Community Participation and Empowerment [1 ed.] 9781617281914, 9781606921890

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Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT

No part of this digital document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means. The publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this digital document, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information Community Participationcontained and Empowerment, by Mildred F. Hindsworth, andwith Trevor B. clear Lang, Nova Science Publishers, 2009. herein. edited This digital document is sold the understanding that theIncorporated, publisher is not engaged in

Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT

MILDRED F. HINDSWORTH AND

TREVOR B. LANG Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

EDITORS

Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. For permission to use material from this book please contact us: Telephone 631-231-7269; Fax 631-231-8175 Web Site: http://www.novapublishers.com NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material.

Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Hindsworth, Mildred F. Community participation and empowerment / Mildred F. Hindsworth and Trevor B. Lang. p. cm. ISBN H%RRN 1. Community development--Case studies. I. Lang, Trevor B. II. Title. HN49.C6H56 2009 307.1'4--dc22 2008036562

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.    New York

Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1

Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

Chapter 4

vii The Out of School Hours Sports Program: Developing a Healthy Community through Active Participation and Empowerment? James O’Meara and Michael Spittle Synthesising Deliberative Democracy and Environmental Sustainability: Lessons from the Stanage Forum Stephen Elstub Social Inequalities, Powerlessness and Somatic Health in a Welfare State Odd Steffen Dalgard, Bjørgulf Claussen and Michael McCubbin Participation of Homeless and Abused Women in a Parent Training Program: Science and Practice Converge in a Battered Women's Shelter Abigail Gewirtz and Tamara Taylor

1

43

81

97

Chapter 5

Communities for Legal Knowledge Dissemination Laurens Mommers and Esther Hoorn

115

Chapter 6

Participation, Pedagogy and Practice in Design Education Cheri Logan

151

Chapter 7

Geographic Information Systems and Decision Processes for Urban Planning: A Case Study of Rough Set Analysis on the Residential Areas of the City of Cagliari, Italy Sabrina Lai and Corrado Zoppi

Chapter 8

Regional and City Planning in Sardinia (Italy): Conflictual Issues Analyzed through Multicriteria Analysis and Contingent Valuation Corrado Zoppi

Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

177

209

vi Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Drinking Water from Solar Stills: A Renewable Technology for Sudan Abdeen Mustafa Omer

235

Community Participation in Formulating Sustainable Forest Policy: An Institutional Perspective Jayanath Ananda

263

Chapter 11

Collaborating on Climate Change in 3D Landscapes Christian Stock, Ian D. Bishop and Christopher J. Pettit

Chapter 12

Community Participation in Japan: Japanese Collectivism and Stereotypical Gender-Role Kumi Hirokawa

305

Appreciative Inquiry with Migrant Youth for Meaningful Community Participation Julie Morsillo and Adrian T Fisher

319

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

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Contents

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Project, Organization, and Environment Factors in Sustaining Oxford House David G. Mueller, Jennifer Mortensen, Bradley D. Olson, Darrin Aase and Leonard A. Jason

287

337

Increasing the Economic Sustainability of Online Communities: An Empirical Investigation J. Bishop

349

A Comparison between Theoretical and Naïve Definitions of Community Stefano Tartaglia

363

The Microfoundations of Community: Small Groups as Bridges and Barriers to Participatory Democracy Gazi Islam

377

Community Intermediaries:Providing Support to Enhance Community Participation Scott Wituk

393

Index

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409

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PREFACE Community participation has long been recognized as an effective means of helping rural and urban people focus energy and mobilize resources to solve their health, environmental, and economic problems. When people from the community organize, plan, share tasks with professionals, contribute financially to projects or programs, and help make decisions about activities that affect their lives, programs are more likely to achieve their objectives. Several countries have created ways for communities to participate in their family planning programs. They have found that individuals make better choices about contraception when they participate in the family planning program activities in their villages or urban neighborhoods. This new book presents international research on issues dealing with this unifying problem. Chapter 1 - From 1985 to 1995 the level of combined overweight and obesity levels in Australian children has increased. This prompted the Australian government to develop strategies targeting individuals or groups within communities who need to improve this aspect of their health. The Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP) represents one major community development strategy of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) that targeted the growing problem of declining physical activity levels of Australian children (Australian Sports Commission, 2008). This program was a state-wide initiative that involved 71 Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) Services and was developed and implemented by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) between 2003 and 2005. This program represented a Communitarian or Community - Based approach, whereby the implementation of the program was managed by the local people Three studies are presented within this chapter that: 1. examine the value orientations of deliverers within the OSHSP in order to examine if the OSHSP community represented a diverse group with differing values; 2. investigate the Level of Use of the different groups to explore if different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP; and 3. explore community development, community participation and empowerment activities during the implementation of the OSHSP to

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understand whether the implementation of state–wide OSHSP resulted in locally shaped practices; social network development; and community member mobilisation. Data collection involved surveying OSHC Coordinators (n=9), OSHC Deliverer (n=16) SSA Deliverer (n=4) and interviewing OSHC Coordinators (n=3), OSHC Deliverer (n=3) SSA Deliverer (n=3). The data from these studies provided evidence of practices associated with community development and empowerment, however there were some concerns over community participation. The paper concludes by suggesting that claims of CommunityBased Programs being popularist rhetoric (Gray and Crofts , 2008) are not entirely applicable to the OSHSP as it was able to contribute to community development through local actions in line with most of the ideals of theorists like Friere (1994). The authors anticipate that the presentation of these findings may prompt other government agencies to report the achievements of government-sponsored community development programs to help refute the type of critique currently being applied to this type of program. Chapter 2 - Environmental theorists are increasingly placing their confidence in deliberative democracy to achieve environmental sustainability. However, there are two key issues that must be addressed, and to which this chapter aims to contribute, if the synthesis between environmental sustainability and deliberative democracy is to be accepted and achieved. In terms of acceptance this connection must be empirically tested in deliberative decision-making. With relation to achievement, deliberative democracy must be approximated in practice, which involves linking citizen deliberation with decision-making. The Chapter focuses on a case study, the Stanage Forum, to illuminate both of these issues. It is suggested that this forum, from the Peak District in the United Kingdom, is an approximation of deliberative democracy and demonstrates the trade-offs that need to be made between the theory and practice of deliberative democracy, at each stage of the decision-making process. As environmental issues are central to the conflicts in the Stanage Forum, it is also a good test of whether environmentally sustainable decisions will be promoted through deliberative democracy in practice. Chapter 3 – Objectives: A social gradient in somatic health is found all over Europe, and seems to be increasing. The objective of the present article is to explore the role of psychosocial factors, in particular the perception of powerlessness and lack of control over own life, as mediating factors between social status and somatic health in Norway. Methods: The study was based on the Oslo Health Survey, which was conducted during 2000 – 2001, covering all habitants in Oslo in the age groups 30, 40, 45, 59-60, and 75-76 years, 40 888 individuals. The response rate was 46 %. For the present study the age group 75-76 years and immigrants from non-Western countries were excluded, resulting in a sample of 12 310. Data on health, psychosocial variables, including power/powerlessness and selfefficacy, life style and occupation were collected by a structured interview, whereas data on education and income was based on register information. Somatic health was measured as the sum of self- reported disorders, whereas social status was measured by the combination of education, income and occupational status. Results: There was a social gradient in somatic health, which was substantially reduced when adjusting for powerlessness, other psychosocial variables and life style. Sense of powerlessness emerged as an explanatory factor at least as important as life style, and this effect seemed to a large extent to be mediated by psychological distress. The effect of self-

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Preface

ix

efficacy was eliminated when adjusting for powerlessness, indicating that awkward social conditions, linked to low social status, rather than personality related traits, explained the social gradient in health. Conclusion: Powerlessness and lack of control over own life are important mediating factors between social status and somatic health, and this is explained by the actual life situation rather than the personality. Chapter 4 - Increasingly, research is focusing on the transportation and implementation of evidence-based psychosocial prevention programs into community care settings (Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, and Wallace, 2005; Gewirtz and August, 2008). Questions for study include program adaptation for cultural and contextual relevance; recruitment and retention/engagement of participants, and the predictors of successful uptake in community social service settings. Within community settings, shelter and transitional/supportive housing sites serve among the highest risk families, whose stressors include significant rates of exposure to violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and child maltreatment. These stressors, coupled with extreme poverty and mobility, present barriers to children’s and parents’ access to mental health treatment and prevention resources. The availability of social services in most shelter and housing settings provides an opportunity to deliver evidence-based preventive interventions to highly stressed families. Developing strategies to transport evidence-based prevention interventions to these settings thus has significant potential to improve outcomes among vulnerable families. This paper presents data from the adaptation process of a group-based Oregon parent management training intervention: Parenting Through Change (Forgatch and DeGarmo, 1999). This preventive intervention was originally developed for predominantly white single mothers in the process of recent marital disruption. The program was adapted and implemented for culturally diverse groups of homeless single mothers with children who have been exposed to domestic violence. The curriculum was adapted using a community-based participatory approach. The adaptation group consisted of service providers representing community-based (predominantly shelter and housing) agencies, and university researchers. This article reviews the adaptation process, conducted in close collaboration with the program developer, the training of housing and shelter staff as group facilitators, and the implementation of the program in a shelter in a large metropolitan area. Group participation data indicated that program staff was extremely successful in recruiting and retaining women, with a 90% retention rate over the 14 weeks of the program and high participant satisfaction ratings. Participant characteristics, engagement, and satisfaction data are reported, together with data from a post intervention focus group highlighting perceived support and empowerment as key reasons for the high levels of group participation. Although often dismissed as places that can only provide "three hots and a cot", shelters may present key opportunities for the provision of empowerment-focused evidence-based prevention programs. Chapter 5 - Knowledge and understanding of the law by the citizens of a state is crucial for the legitimacy of governance. There are many examples of legal knowledge deficits, e.g., the lack of legal knowledge of the European Union in its citizens. In order to provide them with understandable and reliable information about the legal framework underlying the European Union, it is necessary to determine how this knowledge deficit can be remedied effectively. Large on-line collaborative environments offer unique opportunities to jointly build a body of knowledge concerning a specific topic. However, these environments feature pitfalls that have to be avoided in legal knowledge dissemination. A reputation system can

