Theses and Dissertations Collection

My project explores a new model with which to articulate increased social resiliency from community learning. The research question at hand is: what contribution does community learning as an outcome of nonformal community-based education, play in social resilience? This work builds on existing frameworks of group learning and of social capitals, to articulate community learning resulting in greater community adaptive capacity. Communities must assemble knowledge from multiple sources, along with local (place-based) cultural adaptations, to adapt to change (Armitage, et al., 2011). The research described in this dissertation includes four published or publishable chapters:

• Introductory and Literature Synthesis

• Extension Professional’s involvement in multistakeholder groups as an alternative to the usual “focus group” method of identifying community needs

• Analysis of Volunteer Activity in Two University Extension Citizen Science Water Quality Monitoring Programs

• Synthesis of observed effects on community learning from involvement in extension programming, multistakeholder groups, and volunteerism: developing and pilot testing for validity, a conceptual model (framework) as an Extension tool.