) students.     

论生态建设的经济基础

生态建设是一项重要的经济活动,是建立在国家经济实力、地方经济发展和农村家庭经济活动基础之上。我国正在开展大规模的生态建设,是国家生态环境治理和群众生态消费需求所致。但是,广大山区和农村家庭经济相对落后,生态建设遇到了农村经济发展滞后的问题。因此,国家生态建设应与地方经济发展、农村家庭利益相协调,要从政策和资金上支持地方政府加快农业产业结构调整、发展农村经济,要在维护和基本满足家庭利益的基础上动员群众投入生态建设,我国的生态建设才有牢固的经济基础。     

Contested womanhood: women’s education and (re)production of gendered norms in rural Pakistani Muslim communities

In a world marred by the fears of religious extremism, Muslim women have become subjects of various global projects that aim to modernize ‘traditional’ Muslim societies through women’s education and empowerment. Embedded in these discourses is an assumption that all educated Muslim women will empower themselves through challenging the ‘oppressive’ structures of their families and communities. This paper challenges these homogeneous narratives of education and empowerment through highlighting the complexities of educated women’s daily lives in rural Pakistan. We situate the lived experiences of rural educated Pakistani women in global mainstream as well as in local historical narratives regarding the role and purpose of education for women. Our analysis reveals how the educated women participants’ lives were shaped by a complex gendered hierarchy that facilitated educated women to take on new roles while simultaneously requiring them to maintain harmonious relationships with family and community members.     

Development of a scale to measure economic status of students in rural vietnam

Family economic status is generally considered to be an important factor associated with students’ educational outcomes. However, to evaluate the strength of this contention, it is important to first have appropriate measures of family economic status. Measuring the economic status of Vietnamese people has been particularly difficult as the respondents have not been able to report accurately on their income. This has been compounded in rural populations, because of the relative economic homogeneity of communities. This study constructed, calibrated and validated a set of items to form a measure of economic status of students’ families in rural Vietnam.     

Growing Early Childhood Education Teachers in Rural Areas

Currently in South Africa, there are over 20 000 underqualified Grade R teachers who are enlisted into service to ensure that Grade R teaching can continue. The aim of the study reported on was to investigate the challenges and needs faced by underqualified teachers in order to promote the professional development of teachers teaching in rural areas. Phenomenology was used as the research design. By means of a qualitative research approach, purposeful sampling selected only underqualified early childhood education (ECE) teachers teaching in rural schools for more than five years or more in three provinces, as well as their school principals. The findings revealed the following needs and challenges: the need for resources; poor infrastructure; lack of parental involvement; overcrowded classrooms; the need for in-service training; needs of the rural communities; and support from an open distance learning (ODL) institution.     

职业教育与安徽乡村经济社会发展的思考

职业教育是教育与经济的结合点,是教育与社会各种职业沟通的桥梁。乡村职业教育是安徽省经济社会发展的重要基础和教育工作的战略重点,是实现乡村城镇化、现代化的重要支柱。目前,安徽省乡村经济社会发展滞后,劳动者整体素质低下,城乡差距较大。职业教育在转移剩余劳动力、促进乡村经济发展方面起着重要作用,大力发展职业教育、促进乡村和谐发展日益重要。政府应加强宏观调控和统筹;转变观念,端正办学方向,明确新型农民的培养目标;提高农民的科学文化素质;加大对职业教育的投资力度;同时,乡村职业教育应办出自己的特色。     

贫困山区农民休闲生活方式研究

研究贫困山区农民休闲生活方式的变化,是推动社会主义新农村建设的客观要求.实证研究结果表明：贫困山区农民的闲暇时间有了明显的增长,但是对闲暇时间的利用率不高,普遍的休闲意识尚未形成;“看电视”、“串门聊天”、“进城或赶集”等“自发俗雅型休闲活动”仍是贫困山区农民的主要休闲生活方式;贫困山区农民的休闲生活满意度过低,其休闲生活仍处于贫乏状态;收入水平、文化素养、休闲设施建设、政府支持等是影响贫困山区农民的休闲生活方式的重要因素.要正确引导与促进贫困山区农民休闲生活方式的变化,就必须切实增加农民的经济收入;充分发挥政府支持在农民休闲文化建设中的作用;积极改善农村文化基础设施;努力提高农民的文化素养;尽快实现农民休闲文化的转型.     

新农村建设中农村社区教育的问题与对策研究

近年来,党和国家一直致力于社会主义新农村建设和新型农民的培养。而农民作为新农村建设的主体,其素质的高低是新农村建设成功的关键。当前我国农村农民从总体上看学历水平普遍偏低,综合素质欠佳,要想改变这个现状,必须普及农村社区教育。但是,由于当前各界对于农村社区教育的认识还不够深刻,农村社区教育经费投入不足,使用不当等,农村社区教育还存在着诸多的问题,值得进一步的深思和探究。同时也需要我们针对所面临的问题,不断完善农村社区教育的发展。     

新农村建设中的涉农人才队伍构建问题研究

新农村建设的关键在于构建一支综合素质高、头脑反应快和服务意识强的涉农人才队伍。针对目前农村地区涉农人才缺乏的现状，各级政府必须高度重视涉农人才队伍的构成、来源、使用、激励等问题，并采取相应措施鼓励和引导涉农人才积极为新农村建设贡献才智。     

For Richer or Poorer: Building inclusive schools in poor urban and rural communities

Throughout the world, educators are struggling to shift their delivery of services to children with disabilities from a segregated to inclusive approach. This shift creates substantial opportunities and challenges. This is particularly true in poor urban and rural schools. Although our experience is based in rural and urban schools in the United States, we know that poor rural and urban schools throughout the world face similar issues as inclusive education takes hold. This article describes a framework for building more effective and successful schools in poor rural and urban communities called “Whole Schooling.” In addition, we identify the multiple barriers to inclusive schools, articulate the commonalties and differences between poor rural and urban schools, and describe specific strategies for utilising available resources to build more effective and successful rural and urban schools in which inclusive education is a central component.     