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guard the environment against ‘vandalism’ (destroying others’ contributions) and unreliable or false contributions, by, for instance, letting participants assess each other’s contributions. This article will investigate how a reputation system can improve the quality of collaboration in legal knowledge dissemination. It does so by using ‘applied legal epistemology’ – a framework to assess knowledge relevant to legal domains by practical translations of epistemic criteria – to build a theoretically sound reputation system. This reputation system, in its turn, is meant to optimize the implementation of a theory of legal knowledge dissemination. Chapter 6 - This chapter investigates how specialist learning is undertaken within the design community of practice and considers how its pedagogies foster capacities relevant to learners’ vocational aspirations. The distinctive modes of learning and teaching of the design practicum are illuminated by situated theories of learning, particularly the idea that knowing equates to participation in this specialist knowledge community. Key features of the learning situation are described, including the shared discourses of tutors and learners; these are characterized as metaphor-based rather than abstract and analytical, and are shown to play a significant role in building shared values and capacities. The practice-oriented discourses and vocationally-referenced activities of design classrooms are also considered in relation to key features of commercial design contexts, which are identified in the research. Adopting a situated learning perspective, the chapter reveals how participation across these diverse contexts is supported by shared ways of knowing, acting and speaking. Learner participation in the design classroom is therefore seen to bridge and support transitions into the vocational context. In developing this account, the chapter recognizes types of learning that do not meet more traditional academic criteria, and provides insights into the vocationally- referenced pedagogies that promote them. It also offers a means of researching practice-oriented education and professional contexts that may have wider relevance for other domains and communities of practice. Chapter 7 - In Italy, urban planning is based on the city Masterplan. This plan identifies the future urban organization and a system of zoning rules. Land-use policies are based on these rules. The zoning rules should synthesize environmental and spatial knowledge and policy decisions concerning a city’s possible futures, with reference to the different urban functions. In this essay, a procedure of analysis of the city Masterplan of Cagliari, the regional capital city of Sardinia (Italy), is discussed and applied. This procedure refers to residential areas only, and tries to explain the urban organization of housing areas by using a system of variables based on the integration of different branches of knowledge concerning the urban environment. The decisions on the urban futures that the zoning rules entail are critically analyzed in terms of consistency with this knowledge system. The procedure consists of two phases. In the first phase, the urban environment is analyzed and described. This is done by defining and developing a geographic information system which utilizes a spatial analysis approach to figure out the integration of the residential areas into the urban fabric. The second phase is inferential. Based on the geographic information system developed in the first phase, a Rough Set Analysis (RSA) method is applied. This technique allows

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researchers and planners to recognize the connection patterns between the urban knowledge system and the city planning decisions. The patterns, the decision rules which come from the RSA implementation, are important starting points for further investigation on the development of decision models concerning urban planning. Chapter 8 - Sardinian regional planning is characterized by a deep change that followed the approval of the Regional Landscape Plan (Resolution of the Regional Council of Sardinia n. 36/7 of September 5, 2006, entitled “L.R. n. 8 del 25.11.2004, articolo 1, comma 1. Approvazione del Piano Paesaggistico – Primo ambito omogeneo” [“Regional Law n. 8 of November 25, 2004, artiche 1, paragraph 1. Approval of the Landscape Plan – First homogeneous piece of territory”]). The Regional Landscape Plan (RLP), which is ruled by the National Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape (CCHL) (National Law Enacted by Decree n. 42/2004, the “Urbani Code” from the last name of the Minister who proposed the law), establishes the directions for future Sardinian regional planning. The actual sectoral, province and city plans, and plans for protected areas, have to be changed in order to follow these directions. The adjustment process could be conflictual since cities, provinces and the administrative offices of protected areas may possibly disagree with the regional administration about the rules established by the RLP. In this view, this paper evaluates and analyzes the degree of consensus of the people living in the city of Sinnai on a planning proposal concerning a portion of the urban fabric. This proposal is consistent with the directions of the RLP. Sinnai is a city located in the coastal area ruled by the RLP. Moreover, it is assessed, based on opinions expressed by the people living in Sinnai, if a future planning scenario consistent with the RLP is preferred to a scenario which follows the actual Masterplan of the city of Sinnai. This chapter uses both the Contingent Valuation method (CV) and Multicriteria Analysis (MCA). The CV approach is generally preferred for evaluating people’s willingness to pay for public goods. Multicriteria Analysis is a favorite tool among urban and regional planners. MCA is one of the most popular families of techniques utilized to address complex choice problems. MCA makes it possible to implement decisions that take account of several, often conflicting, points of view. A participative definition of the relative importance (and weights) of the decision criteria is implemented, which could lead to a more-or-less extensive convergence on policy implementation within the city planning processes. Chapter 9 - The harsh climate in the Red Sea area, for example the Sudan, presents unique challenges in meeting growing demands for water and power. The international demand for water increases compared to the available water resources. Many areas and especially in the Red Sea areas already experience a serious shortage of potable water and this is likely to grow. These areas enjoy, however, a high intensity of solar energy. Among the renewable energy options that have received special attention are solar stills. A solar still was built based on the principle of the packed tray array for tandem distillation and heat recovery. This chapter provides a brief overview of efforts to expand such renewable technologies in the Sudan in a cost-effective and sustainable way and the environmental benefits associated with displacing fossil fuels.

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Mildred F. Hindsworth and Trevor B. Lang

Chapter 10 - Formulating sustainable forest policy has become a crucial issue today with the increased awareness of global environmental problems including global warming and climate change. Public participation has been identified as an integral part of sustainable forest policy. However, formulating ecologically sustainable forest policy has been a highly contentious and divisive issue. One of the stand out difficulties has been the inadequate institutional capacity to harness the benefits of community participation in forest policy making. Forest institutions frame how society use and manage forest resources. They also determine how society acquires scientific and behavioral information and how this information is communicated and applied in the forest policy process. This chapter examines the community participation in the Australian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process from an institutional economics perspective. The RFA is regarded as the most ambitious, comprehensive and expensive land-use planning exercise ever to be undertaken in Australia. It was designed to minimize problems associated with resource conflicts related to conservation and development. Participatory and deliberative approaches have been used under the RFA to accommodate a wide range of environmental and socio-economic values. However, the achievements to date have been unsatisfactory. The failures can be attributed to poor rule configurations that constrain or direct action during community consultation, lack of integration of community values into the policy process and inadequate conflict resolution mechanisms. Chapter 11 - The software platform SIEVE can be used to automatically build immersive and interactive 3D landscape environments from spatial data infrastructures. These environments can be viewed with SIEVE Viewer, the visualisation component, which also provides a virtual collaboration platform. The authors are currently developing an application platform within SIEVE that will interface with the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative Ecoinformatics project on climate change. SIEVE is used as a 3D visualisation front-end for a number of different climate change models. Landscape scenarios will show the visual impact and the effect on agricultural productivity due to climate change, dependent on temperature rise, precipitation change and solar radiation. SIEVE can show temporal changes through the decades between 2000 and 2050. Another feature of SIEVE is that it can demonstrate the predicted sea level rise in coastal areas. SIEVE has the capability to show realistic representations of existing vegetation based on local vegetation species and geotypical manmade objects (buildings, sheds, etc). This enables communities to view their landscapes and how they change over the decades to 2050. The authors also implemented an abstract/scientific visualisation path. This allows the end user to view climate variable maps as the ground texture and show stylised icons on the surface, for example to show change in agricultural productivity. Landscapes models in SIEVE are integrated into a collaborative platform. End users can share environments through the Internet and inspect and discuss the virtual landscapes and ultimately make decisions to adapt to predicted future climate change scenarios. The climate data has been generated by models from Monash University, Victoria, Australia and productivity maps are generated by the Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia. This paper's emphasis is on the presentation of the climate change maps in a collaborative virtual environment in SIEVE. Chapter 12 - It is widely believed that Japanese culture is collective, and that its people are more likely to be expected to pursue harmony with others, compared with many Western individualistic societies, where people are more likely to be expected to be independent and focus on their own abilities. In past years, Japanese people have participated in community

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activities, including community associations, women’s associations, PTA and health-welfare activities. Since Japanese culture is also oriented toward stereotypical gender-roles, women are more likely to participate community activities than men, who more likely to engage in economic activity. In recent years, community bonds are weakening, and Japanese participation in community activities is decreasing. One reason may be that women’s participation in economic activity is increasing. Couples’ gender-role distinctions are also changing. In this section, recent trends in community participation in the Japanese community are reviewed, and new data in which psychosocial factors related to participation in community workshop for married couples during childrearing is shown. The authors focus on Japanese collectivism and gender-roles, and discuss future prospects for community activities, which are related to childrearing, elder care, education, and the promotion of health. Chapter 13 - The research involved migrant youth who were recently arrived refugees from the Horn of Africa. Using an appreciative approach, these inspiring young people eagerly shared their understandings of the best of their cultural heritage and together created a community project to celebrate new educational opportunities and mutual love of music and dance as they settled into their community within the multicultural city of Melbourne, Australia. This chapter will describe the creative processes used within this appreciative inquiry approach to assist this group of culturally diverse young people to celebrate their social identity and improve their sense of community. Appreciative inquiry is a positive, strength-based action research approach incorporating narrative inquiry principles that is well suited to working with culturally diverse communities. Appreciative inquiry basically uses a 4D approach to: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Discover – appreciate the best of what is Dream – imagine what might be Design – determine what should be Destiny – create what will be

Participants are empowered to share their own understandings of what they value as the best of their social and cultural identity, to then creatively imagine what might be and together design what they could do to improve their community. Chapter 14 - This chapter will examine the research on sustainability in the context of a specific type of recovery home, Oxford House. The authors identify several program/project and organization/environment factors that have contributed to the sustainability of Oxford House. These factors include the low financial cost of the program to residents and taxpayers, the use of volunteers to support and replicate Oxford Houses, the clear benefits of the model to residents, the strength of Oxford House to endure initially slow growth and legal challenges, the leadership of Paul Molloy, and the mutually beneficial partnerships it has formed with organizations. These factors have contributed to a successful recovery model with a high abstinence rate and that has spread throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia. Chapter 15 - Online communities are often compared to their real-world equivalents and while differences such as the former often are based on common interests and the later often based on common geography, both can be considered to be subject to the principles of economics. This chapter proposes that those individuals that use online communities can be

