Susan Johns

How Farmers Learn: Different Approaches to Change

This paper presents findings of an Australian study that investigated how farm- management teams go about learning to manage their businesses, including how they learn in order to make strategic and tactical changes. The Australian farming context is one of increasing complexity and risk that demands greater sophistication and professionalism in farm management. Learning is related to increased capacity to manage successful change. Farm-management teams employ four different learning patterns when making changes to their management and marketing practices. Learning patterns are termed local focussed, people focussed, outward looking and extensive networking. These patterns appear to be related to ongoing learning practices of farm-management teams as well as to learning for change. Local focussed management teams learnt for change by accessing only local sources (including government extension services) or a single individual. People focussed farm-management teams preferred to learn for change principally by seeking information and advice on a one-to-one basis from more than one person, most frequently experts, but often other farmers. The remaining farm businesses accessed a variety of sources. The group classed as extensive networkers accessed a large number of varied sources in learning for change. Others who used a less extensive range were termed outward looking.

Our Health In Our Hands: Building Effective Community Partnerships For Rural Health Service Provision

Abstract This paper reports findings from a study in two small Tasmanian rural communities that examined the process of developing and sustaining partnerships between health services and their communities. It identifies a generic framework for partnership development that appears to be common to partnerships, regardless of their purpose or of partners involved. The framework comprises ten predictors or indicators of effectiveness, and a sequential nine-stage partnership development process. Integral to the framework are social capital, and the leadership practices of health service and community leaders. The influence of context on the partnership development process is also examined, with reference to historical precedent, age or maturity of the partnership, and community readiness.

Pathways from rural schools : does school VET make a difference?

Abstract This paper reports findings from a survey of former students from six Australian rural school clusters. It compares the experiences and outcomes of students who had participated in a school vocational education and training (VET) program with those who had not. School VET courses intended to provide a pathway to local employment appear to be successful in retaining students who otherwise may have left school before completing Year 12, and in assisting their transition from school to work. Tor all school VET students, the work placement component of the program aids the transition to local jobs and apprenticeships, and increases youth retention in the community. As the findings indicate that school VET students are predisposed to live in a rural area at some time during their working life, the paper concludes that VET programs in rural areas have special potential to develop skills and pathways for the future workforce of rural Australia.

Supporting farmer and fisher health and wellbeing in 'difficult times': Communities of place and industry associations

Abstract While links between rurality and health are clearly established, there continues to be interest in the resources that can make a difference to rural, often underserved, small communities. This research investigated how collective features of communities of place and industry communities of common purpose, influence farmer and fisher strategies to maintain good physical and mental health in the face of difficult climatic and economic factors. Centred on five farming and fishing sites in Australia, the research found it was not the health services in the sites, but the differences in the resources and capacity of non-health service community and industry groups and organisations that influenced the health and wellbeing behavioural choices of the farmers and fishers. Community groups and industry associations facilitated local access to programmes and their credibility persuaded people to participate. They cross the boundary between health services and farmer and fisher communities and are preferred, soft entry points to health information and support that can reduce the impact of occupational stress.

Partners in the Leadership Dance: School Vocational Learning Partnerships and Community Development

Picture an old-time dance. The band strikes up, gentlemen take their partners, and couples begin to move rhythmically around the room to the strains of a familiar waltz. There is a sense of certainty and predictability about the music, the dance steps, and the roles of the dancers. Now picture a modern nightclub. The music seems much louder, the melody less certain, the dance steps spontaneous rather than pre-planned. Though people are dancing together, the role of partners seems less clear-its difficult to tell who, if anyone, is in the lead . In some places, groups of three or four females dance together, entering and leaving the group from time to time as circumstances change. What does all this have to do with leadership for school vocational education and training (VET) programs? The dance analogy seems to reflect the changing nature of leadership in modern times. As society has become more complex and less predictable,

Matching training needs and opportunities: the case for training brokers in the Australian agricultural sector

Lifelong learning has been linked by policymakers to economic and social wellbeing. This paper introduces the concept of training brokerage as an efficient way of meeting the needs of learners, industry and education and training providers. It presents findings from a study of the features, processes and outcomes of training brokerage arrangements within the Australian agricultural and natural resource management sectors. The purpose of the study was to identify and promote effective brokerage arrangements and models. The study used multi‐method, multi‐site techniques, comprising a telephone survey, case studies of good broking practice and stakeholder participation through workshops and a reference group. Training brokers act as facilitators or intermediaries in identifying and matching training needs and opportunities. They have close links with industry, and extensive networks that include reputable training providers. Brokers work with others to identify training needs and engage participants, and to identify, negotiate and plan appropriate training. Evaluation and further training are a key part of the process. Effective broking activity is underpinned by a series of ten generic principles. Brokerage has implications for the agricultural sector in developed and developing countries, in terms of improving the match of training provision to training needs, communication, coordination and collaboration across regions and industries. It also has broader implications for facilitating participation in client‐driven lifelong learning, particularly for disenfranchised learners.

