Purpose: The article reflects on transition management in rural areas and the possible implications for extension services able to support social innovation and rural change, starting from experiences on social farming in different areas of Italy. Design/methodology/approach: By presenting three case studies we investigate the role of social…

Both the Portuguese appropriation of the lifelong learning policy proposed by the European Union since the mid-1990s and the definition of adult education policy in Portugal were based on a discourse that emphasised an "unacceptable educational deficit" for democracy. The role of the State in the "governance" of the public…

Telecentres in the 21st century may be able to improve standard of living, quality of life, and stability of knowledge for the rural population. The role of telecentres is widely increasing in developing political and management awareness, economic, socio-culture, technology, education and regulation awareness in rural communities. Telecentres in…

In an attempt to better understand the need and importance of the community college's role in economic development, this article takes a closer look at how collaboration in the Juniata Valley of Pennsylvania between Industrial Development Corporations (IDCs) of Mifflin and Juniata counties, career and technical centers, and other agencies is…

This article documents and analyses the uneasy, if not contradictory, relationship between service learning and liberal arts thinking in an undergraduate programme in Global Development Studies (GDS) at a North American University. As an undergraduate, Cororaton participated in a service-learning project to build a greenhouse in Mongolia; at the…

The discussion on and development of a holistic evaluation approach for rural development will be indispensable to improving and enriching the lives of rural people. This approach can be developed by considering the conceptualization of community policy structure in rural areas, the localization of policy structure in the rural community, and the…

This paper presents a vertical case study of the history of universalizing education in postcolonial Sierra Leone from the early 1950s to 1990 to highlight how there has never been a universal conception of universal education. In order to unite a nation behind a universal ideal of schooling, education needed to be adapted to different…

Purpose: To reflect on the opportunities that a systems understanding of innovation provides for addressing gender issues relevant to women, and to provide some insight on how these might be tackled. Approach: Review of literature relating to gender issues and how they relate to achieving, on the one hand, equity and efficiency goals, and on the…

Drawing on the findings of empirical research conducted in the South West of England, this paper explores how farmers make sense of re-emerging imperatives for "food security" in UK policy and political discourse. The analysis presented is based on two types of empirical inquiry. First, an extensive survey of 1543 farmers, exploring the basic…

The paper critically assesses the more turbulent period in agri-food since 2007- by applying a transitions perspective to a range of empirical data collected from key private and public stakeholders in the UK during that period. It argues that increased volatility and a series of interdependent landscape pressures on the dominant agri-food regime…

Indigenous peoples and other rural or remote populations often bear the social and environmental cost of extractive industries while obtaining little of the wealth they generate. Recent developments including national and international recognition of Indigenous rights, and the growth of "corporate social responsibility" initiatives among mining…

Dominating strands within the research literature on second homes explain social conflicts between rural hosting and visiting second home populations by describing their differing perspectives on rural development. Such presentations suggest that locals are likely to welcome new developments in order to enhance the economic viability of their…

Regions as well as their identities and borders are social and discursive constructs that are produced and removed in contested, historically contingent and context-bound processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization. This article studies the deinstitutionalization of regions in the context of municipality amalgamations and the…

The rates of urban growth globally continue to rise, especially in small and intermediary cities and peri-urban areas of the developing world. Communities in these settings share characteristics with rural areas, in terms of continued connections with agriculture, yet with an increasing reliance of non-agricultural employment which poses…

This study pursues a Habermasian analysis of citizen discussions and of the local public sphere to shed light on renewable energy futures in rural east-central Canada. Using data from group discussions, it pursues an investigation of utterances, validity claims and of discourses. The analysis is supplemented by participant observation of publicly…