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seen as a diverse group of economic actors with such environments resembling a beehive and a similar structure to actors in a traditional market economy. They include the Queen Bees, which resemble the Firm, the Foraging Bees, which resemble the workers, The Guard Bees, which are a hybrid between workers and consumers, the Solitary Bees, which resemble Consumers, and the Drones, which resemble the economically inactive. The two studies in this paper investigate the sustainability of economic activity of these different economic actors and find that the Solitary Bees often only consume content because of the beliefs they hold the discourage them from participating in the communities, and that of the actors that use the message boards on MySpace, the Solitary Bees often have more friends than the Foraging Bees though this doesn’t effect the amount of economic influence they have. The paper concludes that the Queen Bees who control the means of production need to take a more active role in their communities to empower members and exercise more responsibility should they decided to shut down the community. Chapter 16- Tönnies’s definition of community and society is still an important reference for community psychology but its relevance to the present has never been tested. This study tries to verify if Tönnies’s definition still reflects the naïve classification used by common people to evaluate social aggregates. To achieve this, a sample of adult residents in a small Italian city (N = 250) was asked to name Tönnies’s definitions of community and society. Afterwards participants rated the similarity of a list of social aggregates to community and society. This second operation allowed us to investigate which social aggregates are considered a community by participants different in gender, age and education. Participants appeared to interpret Tönnies’s categories like the author did and there were differences in social aggregates evaluation depending on age and education. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed. Chapter 17 - This chapter reviews research on the small group foundations of community participation and civil society. The approach used is interdisciplinary in nature, combining social psychological and microsociological research with wider-reaching theories of civil society and democratic theory, and arguing that the two are fundamentally linked. Fist, it is argued that associational groups provide both opportunities (bridges) and obstacles (barriers) for participation on a wider level, each of which is discussed in turn. It is argued that small groups provide micro-environments that allow individuals to develop cognitive and emotional models of citizenship, empowerment, and inclusion. However, the small group literature also points to cognitive biases, exclusionary tendencies, and irrational behavior associated with groups that call into question their ability to provide sustainable models of democratic participation. It is argued that many of the failings of participatory democracy cannot be understood without reference to the small group origins of modern democracies. In order to chart a path between these seeming contradictory findings the chapter concludes by posing the question of whether a polity based on principles of group psychology can sustain universalistic aspirations such as tolerance, universal participation, and mutual respect, or whether ultimately such aspirations break down into in-fighting and factionalism. An attempt is made to suggest provisional solutions based on social psychological research. Specifically, research on group relations that examines moderators of inter-group biases and factors that promote inclusion is suggested as a fruitful direction. Chapter 18 - Community nonprofits, groups and coalitions (e.g., faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, grassroots groups, self-help groups, afterschool programs, civic organizations) are often able to reach those in need in

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communities with services and supports that larger nonprofits and government services are not always able to easily reach. At the same time, these often smaller organizations and groups lack the organizational capacity to compete with larger nonprofits for grants and contracts. Some local, state, and federal funders have recognized the usefulness of community intermediaries (CIs) to provide capacity support and assistance to these community nonprofits, groups, and coalitions. These funders support CIs to facilitate capacity-building and ensure appropriate use of funds or sub-awards administered by the CI. In these situations, community intermediaries (CIs) act as a conduit between the funder and the organizations

Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

Copyright © 2009. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

In: Community Participation and Empowerment Editors: M. F. Hindsworth, T. B. Lang

ISBN: 978-1-60692-189-0 © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 1

THE OUT OF SCHOOL HOURS SPORTS PROGRAM: DEVELOPING A HEALTHY COMMUNITY THROUGH ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT? James O’Meara Institute of Professional and Organisational Learning University of Ballarat, Australia

Michael Spittle School of Human Movement and Sports Sciences University of Ballarat, Australia

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ABSTRACT From 1985 to 1995 the level of combined overweight and obesity levels in Australian children has increased. This prompted the Australian government to develop strategies targeting individuals or groups within communities who need to improve this aspect of their health. The Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP) represents one major community development strategy of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) that targeted the growing problem of declining physical activity levels of Australian children (Australian Sports Commission, 2008). This program was a state-wide initiative that involved 71 Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) Services and was developed and implemented by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) between 2003 and 2005. This program represented a Communitarian or Community - Based approach, whereby the implementation of the program was managed by the local people Three studies are presented within this chapter that: 1.

examine the value orientations of deliverers within the OSHSP in order to examine if the OSHSP community represented a diverse group with differing values;

Community Participation and Empowerment, edited by Mildred F. Hindsworth, and Trevor B. Lang, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2009.

2

James O’Meara and Michael Spittle 2.

3.

investigate the Level of Use of the different groups to explore if different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP; and explore community development, community participation and empowerment activities during the implementation of the OSHSP to understand whether the implementation of state–wide OSHSP resulted in locally shaped practices; social network development; and community member mobilisation.

Data collection involved surveying OSHC Coordinators (n=9), OSHC Deliverer (n=16) SSA Deliverer (n=4) and interviewing OSHC Coordinators (n=3), OSHC Deliverer (n=3) SSA Deliverer (n=3). The data from these studies provided evidence of practices associated with community development and empowerment, however there were some concerns over community participation. The paper concludes by suggesting that claims of Community- Based Programs being popularist rhetoric (Gray and Crofts , 2008) are not entirely applicable to the OSHSP as it was able to contribute to community development through local actions in line with most of the ideals of theorists like Friere (1994). The authors anticipate that the presentation of these findings may prompt other government agencies to report the achievements of government-sponsored community development programs to help refute the type of critique currently being applied to this type of program.

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INTRODUCTION From 1985 to 1995 the level of combined overweight and obesity levels in Australian children more than doubled in all but the youngest age group of boys (aged 7), whilst the level of obesity tripled in all age groups (7-15) and for both sexes (Magarey, Daniels, & Boulton, 2001). Increasing levels of obesity and decreasing physical activity levels of young Australians has prompted the Australian government to develop strategies targeting individuals or groups within communities who need to improve this aspect of their health. The Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP) represents one major community development strategy of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) that targeted the growing problem of declining physical activity levels of Australian children (Australian Sports Commission, 2008). The decision by these organisations to focus on community reflects a Communitarian or Community - Based approach, where the sponsoring organisation believes that the most effective and enduring development programmes are those that are created and managed by the local people (Midgley, 1995). While it is quite common to see evidence of communitarian approaches being used in health promotion initiatives (see Callahan, 2001) there are some (Ife, 2002) who are critical of health promotion initiatives based around the local empowerment principles of authors like Paolo Freire (1994). Freire (1994) promoted the ideals of empowering community members, which is often emphasised in community development in order to encourage community members to take part in collective action (Daly & Cobb, 1994) and influence decisions that affect them (Skelton, 1994). Gray and Crofts (2008) have suggested that the rhetoric used to support or validate some of the popular approaches to promoting major community changes through local activists (see for example Mustafa and Mishe, 1998),

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fail to translate into the actions expected by theorists like Freire (1994). Throughout this chapter, such claims are examined using the community development concepts of empowerment and community participation. The community development program that serves as the focus for this chapter is the Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP). This initiative aimed to provide a safe, inclusive and fun sporting experience for children in the OSHC setting and also aimed to create a pathway for transition to junior memberships in local sports clubs and associations (Australian Sports Commission, 2008). The authors have examined this program through a series of case studies that aimed to better understand how this community had developed as a result of participating in the OSHSP. The first case study reports on the Value Orientations (Ennis, 1992) of the deliverers to examine if the various groups of deliverers of the OSHSP represented a diverse group with differing value orientations during program implementation. The second case study uses the Levels of Use LoU framework (Loucks, Newlove and Hall, 1998) to identify differences in implementation activities that occur between these groups as they deliver the OSHSP program. The final study investigated how the implementation activities of the various delivers influenced community participation within the OSHSP community and empowered individuals and groups within this community. The discussion draws on the three case studies, to comment on how this community based intervention reflected the ideals of empowerment and community participation. The paper concludes by suggesting that claims of popularist rhetoric made by Gray and Crofts (2008) are not entirely applicable to the OSHSP as it was able to contribute to community development through local actions in line with most of the ideals of theorists like Friere (1994). To date, research in this area has tended to focus on the short and long term impacts of an intervention on communities. This study differs from these as it compares and contrasts differing actions of members within a locally constructed community. We expect that the presentation of our findings throughout this chapter may prompt other government agencies to report the achievements of government-sponsored community development programs to help refute the type of critique currently being applied to this type of program.

VALUES ORIENTATION Values orientation is an important concept in understanding an individual’s thinking about program matters and implementation practices associated with health promotion activities, as the values of individuals will often guide their daily practices (Liu & Silverman, 2006). The value orientation of these individuals involved in health promotion activities represents a collective set of beliefs about program elements such as program intent (aims, goals and objectives), content and teaching strategies (Cheung & Wong, 2002). Those who make decisions about what to include or exclude in a program use their own values and value judgments to answer the basic question, 'What knowledge is of most worth?' (Eisner, 1990). In the discipline of physical education, five value orientations have been identified as the main value structure of teachers that are used by them to guide program decisions on valid content and appropriate activities (Ennis, 1992; Ennis & Chen, 1993; Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995).