Interface: exclusive countrysides? rural gentrification, consumer preferences and planning

Over the last two decades, rural localities within advanced capitalist societies have witnessed unprecedented changes and ruptures to local economies, new demands for rural space, and shifting rural politics, leading to a dramatic reconstitution of rural populations and the formation of a new set of rural social geographies (Bell & Osti, 2010; Marsden, 2009). Many rural places, for example, have experienced profound changes to housing and land markets (Smith, 2007) with a growing desire for rural living and an extended spatial mobility that is leading to increased competition for rural resource use. With the demise of dominant productivist agricultural models and the emergence of diverse consumer and societal demands for rural space, spatial planning has the potential to move centre-stage in the regulation of the countryside and managing rural change processes. However, as Campbell asked in a 2003 Interface on rural planning, which and whose countryside are we planning for? This Interface aims to explore one dimension of this changing countryside, by examining the gentrification of rural space and its implications for planning practice in rural localities. Gentrification, referring to the transformation of an area into a middle-class space, has most commonly been studied in urban contexts in advanced capitalist societies; however, increasingly authors have broadened the geography of gentrification studies to include gentrification processes within suburban and rural localities. While early accounts of gentrification were largely associated with distinctive landscapes of urban renovation and renaissance (Davidson & Lees, 2005) as working class neighbourhoods in global cities were transformed by new social geographies, as gentrification matures, both as a concept and as a process, new spaces of gentrification have emerged, both globally and down the urban hierarchy (Lees et al., 2010). Butler (2007), for example, suggests that the growth of large city regions have created whole new areas that have become desirable places to live, not just in the city, but also in the suburbs and beyond where previous inhabitants have found themselves moving aside for the new expanded post-industrial classes. Similarly, Phillips (2004) has been critical of the narrow gentrification research focus on urban geographies, while Smith (2002) argues that gentrification is not only apparent in a range of spatial scales, but also manifests at a range of locations—suburban, rural, inner urban and retirement hotpots such as coastal resorts. This has led Smith to call for the need to “widen the spatial lens” of gentrification studies. In this context, Davidson and Lees (2005) suggest four key elements of gentrification not attached to a specific landscape or

Early childhood service development and intersectoral collaboration in rural Australia

There is a paucity of research into the development of intersectoral collaborations designed to support early childhood development in rural communities. Drawing on findings from a qualitative study conducted in three small rural communities in Tasmania, this paper will examine community-based intersectoral collaborations involving government and non-government organisations from the health and allied health, education and community service sectors. The paper analyses the process of developing intersectoral collaborations from the perspective of early childhood health and wellbeing. The specific focus is on collaborations that build family and community capacity. Findings indicate that three groups of factors operate interdependently to influence collaborations: social capital, leadership and environmental factors. Each community has different leadership sources, structures and processes, shaped by levels of community social capital, and by environmental factors such as policy and resources. Effective models of early childhood development require strong local and external leadership. Rural communities that are able to identify and harness the skills, knowledge and resources of internal and external leaders are well positioned to take greater ownership of their own health and wellbeing. The paper provides guidelines for developing and enhancing the capacity of rural communities at different stages of collaborative readiness.

Social Capital, Educational Institutions and Leadership

Social capital refers to the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively. It is a set of resources that reside in the relationships among people that allow them to share their knowledge and skills. Social capital is built and accessed through interactions between people and groups. Educational institutions and their community benefit from building social capital. Educational leaders who are committed to lifelong learning and view the community as a resource for the institution have a key role in unlocking and building social capital. Social capital is developed through a partnership process with common purpose or vision where leadership is gradually shared between institution and community.

Institutional responses to social inclusion in Australian higher education: responsible citizenship or political pragmatism?

Participation in higher education has widened in recent years, to include groups who are at risk of social exclusion. Public policy in many countries has promoted increased enrolments for non-traditional student groups. Social inclusion policy and practice is underpinned by differing ideological frameworks relating to the degree of social inclusion. This paper analyses Australian universities’ high level, publicly available strategic planning documents for evidence of their strategies to implement the Australian Government’s social inclusion agenda, and their position on a social inclusion continuum extending from neoliberal access to social justice participation to human potential empowerment. Longer-established, research-intensive universities’ strategies are clustered at the neoliberal access end of the continuum, while universities articulating strategies at the human potential empowerment end of the continuum tended to be more recently established institutions, often located in rural regions. The findings suggest strongly that socially inclusive universities articulate a comprehensive and integrated suite of strategies spanning the access, participation and empowerment domains. Universities aspiring to be socially inclusive beyond any short-term government policy imperative require a high level plan or framework that articulates goals, agreed strategies for building and sustaining a socially inclusive organisation, and indicators of success.