Higher education and UK elite formation in the twentieth century

This study examines the proposition that mass higher education is, in practice, less a network of more or less homogeneous activities than a series of concentric circles in which elite institutions remain at the centre, but are surrounded by increasingly wide bands of universities and colleges, that are less and less likely to set graduates on the road to elite status the further they are from the centre. After a brief review of the classical and subsequent literature on elites and elite formation, the empirical study uses data from the very long established annual publication Who’s Who to make a quantitative analysis of the higher education background of all 120,000 Who’s Who entries born in the twentieth century. It finds that Oxford and Cambridge remained the dominant route to elite status throughout the century, though their share fell from about a third to about a quarter of the total. There were big rises in the contribution of other leading universities that have come to be known as the ‘Russell Group’. An analysis by main occupational categories shows that the political elite broadened its educational catchment area more than other groups. The so-called ‘public’ (i.e. independent) secondary schools also continued to make contributions much larger than their numbers warrant. The main conclusions are that Bourdieu’s notion of ‘symbolic capital’ offers a useful contribution to the interpretation of the continued dominance of well-known high status universities, and that while there was considerable change throughout the century, in general it followed the British tradition of being evolutionary and slow. In policy terms it concluded that the present government is justified in seeking both to widen participation generally and simultaneously to increase the number of people from modest economic and social backgrounds who attend the high prestige universities.     

可行能力视角下的农村基础教育问题探析

根据印度经济学家阿玛蒂亚＆#183;森的可行能力理论研究发现,当前中国农村基础教育中存在师资力量短缺、教育经费不足、办学条件差以及辍学率高等问题,这是由于权利保障不平衡、城乡发展差距大、城乡二元结构化、教育信息公开化程度不高以及政府对农村教育关注度不够等因素所造成。运用阿玛蒂亚＆#183;森的工具性自由理论探析,这些问题要通过提高农民的可行能力来解决。     

A neglected dimension in service-learning pedagogy: developing projects from the perspective of rural community stakeholders

This article argues that a commonly neglected dimension in service-learning pedagogy is the consideration of community perspectives in developing these service- learning projects. Areas considered in this study were: (1) Community members’ needs and problems, (2) Community members’ perceived roles and participation, and (3) Community members’ suggested activities and projects. This article focused on the community members of Jaime Hilario Integrated School (JHIS), a Lasallian co-educational primary school located in Sitio Look, Bagac, Bataan, Philippines. Interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) were the qualitative research methods used to identify possible service-learning projects that can be implemented by various educational institutions. Five implications were drawn from the gathered data. The first implication is that it is important for educational institutions to ensure that service-learning projects meet the needs of the community. Secondly, various sectors in the community have unique needs to be addressed. Thirdly, aside from the common economic, education, and social services problems, rural poor communities also need trainings on values formation and personal development. Besides the above, it is necessary that community members be involved in the initial planning and development of service-learning projects and not merely participate during the actual implementation. And lastly, given the poor understanding of community members on their roles and participation, clear explanation of the goals of service-learning projects is perceived as a way of strengthening the relationship between service-providers and recipients.     

Public purpose and the preparation of teachers for rural schools

Abstract

Rural communities need rural teachers who can “ground” traditional school subjects in local realities and dilemmas and at the same time fashion instructional approaches consonant with larger intellectual, ethical, and social purposes. Such teachers are assets rather than burdens to their communities. Only such teachers can cultivate an ethic of responsibility for the health and vitality of the communities of which they and their students are critical components.

This essay examines the role of the university in professionalizing rural teachers. It contends that narrowly utilitarian ends prevail in teacher education programs, and that, in the absence of a substantive definition of educations public purpose, this instrumentalism creates teachers who are ill‐prepared to contribute in meaningful ways to the intellectual life of the communities in which they work. Teacher preparation programs should abandon the instrumental focus. Programs that prepare rural teachers, in fact, confront unique challenges and opportunities to include three themes at their centers: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Democracy.     

A Critique of Modern Education,with Special Reference to the East

The population of urban migrants in developing countries has received little specific notice within the field of adult education, although, because of its size and importance to the economic and social development of much of the world, this group deserves significant attention. Examination of urban migrants as learners provides important insight for policies and programmes that support developing their creative potential, building on individual and community strengths. Two characteristics of the motivation and learning needs of urban migrants stand out. First, individual characteristics relating to personality or motivation somehow differentiate migrants from non‐migrants, beyond generalized economic or macro‐level factors that affect migration decisions. On the other hand, it appears that group learning processes that incorporate the participation of the members and build on their networks, motivation, and coping skills, are particularly effective. Both of these aspects are important in identifying appropriate policies and programmes that stimulate the positive potential of this group. This paper examines evidence related to the demographic and cognitive characteristics of the urban migrant population in developing countries, how these relate to the learning tasks facing this group, and the implications for successful adult education programmes. In addition, these characteristics have implications for broader policies designed to take advantage of the role that communities of urban migrants can play, within a more participative development approach.