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle

Ennis and Chen (1993,) have identified value orientations in physical education as: (a) disciplinary mastery, (b) learning process, (c) self-actualization, (d) social responsibility, and (e) ecological integration. These five orientations will be used from this point on to describe the orientations of deliverers involved with the OSHSP. Deliverers adopting a disciplinary mastery perspective believe in helping participants master the subject content (Jewett et al., 1995). This orientation is believed to represent the most traditional of the value orientations. Those deliverers that favour this perspective primarily emphasize the mastery of fundamental movement, sport, and physical activity skills as well as health-related exercise content (Jewett et al., 1995). Their delivery activities often employ a direct or didactic delivery style (Curtner-Smith & Meek, 2000). Deliverers favouring the learning process value orientation place an equal emphasis on how and what participants learn (Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995). Deliverers guided by this perspective often use indirect delivery styles and set problems for their participants in the context of sport, physical activity, and health-related exercise (Curtner-Smith & Meek, 2000). Deliverers favouring the self-actualisation perspective stress the personal development of their participants (Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995). Typical strategies or practices aligned with this approach include the emphasis of individual excellence, self-discovery, and encouragement for participants to develop their self confidence (Curtner-Smith & Meek, 2000). During sport and physical activity sessions reflecting this orientation, you would expect to see activities encouraging participants to reflect on their own performances, set goals and formulate plans to realize their goals (Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995). Deliverers with a high orientation towards social responsibility rate the achievement of societal goal ahead of mastering subject matter and personal development. A key objective is to facilitate cultural change leading to the improvement of society (Cheung & Wong, 2002). Deliverers who place a high priority on this perspective may deviate from a planned curriculum to place greater emphasis on the participants developing cooperation skills and respect for others (Ennis & Chen, 1993). They may also encourage participants to make comparisons of their own behaviours with those expected by society and to formulate plans for improvement. Within sport, physical activity, or health-related sessions, Deliverers favouring a social responsibility perspective would typically place participants in situations in which they must take responsibility and cooperate with one another (Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995). The final orientation within this group of five is identified as Ecological Integration. Deliverers promoting this type of value orientation place value in participants participating in a personal search for meaning (Curtner-Smith & Meek, 2000). Deliverers with a strong preference for ecological integration give equal emphasis to subject matter mastery, personal development, and societal goals (Jewett, Bain, & Ennis, 1995). Within sport, physical activity, and health-related settings, this type of value orientation is usually reflected in activities and content that meets the needs and interests of participants in that particular context. Ennis, Mueller, and Hooper (1990) developed and validated Value Orientation Inventory (VOI) that was subsequently modified and validated by Ennis and Chen, (1993). The scores from this inventory have been used by researchers to identify physical educators' values orientation on the basis of how they rank sets of five sentences representative of the five value orientations (Cheung & Wong, 2002; Lui & Silverman, 2006; Curtner-Smith & Meek, 2000; Solomon & Ashy, 1995). Data collected in the initial research conducted by Ennis & Chen,

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(1993) showed that deliverers' priorities were spread fairly evenly amongst the five value orientations suggesting a discrepancy between traditional texts that promote a disciplinary mastery orientation and the values and beliefs of a considerable number of deliverers.

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LEVELS OF USE Partnerships in health is an initiative of the Jakarta Declaration on Health Promotion into the 21st century (World Health Organisation, 1997) that aimed to bring individuals and groups together for the purpose of social change linked to health promotion. In forming these partnerships, community members will often be confronted with different interests and priorities that will be realised in the action of stakeholders (Erben, Franzkowiak & Wenzel, 2000). The levels of use (LoU) framework (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998) provides a framework for focussing on the general type of actions people complete as they prepare to implement a new program or curriculum. The LoU framework is a component of a three dimensional model for conceptualizing and measuring change during the implementation of an innovation (see Hall & Hord, 2001). The LoU framework represents a developmental progression; here, though, the focus is on behaviours associated with implementation practices of a sport program. These changes are linked to seven categories of use (Loucks, Newlove, & Hall, 1998): Knowledge (what you know about the innovation); Acquiring Information (getting more information about the innovation); Sharing (discussing the innovation with others); Assessing (examining how to use the innovation); Planning (designing a short/long implementation plan); Status Reporting (describing a personal stance on implementing the innovation; Performing (operationalising the innovation). As part of this framework Loucks, Newlove, & Hall (1998) identify the following eight LoU’s that represent a developmental sequence of use: Non-use (0), Orientation (I), Preparation (II), Mechanical Use (III), Routine (IVA), Refinement (IVB), Integration (V), and Renewal (VI) (Hall & Hord, 2001). Starting at the value orientation of non use (Level 0 – Non-use) there is generally a progressing towards a Deliverer orientating (Level I Orientation) himself or herself with the innovation in order to decide whether to adopt it. In certain situations, this progress may be driven by an external motivation in the form of a mandate from a government or funding body (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998). At the next LoU the user prepares (Level II - Preparation) for adoption of the innovation through participating in training, developing or accessing resources or modifying existing procedures within the organisation (Hall and Hord, 2001). Once these preparations have been completed, the practices of those adopting the innovation often reflect poorly coordinated activities targeted at meeting the day-to-day needs, problems and events (Level III – Mechanical Use) (Loucks, Newlove and Hall, 1998). Progression to the next LoU involves shifting from established practices (Level VIA - Routine) to the refinement (Level IVB Refinement) of usage of the innovation (Hall and Hord, 2001). Activities at this level include eliciting feedback from the intended beneficiaries of the implemented changes, (e.g. participants or students) in order to improve the outcomes for this group (Loucks, Newlove and Hall, 1998).

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In the last two levels of innovation use, the user integrates usage with other practitioners (Level V - Integration) and looks for other innovations to supplement or perhaps even replace (Level VI - Renewal) the innovation (Hall and Hord, 2001). Typically, after one year of implementing an innovation, the majority of users are at Level III (Bellah & Dyer, 2007). Only a small percentage of users ever reach Levels V and VI (Johnson, Wistow, Schulz, & Hardy, 2003). Positive progression through to this level is usually achieved by those who have increased their confidence and skill level as they use or become involved with the innovation (Newhouse, 2001). People generally move sequentially through the levels, but there can be some backsliding (Bella & Dyer, 2007). There will also be those who remain invariant through the entire implementation phase (Newhouse, 2001). McKinnon and Nolan (1989) suggest that in order for an innovation to be adopted, implemented and sustained 75% or more of those involved with the implementation must operate at Level IVA (Routine Use) or higher. This LoU is also important in terms of program evaluation as there is a danger that if a program is evaluated before a significant percent of users are at Level IVA (Routine Use) or above that it may be rejected as not effective, when in reality it was not implemented well enough to make any meaningful judgment about its worth (Hord, Rutherford, Huling-Austin, & Hall, 1987).

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COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT While issues still remain over a commonly agreed definition of community (Gray & Crofts, 2008), Ife (2002) argues that the concept of community provides multiple opportunities for discussing issues related to community, one of which being the interplay between local community culture and mainstream mass culture. As communities participate in a process of planned social change for their own well-being (Midgey, 1995), there is a danger that a health promotion activity designed to enable people to improve community health may result in a very different outcome. As physical activity programs increase in scale, some preference is given towards the standardisation of approaches, i.e. ‘one size fits all’ (Couch, 2007). This trend appears to be counter-productive to the goal of developing a community culture that is owned and shaped by the participants themselves (Midgey, 1995). In addition as the incidences of risk and litigation become more prevalent in physical activity settings (Swan & O'Meara, 2006) there is an increasing reliance on a body of technical knowledge that threatens to restrict the involvement of community members and transfer this responsibility into the hands of experts (Couch, 2007). While the opportunities for community development may vary greatly between settings, active participation should be promoted to enhance the likelihood of achieving a sustainable level of community development (World Health Organisation, 2002).

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION A generally recognised belief is that participation must be part of any community development process (Couch, 2007). Hart (1992) defines participation as a process of shared involvement in the decisions which affect the lives of individuals and groups within the

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community where they live. At the community level, participation in community development activities has been associated with the strengthening of social networks and the enhancement of the community’s’ competence to solve health problems (Wallerstein, 1992). These networks represent a type of capital that exists as a form of connection between people within these networks (Butler, 2005). Putnam (2000) distinguishes between ‘bridging social capital’ in which bonds of connectedness are formed across diverse social groups, and ‘bonding social capital’ that cements only homogenous groups. The potential exists for bonding social capital to have both a negative effect for communities outside the group (eg. exclusion), while at the same time having a positive effect for the members belonging to this closed group or network (eg. connectedness) (Butler, 2005). Since bridging social capital usually involves the establishment of contacts and networks between different groups the impact of this activity is usually associated with positive outcomes (Putnam, 2000). In order for sponsoring groups to benefit from the positive outcomes of developing high stocks of social capital within communities there is a need to build both types of networks (bridging and bonding) within these communities (Butler, 2005). Community participation in these types of activities represents a process for developing the stocks of social capital within a community (Putnam, 2000) and implementing change through shared decision-making involving all key members of that community (Gray & Crofts, 2008). The goals of this type of process include goals that involve increasing local self-sufficiency, developing resources for solving community problems, and enhancing the quality of life within the community (Schwartz, 1981). The communities where such goals were achieved typically followed a process of identifying a community planning team, defining community needs and resources, defining the team's mission or vision, developing and implementing reasonable change strategies, and evaluating the implementation and outcomes related to change efforts (Beckhard, 1975; Everson & Moon, 1990). As communities are often made up of various groups, community developmental programs need to be committed to the principles of collaborative working and facilitating meaningful participation (Barry, 2007). A significant number of researchers have contributed to identifying elements important to good collaboration (Hardy, Turrell, & Wistow, 1992; Hudson, Hardy, Menwood, & Wistow, 1999; Johnson, Wistow, Schulz, & Hardy, 2003). Collaborative community development involves setting goals and making plans for collaborative community planning in order to facilitate the tailoring of large- scale initiatives to the local setting (Barry, 2007). While it may be tempting to move quickly towards implementation without laying the foundation for collaboration (Harden, 1995), the extra time spent on the collaboration process should assist develop a community that has the capacity to create a flexible program that can be modified in response to local needs, interests and capacities (Barry, 2007).

EMPOWERMENT Active participation in community development activities often leads to the empowerment of local community members (Buysse & Wesley, 1999). Increased levels of empowerment allow these members to have some influence over things that matter (Fawcett et al., 1995), and obtain more power over decisions (Skelton, 1994). In this way,

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empowerment represents a constant process of enabling individuals and/ or groups to take part in collective action (Daly & Cobb, 1994). At an individual level it represents a mechanism, which individuals can serve as ‘active’ agents who have the potential to change their own lives (Rappaport, Swift, & Hess, 1984). At the community level, empowerment also represent a means for contributing to groups or organisations within a community (Minkler, 1997). This type of collective empowerment is sometimes referred to as community empowerment (Rissel, 1994). Community empowerment can take on may forms including mobilizing people in response to an issue and providing opportunities for community input into institutions and decisions that affect their lives and communities (Drier, 1996).

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BACKGROUND The Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP) was a joint initiative of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) that aimed to provide opportunities for children OSHC to participate in structured sporting experiences (VicHealth & ASC, 2005). The program was a state-wide initiative that involved working in collaborative partnerships with 17 SSAs and 71 OSHC Services over three years and aimed to provide community links to local clubs for continued involvement in sport (VicHealth & ASC, 2005). The OSHSP was implemented over three years and commenced at the start of the Victorian school Term 3 (July), 2003 to the end of Term 4 (December), 2005. Each OSHC Service had one sport per term delivered into their service. Sports were delivered using one of four Service Delivery Models as outlined in Figure 1 and involved one of the following providers – SSA Deliverer, sporting club or association, OSHC Service staff (Coordinators and Deliverers) or a combination of OSHC Service Deliverers and SSA Deliverers. In all four Service Delivery Models it was stipulated that local clubs needed to visit the OSHC Service four times during the term to provide participants with information on how to join their club and/or assist in program delivery (VicHealth & ASC, 2003). The expected outcomes of the OSHSP were to: • • • •

create links between stakeholders such as parents, OSHC Services, sports clubs, and SSAs; providing a transition from participation in sports program during OSHC to junior membership within local sports clubs; provide a safe and fun sporting experience by using existing SSA and/or National Sporting Organisations (NSO) junior development programs; and identify and trial junior sport education programs (VicHealth & ASC, 2003).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AIM The focus of this research was to investigate the implementation of the OSHSP in order to understand how community members with differing sets of beliefs participated in a community development program seeking to achieve health outcomes. Three studies are presented within this chapter that:

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ASC / VicHealth

INVESTOR

SSA Junior Development Program

PROVIDER

SSA

OSHC staff

Club / Association

OSHC staff/SSA

SSA appointed personnel

Club linkages

RECIPIENT

OSHC service

Club

Figure 1. The four Service Delivery Models (VicHealth & ASC 2003)

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1.

examine the value orientations of deliverers within the OSHSP in order to examine if the OSHSP community represented a diverse group with differing values; 2. investigate the Level of Use of the different groups to explore if different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP; and 3. explore community development, community participation and empowerment activities during the implementation of the OSHSP to understand whether the implementation of state–wide OSHSP resulted in locally shaped practices; social network development; and community member mobilisation. Having an understanding of these results will assist determine whether community participation in a standardised (one size fits all) program, such as the OSHSP, can be used to contribute to the development of different members of a local community, whereby activities from a national junior development program are modified in response to local needs, interests and capacities.

Study 1: The OSHSP as a Diverse Community This first case study reports on the results from the Values Orientation Inventory (VOI) completed by the various groups of deliverers involved in the OSHSP. These results have been included to illustrate how the OSHSP community represented a diverse group with differing values.

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle Table 1. The Five Value Orientations (Ennis & Chen, 1993)

Orientation Discipline Mastery: Learning Process: Self Actualization: Social Responsibility Ecological Integration:

Description A deliverer who emphasizes the acquisition of sport specific knowledge and skills. A deliverer who emphasises the development of skills for learning and thinking that can be used in any sport. A deliverer who emphasises the continual development of an individual’s autonomy. A deliverer who encourages participants to respect and cooperate with others. A deliverer who promotes personal meaning for students via collaboratively developed OSHSP experiences aimed at achieving personal and social goals.

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Theoretical Background Values Orientation Inventory (VOI) Ennis and Chen (1995) suggest that when dealing with issues of program implementation, factors beyond the physical resources and the actions of the deliverers can affect a deliverer’s decision to adopt or reject a new initiative. Supporting this point, curriculum theorists have long suggested that Deliverer behaviours and decisions are shaped by their personal beliefs (Eisner & Vallence, 1974, Kliebard, 1988). Within the physical education literature, Value Orientations (Ennis & Chen, 1995) have been regularly used as a theoretical framework for investigating how Deliverer belief systems influence the content of physical education lessons and how they will be taught (Chen & Ennis, 1996; Chen, Ennis, & Loftus, 1996; Ennis, 1992; Ennis & Chen, 1995; Ennis, Ross & Chen, 1992; Ennis & Zhu, 1991; Solomon & Ashy, 1995). Deliverers often unknowingly use personalised value orientations to determine the characteristics of a ‘physically educated’ person within their physical education setting (Ennis, Ross, & Chen, 1992). Ennis and Chen (1995) have identified five orientations to represent the alternative physical educator belief systems. These orientations have been adapted in Table 1 to describe the possible belief systems that could be influencing the session planning decisions of the OSHSP deliverers. The VOI was developed by Ennis and Hopper (1988) as a means of examining deliverers’ belief structures. The original VOI contained 75-items consisting of 15-items representing each of the five value orientation. These items reflected learning goals, strategies, activities, and evaluation procedures that relate to each of the five values (Ennis et al. 1992). To add to the ease of completing the VOI, a short form was developed by Chen, Ennis, and Loftus (1997). They aimed to refine the existing 75-item inventory into a short form to make it faster to complete. This resulted in a 50-item inventory known as the VOI-SF. Concordance coefficient (gamma) was used to determine the concordance between the VOISF and the original VOI. Criteria of .90 for Gamma and .60 for Kappa were predetermined as acceptable. The gamma and kappa coefficients for the 10-set format met the .90 and .60 criteria. Alpha coefficients for the subscales range from .65 to .82, indicating adequate internal consistency.

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Participants A total of 25 OSHC Service staff and 4 SSA Deliverers completed the VOI survey. The OSHC Service staff were further categorised as Coordinators (n=16) and deliverers (n=9). Coordinators were identified as the individual who had the responsibility for managing the OSHC Service, whereas, deliverers assumed only responsibility for delivering the OSHSP but not for managing the OSHC Service.

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Measure VOI Survey The VOI-SF was a 50-item survey designed to examine the value orientations of the OSHSP deliverers. This aimed to measure the personal values of the OSHSP deliverers that might influence the selection of activities or the approach in delivery of the OSHSP. Each item was a description of a goal of the OSHSP within one of the five value orientations. An example of a Discipline Mastery question is “I require children to spend time practising games, skill, and fitness activities emphasised in daily objectives”. An example of a Learning Process question is “I teach children to apply skills in appropriate game and exercise situations”. An example of a Self Actualisation question is “I teach children to take responsibility for their own actions”. An example of a Ecological Integration question is “I teach children to try new activities to find ones they enjoy”. An example of a Social Responsibility question “I teach children to work together to solve group problems”. Items were arranged into 10 sets with each item in a set representing one of the five value orientations. This means there are 10 items in each value orientation subscale. Items are randomly ordered within each set and are not labelled. Subscale alpha coefficients range from .82 to .65 (Ennis & Chen, 1995). As reported in Ennis & Chen, 1995) reliability coefficient of .70 is acceptable for the affective domain. An OSHSP deliverer completing the VOI-SF was required to rank order each of the five items within each of the 10 sets based on his/her priorities (5 = most important; 1 = least important). An example is shown in Figure 2. The score for each value orientation was computed by summing the rankings for the items in each orientation across the 10 sets. Therefore, a score was produced for each value orientation ranging between 10 and 50. The forced- choice format utilised by the VOI means once an item has been assigned a rank that rank cannot be assigned again. Therefore, the numbers of high and low priority orientations possible for each participant are restricted (Curtner-Smith & Meek 2000). The OSHSP deliverers must rank items that represent a particular value orientation consistently across the 10 sets to obtain a low or high priority score. 1._____ 2._____ 3._____ 4._____ 5._____

I teach children to use the skills they have learned in the session to help their team. I tell children about the positive effects of exercise on their bodies. I urge children to be patient with others who are learning new skills or tactics I expect children to use many forms of feedback to improve their movement, skill, and fitness performance. I reward children who try to perform even when they are not successful.

Figure 2. Example item from the modified VOI- SF2.

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle Table 2. Cut-off scores for classifying each type of Value Orientation

High Neutral Low

Discipline Mastery 1-48.92 48.93-64.05 64.06-100

Learning Process 1-46.62 46.63-59.37 59.38-100

Self Actualization 1-46.45 46.46-58.14 58.15-100

Ecological Integration 1-44.51 44.52-55.44 55.45-100

Social Responsibility 1-51.08 51.09-65.93 65.94-100

Procedure The survey was mailed to all OSHSP deliverers involved with implementing the OSHSP between April and July, 2005. The survey took approximately 25 minutes to complete. Each OSHSP deliverer received a plain language statement, consent form and a reply paid envelope to return with the survey. Ethics approval was sought and obtained for this study.

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Data Analysis For each OSHSP deliverer, VOI priority rankings for each value orientation were computed by summing the rankings for the items in each orientation across the 18 sets to create a composite score for each of the five orientations. Each of the composite scores were then compared against a series of cut-off scores (Ennis & Chen, 1995) to determine whether the deliverers had a high, neutral or low priority level for each of the five orientations (see Table 2). Descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) were then computed across the whole sample of OSHSP deliverers. Value Orientation Inventory Results Table 3 identifies the means and standard deviations of the value orientations for each of the three types of OSHSP deliverers. The results were spread fairly evenly across, the value orientations, although there were at least two of the orientations (Discipline Mastery and Learning Process) that were not high priorities for any of the deliverers. The OSHC Coordinator, OSHC Deliverers and SSA Deliverers all reported similar levels of orientations for Social Responsibility; Ecological Integration and Social Responsibilities. The differing values among the groups were represented in the different intensities reported for Discipline Mastery and Learning Process. All three types of deliverers reported low and neutral value orientations for discipline mastery. Table 3. Mean, standard deviation and classification of Value Orientations for each type of OSHSP deliverer Discipline Mastery

OSHC Coordinator (n=9) OSHC Deliverer (n=16) SSA Deliverer (n=4)

M (classifycation) 57.6 (Neutral) 52.2 (Neutral) 47 (Low)

Learning Process SD M (classifycation) 8.4 46.3 (Low) 8.7 54.2 (Neutral) 6.0 58.5 (Neutral)

Self Actualization SD M (classifycation) 11.6 61.6 (High) 14.3 60.4 (High) 10.6 58.5 (High)

Ecological Integration

SD M (classifycation) 8.7 63.3 (High) 10.7 67.1 (High) 16.4 64 (High)

Social Responsibility

SD M (classifycation) 10.1 75.3 (High) 6.3 66.4 (High) 7.1 70.5 (High)

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SD 14.0 8.6 14.5

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Table 4. A Set of Definitions for the Various Categories of Use Contextualised for use of the OSHSP Level of Use Knowledge Acquiring Information Sharing Assessing

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Planning Status Reporting Performing:

Definition what the deliverers know about the OSHSP actions of deliverers to learn more about the OSHSP deliverer discussions about the use of the OSHSP with other staff and people outside the school the deliverer analyses the OSHSP or collects evidence of its use to inform adjustments they make with their practices. the deliverer makes short and long-term plans to use the OSHSP. the deliverer describes a personal position on using the OSHSP which reflects consideration of the views of other staff members. the deliverer carries out actions related to operationalizing usage of the OSHSP

Discussion and Conclusion The aim of Case Study 1 was to identify the value orientations of the OSHSP deliverers in order to examine if the OSHSP community represented a diverse group with differing values. Ennis & Chen, (1993) suggested that deliverers' or in this case deliverers’, priorities should be spread fairly evenly amongst the five value orientations. After two years of program implementation, it appears that the different community members shared a common set of high value orientations for self actualisation, ecological integration and social responsibility. The main differences between the different groups appeared to be linked to the differing strengths of value orientations reported for discipline mastery and learning process (neutral and low). Given this information, it is possible to conclude that the VOI data indicated a mainly homogenous OSHSP community whose main points of difference occurred in their value orientations towards the discipline mastery and learning process orientations. While these differences may be limited to two of the five orientations, Ennis & Chen, (1993) would expect some differences in their actions as they implemented the OSHSP. This assumption is examined in the next case study, which examines the LoU data provided by the different groups involved in the delivery of the OSHSP.

Study 2: The OSHSP as an Example of Diverse Implementation Practices This second case study documents the LoU (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998) of the different groups involved in the delivery of the OSHSP. It was included to explore if different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP. Given the differences in values orientations identified from the first case study, there could be an expectation that there would also be differences in the level of participation in practices common to deliverers of innovations such as the OSHSP program.

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle Table 5. A Summary of the Decision Points Representing the Markers Between Different Levels of Use

Level

Decision Point

0 A I B II C III D1 IVA D2 IVB E VI F

Descriptor Non use Actively involved in Learning about the innovation Orientation Sets a time to begin using the innovation Preparation Changes if any are dominated by the users needs Mechanical Use A routine pattern of use is established Routine Use Changes are based on evaluations seeking to improve student outcomes Refinement Changes driven colleague feedback or in an attempt to coordinate activities within the department Renewal Staff begin exploring alternatives or making major changes to innovation

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Theoretical Background Level of Use (LoU) The Concerns Based Adoption Model-Levels of Use (CBAM-LoU) interview (Hall, Loucks, Rutherford and Newlove, 1975) is targeted toward describing the behaviours of program implementers. The CBAM-LoU is organised into seven categories, which are classified in a series of behaviours across seven different domains to assist with describing the behaviours or actions of the user (Anderson, 1997). Table 4 provides a set of definitions for the various categories of use. Since each individual may vary their behaviours across the different categories of use. Hall, Loucks, Rutherford, and Newlove (1975) developed a scale of Overall Level of Use, which is an independent measure of LoU that is more stable than the individual categories. The stages on this scale, range from orientating, to managing, and finally to integrating the use of a program. Table 5 describes the seven categories of the LoU. The validity of these seven domains has been established by others (James & Hall, 1981; Loucks & Melle, 1980). Within the Overall LoU framework, progression is marked by decision points, which are used to assign an overall LoU of the innovation. Decision points represent the ‘boundaries’ between different LoU. In order for an individual or group to progress to a higher LoU there needs to be evidence of them exhibiting the appropriate behaviour represented as a decision point between two LoU. For example, a deliverer operating at Level II (Preparation) will have already set a time to begin using the innovation (Decision Point B). The instrument is used to provide measures of the eight levels of use defined in the Levels of Use Chart (Loucks, Newlove, & Hall, 1975). The levels of use are: (0) Non-Use, (I) Orientation, (II) Preparation, (III) Mechanical Use, (IVA) Routine, (IVB) Refinement, (V) Integration, and (VI) Renewal.

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Table 6. A Set of Definitions for the Various Level of Use of the OSHSP

NonUse

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Use

Level 0

Descriptor Non use

I

Orientation

II

Preparation

III

Mechanical Use

IVA

Routine Use

IVB

Refinement

V

Integration

VI

Renewal

Definition State in which the user has little or no knowledge of the OSHSP, no involvement with the OSHSP, and is doing nothing toward becoming involved. State in which the deliverer has recently acquired or is acquiring information about the OSHSP and/or has recently explored or is exploring its value orientation and its demands upon the user. State in which the deliverer is preparing for their first use of the OSHSP State in which the user focuses most effort on the short-term, day-today use of the OSHSP with little time for reflection. Changes in use are made more to meet deliverer needs rather than student’s needs. The deliverer is primarily engaged in to master the tasks required to use the OSHSP, often resulting in superficial use. Use of the OSHSP is stabilized. Few if any changes are being made in ongoing use. Little preparation or thought is being given to improving OSHSP use or its consequences. State in which the deliverer varies the use of the OSHSP to increase the impact on students. Variations are based on knowledge of both short- and long-term consequences for students. State in which the deliverer is combining their own efforts to use the OSHSP with related activities of colleagues to achieve a collective impact on students. State in which the deliverer re-evaluates their quality of use of the OSHSP, seeks major modifications of or alternatives to the OSHSP to achieve increased impact on students, examines new developments in physical education pedagogy, and explores new goals for themselves and their teaching

As with the decision points, each LoU includes a distinct range of behaviours. Loucks et al., (1998) suggest that these behaviours provide an indication of the development of the user in terms of their acquisition of new skills and their ability to vary the use of the innovation. Table 6 provides a summary of the various LoU associated with using the OSHSP.

Participants A total of 6 OSHC Service staff, 1 State OSHSP Coordinator and 3 SSA Deliverers participated in the LoU semi-structured interview, which provided a comprehensive record of what they were actually doing to assist the OSHC service with the implementation of the OSHSP. The OSHC Service staff were further grouped as Coordinators (n=2) and Deliverers (n=4). Coordinators were identified as the individual who had the responsibility for managing the OSHC Service, whereas, Deliverers assumed only responsibility for delivering the OSHSP but not for managing the OSHC Service. Collective the deliverers are referred as OSHSP deliverers.

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Measure LoU Semi-structured Interview A semi-structured interview was used to assess how the OSHSP deliverers were actually implementing the OSHSP within OSHC Services. This provided insight into the depth and extent to which the OSHSP was implemented and this approach has been suggested to lead to more true-life responses, while at the same time providing sufficient structure to ensure that the incidence of misrepresentation in interviews is low (Loucks & Melle, 1980).

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Procedure A total of ten OSHSP deliverers were invited to participate in a 60 minute semistructured interview. Each OSHSP deliverer received a plain language statement and consent form. All interviews were tape recorded and later transcribed. Ethics approval was sought and obtained for this study. The interview format was structured to question the OSHSP deliverers about their behaviours across the seven categories of the LoU – knowledge, acquiring information, sharing, assessing, planning, status reporting, and performing. During the interview an additional coding sheet was used to guide the amount of probing questions that were asked of the deliverer. This ensured that it was possible to assign a LoU in each category. Data Analysis A coding sheet based on the semi-structured interview questions was developed to code and analyse the transcripts. The analysis of this data involved selecting relevant comments from the transcripts of the interview participants. In this instance, ‘relevance’ was determined by the match between the participant comment and the exemplar comments of each category of use from the LoU manual (Loucks et al, 1998). Individual relevant comments were coded using the exemplar statements to assign a category of use. The assignment of overall LoU of the OSHSP adhered to the procedure described in Loucks et al (1998). As with the categories of use, ‘relevant’ comments relating to specific behaviours were identified from the transcripts. These comments were used to inform the coding process, which involved assigning an Overall LoU for deliverers involved with the OSHSP. Once an overall LoU had been decided upon, so too was the ‘Decision Point’ (see Table 8) as this point is the point immediately below the identified LoU. The determination of the Overall LoU and subsequent Decision Point is important as this provides some insight into the progress the OSHSP deliverers have made with the implementation of the OSHSP. Loucks et al., (1998) suggest that since all of the Categories of Use are independent and are likely to vary within individuals, the overall LoU provides a more stable picture of the progress individuals and groups are making with regard to implementing an innovation Results Categories of Use of the OSHSP Table 7 identifies the LoU amongst the different types of deliverers each across the seven categories of LoU. The overall LoU of the OSHSP by SSA Deliverers was non-use; whilst Coordinators and deliverers were mechanical or routine users. A typical SSA Deliverer

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suggested that after obtaining some information for initial use they did little to develop their LoU of the OSHSP such as acquiring or learning more information about the OSHSP. Similarly, the typical coordinator and deliverer had only a general knowledge of the OSHSP and were not seeking additional information about it. The main efforts of a typical OSHC coordinator involved managing the delivery of the OSHSP; whilst the typical OSHC deliverers were making short-term plans for the delivery of the OSHSP. In general, very few deliverers were sharing their experiences with others outside of the VicHealth network sessions. Selected excerpts from the interviews have been included below to highlight aspects relating LoU of the OSHSP identified in Table 5 amongst SSA and OSHC Deliverers. Each quotation has been coded to avoid the misrepresentation of a particular group.

Knowledge Knowledge refers to knowing how to use the program, as well as, the expected consequences of its use (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998). Table 7 shows that most deliverers were at Knowledge I. A deliverer at this level is generally characterised by knowing “general information about the innovation such as origin, characteristics and implementation requirements” (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.204). In some cases the Coordinators of the OSHC Service had very limited knowledge about the OSHSP. Interviewer:

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OSHC Coordinator

Just looking at your knowledge of the Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP), what is your understanding of the program? No idea, basically. I know that the money is there to provide the sport for OSHSP and in schools for children basically because there is a big concern about the lack of exercise children are getting in general in this country and obesity and so forth … very general.

Others, provided limited details, however, it appeared a lag of approximately one year between the interviews and the commencement of the program had affected their ability to recall all the details. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator

Just looking at your knowledge of the Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP), what is your understanding of the program? The aims of the program from what I remember from the initial, because the program is broken into Term 1 and Term 4 it is hard to keep your mind about all the information and because it started so long ago. Initially it was promoting that physical activity in outside of school hours settings and introducing sort of services and link in with the local Club, from my understand it. Just introducing and exposing children to different sports and then linking in with what clubs were in the area. In general that sort of outside school hours setting.

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Table 7. Summary of the Levels of use of the OSHSP among the different deliverers at the OSHC Service Knowledge Acquiring Deliverers Info II 0 SSA II 0 SSA I 0 SSA III OSHC Coordinator II) II OSHC Coordinator I 0 OSHC Coordinator I I II OSHC Deliverer I 0 OSHC Deliverer I III OSHC Deliverer I 0 OSHC Deliverer

Sharing Assessing Planning Status Performing 0 0 0 I III 0 0 0 0 III

0 0 0 I 0 I IVB 0 I II

0 0 III III 0 III IV III III III

0 0 III III III III IVB III IV III

0 0 II III I III IV 0 II III

Similar levels of familiarity were reflected in the comments of OSHC Deliverers, who were only able to provide a limited description of the OSHSP when questioned. Interviewer:

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OSHC Deliverer:

Just looking at your knowledge of the Out of School Hours Sports Program (OSHSP), what is your understanding of the program? Basically it is a pilot program and the idea is to find out how possible this is and what sort of impact it is having and so forth. This is a test run to see how effective it would be if it was to be introduced, that’s pretty much my understanding of what the goals are.

Most of the SSA Deliverers provided responses suggesting a level of use linked to Knowledge II. The following detailed explanation of the logistics of the OSHSP highlights the level of awareness about the OSHSP among the SSA Deliverers. Interviewer:

SSA Deliverer:

We are really looking today at your understanding of the Out of School Hours Sports Program and seeing how it works and just seeing what people’s knowledge is at with it? What knowledge do you have about the Out of School Hours Sports Program? My understanding is that the program is there to create a link for the kids that it may not be easy for them to get to organised sport to be involved in these program as a necessity depending on parental situations. So it is my understanding is that for kids in that situation we try and draw a link between the program and the After Hours Programs and organised sport, by creating that link and getting, in our situation, getting a local club involved and informing people of the opportunities to play sport on a more regular basis and I suppose also for those clubs to realise there are opportunities.

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Some may argue that this level of knowledge reflects a higher level of use than preparation, however, since the next level in this category expects deliverers to describe the short and long term impacts of aspects the OSHSP, comments like this suggest that this level has yet to be reached. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Do you understand why the different models were set up? It was explained to me, but to be frank I can’t recall why it was set up, I suppose you tend to concentrate on what your own involvement is.

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Acquiring Information (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998), describe ‘Acquiring Information’ in terms of “questioning resource people, contacting resource agencies [such as VicHealth and the ASC], reviewing printed material and visiting sites where the innovation is being used” (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.8). Most of the deliverers were categorised as being at Acquiring Information 0 in Table 7, which suggests that most deliverers did not actively seek new information about the OSHSP. The following comment from an OSHC Coordinator indicated that acquiring information about the OSHSP had involved a process of having the information distributed to them by State OSHSP Coordinator. The most active of all of the Coordinators in this category appears to be the State OSHSP coordinator, who provided the other Coordinators with information about the program and the sports associated with the activity sessions. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator: Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Where have you acquired most of that information from? All the information that comes through from the OSHSP coordinator Is that a continual process? Yes, that is continual; she has been great in feeding through as much information as possible.

The main action that appeared to take place in the Acquiring Information category was to review descriptive material except when it happened to come to their personal attention (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998). In the case of this OSHC deliverer, this seemed to be acceptable even when their knowledge of the OSHSP program and a particular sport was quite limited. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer: Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

What have you done to find out about the actual model that was required? Not a lot. Did you get information from somewhere about it? We got booklets and pamphlets and things like that, so I had a basic idea … I know nothing about for this sport, I don’t have a background in this sport, I know nothing about it.

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle

In the case of one SSA Deliverer who was very comfortable with delivering their sports, they too were quite comfortable receiving rather than sourcing additional information from the SSA as they did not see their role in the OSHSP as part of their main duties. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Have you done anything to find out more about the requirements of the delivery? I had just contacted our State coordinator and as it is isn’t that is directly related to my business or why I am employed I felt that I couldn’t really put much into it.

Sharing Sharing involves discussing the OSHSP with others and sharing plans, ideas, outcomes and problems related to implementing the OSHSP (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998). A LoU of Sharing III usually involved discussions around management and logistical issues rather than discussion related to improving the outcomes for participants (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.8). One of the OSHC Coordinators indicated they were sharing at this level. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

OK. Are you sharing any of the knowledge that you have or you have acquired through running the OSHSP with anyone else? With my staff obviously, and some of them have done the Level 1 Coach/Training as well and also in my role as a sports teacher at another school I talk about it a lot and utilise a lot of what I am learning here as well.

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From their comments, the level of sharing at this level appears to extend beyond this OSHC Service as tips and activities are collected during network meetings. Interviewer:

OSHC Coordinator:

Have you been sharing your experiences about the Out of School Hours Sports Program with anyone else, whether it be resources that you have developed or problems you have found with the program? I have discussed it at network meetings in the area …We are getting all these good things, we are getting coaching and we are getting added activities for the program and a little bit of funding, it is really good.

This same level of sharing about OSHSP also extended to meetings arranged by the State OSHP Coordinated and hosted at VicHealth. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Are you sharing any of the knowledge that you have or you have acquired through running the OSHSP with anyone else? Yes, we have our meetings which are very good, usually once or twice a term we’ll go into VicHealth and all of the OSHC Services will have their 10 or 15 minute spiel on the program and how it is performing and little hints and what has worked and what hasn’t worked …

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Within Table 7, all but one OSHC deliverer was operating at Sharing 0. Non-use in this category is described as “not communicating with others about the innovation beyond possibly acknowledging that the innovation exists” (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.8). This level of sharing is highlighted in the following comment from two different OSHC deliverers. Interviewer:

OSHC Deliverers: Interviewer:. OSHC Deliverers:

Are you sharing the knowledge and ideas with other people that might be associated with your out of school hours care or people outside the Centre? Not really so much outside the Centre

Are you sharing your information or your experiences with anyone else outside the Centre Not currently, no.

In the case of the OSHC deliverer who did report Sharing III behaviours, this appeared to be restricted to sharing thoughts and ideas about logistical issues with people visiting the OSHP Interviewer:

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OSHC Coordinator:

And those things that you were discussing, those problems, were they more management issues, or more the content of what was being done They were management issues, basically things like not having the equipment we needed, not having the instructor we needed

Sharing information specifically linked to the OSHSP did not appear to be a high priority for SSA Deliverers. In the case of this SSA Deliverer sharing appears to have involved information about their sport program. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Are you currently sharing your knowledge and ideas with other about the Out of School Hours sports. A lot of the other sports know our program very well, our program has pretty much been the benchmark of all junior programs in Victoria

As can be seen in the response to the next question in this interview, there was a perception that knowing about the contents of the junior development program meant that you knew how to deliver it at an OSHC service. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

And is that also the case with the Out of School Hours Sport Program? No we haven’t really shared that around too much with other sports, they know what the program is about anyway,

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle

Assessing Assessing involves examining the potential or actual implementation of the OSHSP. This assessment could involve “reflection or physically collecting and analysing data” ((Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.8). The OSHC Coordinators appeared to be mostly operating at Assessing I, with their actions limited to the contractual requirements of delivering the OSHSP, as opposed to assessing what it would take to deliver a sports program at the OSHSP. Interviewer:

SSA Deliverer:

The information you got from VicHealth, what have you done with it, have you read it, have you passed on that information to other people? No it is something that we read and we have our own file for VicHealth, because it is all sort of funding agreements that we need to follow on evaluations and things

In contrast to these examples there was an OSHC deliverer who was operating at Assessing IVB, by regularly observing sessions to assess the impact the sessions were having with the children. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

How are you assessing how the program is actually going? Observation, just watching how its successful or not successful … watching the children each week to see if they are really excited to do it or not …

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Elsewhere, other OSHC Service staff reported efforts of a lower level (LoU II) involving preparations for creating more enjoyable sessions that may attract participant numbers in the OSHSP. Interviewer:

OSHC Deliverer:

Are you analysing the requirements of the OSHSP, are you looking at what’s needed and making any assessments on what is actually needed to run the program? Yes I have just started planning some stuff out for the OSHSP and also for the sports involved so it can be more fun and enjoyable for the other kids to join in …

In the case of this OSHC deliverer, his comments suggested that his experience as a sport deliverer meant that there was no need to assess the requirements of the OSHSP. Interviewer:

OSHC Deliverer:

We are looking at to what degree do you assess the program, not assessing how it is going, but actually assessing what needs to be done to be able to deliver the program? Have you to some degree examined the program. No, I am a sports deliverer in another place anyway, so I am well aware of the structure and getting the skills from A to B and changing them to adapt the varying ages, so I don’t have a problem

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with that at all. Table 7 shows that the comments of the SSA Deliver placed them at a similar LoU for this category, i.e. Assessment 0. This LoU is defined as no action to analyse the innovation, its characteristics, possible use, or consequences of use (Loucks et.al.,. 1998). The following comment from an SSA Deliverer would suggest that there had been little attempt made on their behalf to examine the requirements of the OSHSP since experience had taught them that being too conscious of a model was not a good strategy. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

What efforts have you made to examine the requirements of the Out of School Hours Sports Program? It is difficult to plan and it is difficult to perhaps shape the model or be too conscious of what it is exactly that is required because things tend to be different when you get out there.

In the case of this SSA Deliverer, there appears to be a preference to deliver their own program in preference to assessing and collecting information about what needs to change to deliver the program in a specific context. Interviewer:

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SSA Deliverer:

Did you have a look at the model in terms of what was required to deliver it and make any decisions about the best way to go about doing it? Not really in that I knew that I was involved in it for term, so we delivered our own program pretty much in that something that I knew that my own staff member was confident in and happy with

Planning The concept of planning involves deliverers setting time aside to design short and longterm plans for implementing the OSHSP. These plans should include details about “resource usage, activity schedules and meetings to facilitate a coordinated approach” (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.8). The comments of the majority of OSHC Coordinators were categorised as being at LoU Planning III. This LoU within this category typically reflects a deliverer that focuses mostly on day-to-day use of the OSHSP with little reflection and tends to make changes to meet their needs rather than their participants. The OSHC Coordinator’s planning efforts mainly involved short term logistical planning. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

With your planning, do you have to do any planning towards the program? There is a bit of planning involved in terms of trying to work out appropriate days to deliver the service.

In the case of the OSHC Coordinator categorised as Planning 0, time appeared to be the key issue. Interviewer:

In your planning for the Out of School Hours Sports Program, do

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SSA Deliverer:

James O’Meara and Michael Spittle you put any time aside to do any planning for it? No, not really, because I only get not many hours to plan it all at the moment … there are other things like staff meetings etc

The OSHC Deliverers, reported much higher levels of use, mainly Planning III. This deliverer indicated a preference for not getting too far ahead of themselves with respect to OSHSP planning. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

So most of your planning would be at each session, is that correct, before the session? No other planning? No we try not to go too far ahead we just take it week by week.

In the situation where delivery responsibilities for the OSHSP was shared with a visiting SSA Deliverers, the OSHC Deliverer indicated that planning activities could take on a timeframe as short as on-the-spot modifications by the SSA Deliverer. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

Are you doing any of that planning with Paul well sometimes I ask him if he can do some other things and he says ‘yes, go for it’

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A number of the SSA Deliverers were categorised at Planning 0, which typically represents individuals that scheduled no time and specify no steps for the use of the innovation (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998). The following comment from the SSA Deliverer, who had other responsibilities in addition to the OSHSP, indicates that in some instances little or no planning had gone into planning for the OSHSP as the participant numbers did not warrant the effort. Interviewer:

SSA Deliverer:

Would you say that you are looking at your own use in the program in the terms of managerial type, trying to manage it as best you can with what resources you have got? In a situation where I feel that the Out of School Program is limited and the numbers aren’t great, it questions how much time one should dedicate to it to be frank.

Later in the same interview that SSA Deliverer also hinted that the lack of skill and knowledge of key concepts amongst the participants made planning for this group difficult. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

So have you been able to set aside time for planning delivery of the program? Did initially, and then realised that at this centre the kids are pretty limited with their sports specific and probably even their general sporting ability… in a situation of limited ability and limited knowledge about the concept of team and things like that and again allowing for the small numbers and the variance of ages, it is very difficult to plan effectively.

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One of the SSA Deliverers did report behaviours indicative of a Planning III (Mechanical Use) LoU, as they were focused on the short-term and day-to-day use of the OSHSP, particularly in terms of equipment requirements for delivery of the sport. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Did you set any time aside to plan what you were actually delivering? Yes a little bit meeting with the instructor, the first week I went out there the first … to see what equipment they had and what was required for planning So would you say the planning was more short term rather than looking at what they could do in the future? Definitely just what we were doing each weeks

Status Reporting Status reporting relates to the deliverers ‘personal stance’ (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998 p.9) on delivering the OSHSP. All of OSHC Coordinators were categorised as LoU Status Reporting III. Deliverer comments linked to this level usually are associated with a level of comfort about the innovation. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

How would you describe your personal involvement in the program, like how comfortable do you feel with the program? Oh, very comfortable, yes I love it. I really enjoy doing anyway… My involvement basically has made me see that you can structure it a little more for it to be more productive.

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The comments from the OSHC Coordinators usually represented a focus on logistical issues. Interviewer:

How would you describe your personal involvement in the Out of School Hours Sports Program? How do you feel personally about it, comfortable?

OSHC Coordinator:

I am very happy with it, mainly because it adds another focus to the After School Care Program, its increased enrolments on a Wednesday night. Are you considering modifying it or changing your involvement in the program? No I think for us it is working well the way we are doing it now. I don’t know next year we might not have the same staff and the dynamics might change and we might have to look at it then.

Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Among the OSHC Deliverers the LoU has varied from Status Reporting IVB to Status Reporting III. Routine-use typically describes a deliverer who indicates that implementation is going smoothly and makes few, if any changes to the ongoing use of the OSHSP. In both cases, the deliverer reporting routine use was involved in a delivery model where another person was responsible for delivering the weekly sessions. The OSHC Deliverer with the

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highest LoU reported changes that appear to indicate a concern for the outcomes of the participants. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator: Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

How would you describe your personal involvement in the program, do you feel comfortable with it? Yes I feel quite comfortable, I think the guy who is taking it is very skilful and he is very considerate of the children’s needs and stuff like, I think its fine. Do you think the program is working well, are you happy with how it is going at the moment? Yes, definitely, I think the guy who has been taking it has embedded a lot of fun in the activities, which is really important and that’s way the kids like it and they have a good time.

As with the OSHC Coordinators, most of the OSHC deliverers tended to discuss logistical issues when they were asked about the OSHSP, which is more in line with and LoU of Status Reporting III. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

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Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

How would you describe your personal involvement in the Out of School Hours Sports Program? They were management issues, basically things like not having the equipment we needed, not having the instructor we needed Do you feel comfortable with the whole program? I guess I feel comfortable as in when I know what I am talking about.

Two of the SSA Deliverers interviewed were classified as being at Status Reporting 0 (non-use). In order to be classified above this level the deliverers would need to be familiarising themselves with the OSHSP in terms of “what it is and what it is not” (Loucks, Newlove & Hall, 1998, p.9). The comments highlighted by the personal stance of this SSA Deliverer suggested that their overall opinion of the OSHSP was that the program represented nothing new. Interviewer:

SSA Deliverer:

Well people deal with this model in different ways, so it is just interesting to see which works and why. How would you describe your personal involvement in the program, how comfortable you feel with it? Well I have 5 years experience in this role, so there is nothing really new. At the end of the day the kids are getting a positive experience. What the model is, is it better? And what the objectives are may vary, but still the fundamentals are relatively the same.

The other SSA Deliverer indicated that the OSHSP was simply like another clinic, which he was very comfortable delivering. Interviewer:

How would you comment on your own personal involvement in the Out of School Hours Program, do you feel comfortable with your

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position in it. Because my role with the SSA is as a Field Officer, to me its like going and doing another clinic, you are just seeing the same kids once a week. So yes, I am very comfortable with it.

The remaining SSA Deliverer achieved a higher classification of Status Reporting III (Mechanical Use), mainly because they made reference to the day-to-day use of the OSHSP in terms of considering safety issues. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

How would you describe your involvement in the OSHSP, do you feel comfortable with your involvement with it? Yes, I am quite happy about my involvement. I am very much aware of safety issues in regards to the children participating, so whatever the activities are that we know that it is within the guidelines of safety and so forth….I am very aware of safety guidelines, and that would be our primary main concern that it is safe for the children?

Performing The final classification of performing describes the actions or activities the deliverer is currently doing to “operationailse” the implementation of the OSHSP in the OSHC (Loucks et.al., 1998). The deliverers mostly ranged from a LoU of Perfoming 0 (Non-use) to an LoU of Performing III (Mechanical use). The following comment from an OSHC Coordinator highlights the week by week, or short-term planning strategy used for their OSHSP, which is a typical action of Perfoming III.

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Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Any additional actions you have taken throughout the term to lift the profile of the Out of School Hours Program? [the time table from the State OSHSP coordinator lets] you know what you have to do when you have to do it, Just being able to communicate with the person whose is taking the program, so the delivery is organised for that week each week.

The comments of the OSHC deliverers suggest that they also have been operating to a level of Performing III (Mechanical use) through regular but sometimes disjointed planning efforts. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

Have you taken any additional action throughout the term to lift the profile of the Out of School Hours Sport Program? We have done that [played a sport] a few weeks, not as sort of set thing, but we have done sport and various other activities.

In the case of this deliverer, he was classified at Performing III as it appeared from his comments that he had made weekly efforts to smooth out his delivery of the OSHSP. Interviewer:

You said before you have made some changes to the actual program

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OSHC Deliverer:

James O’Meara and Michael Spittle you have been given, do you envisage making any more changes to the program? Well like I said we go week by week so its like we have a read over what they have got for us, their games, and we have a look and think maybe we can change it, so it is more a week by week decision that we make.

The highest rated OSHC deliverer (IVB Refinement) appeared to be using a combination of strategies including working with the parents and children to raise the profile of the OSHSP in order to increase the impact of the program on the children.. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

Any additional actions you have taken throughout the term to lift the profile of the OSHSP? I talk about it with the kids … like every afternoon when we have afternoon tea, we then sit down and talk about what we are going to do that day and also throughout the week, sort of let them know. I bring it up every day, and say ‘remember this is the day we are going to do’… If we talk about doing the sport clinic on a Thursday, those friends then go home and tell their parents and then those parents contact me to book their children in.

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In stark contrast the comments of two of the SSA Deliverer suggested a LoU of Perfoming 0 (Non-use) as their comments indicated that there had been little effort on their behalf to raise the profile of the OSHSP at the OSHC Service or in the community. This first example highlights a barrier to the operationalisation of the OSHSP in that there were limited local resources, particularly in terms of linking local clubs with the OSHC Service. Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

Any additional actions you have taken throughout the term to lift the profile of the Out of School Hours Program? Apart from endeavouring to get the club involved, probably not, this area is awkward in that there is not a lot of clubs there relative to the centre.

In the second example of Perfoming 0 (Non-use), it appears that the SSA Deliverer was happy to continue using the same material and activities that were used to deliver skills clinics in the 1980’s. Interviewer:

SSA Deliverer:

Have you recently made any changes to how your sporting association is implementing the Out of School Hours Program, or are you considering any changes? No, with our delivery of the program, we do it as well as any other sport and most of the major sports have actually modelled their junior programs on how we deliver it… we are the forerunner with our junior sports program back in the 80’s and our model that we deliver into the OSHSP is based on that.

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Overall Level of Use After reviewing the transcripts of the participants it is possible to assign an overall LoU to each of the groups within the OSHC Community. OSHC Service staff including both Coordinators and Deliverers had moved beyond establishing a time to begin (Decision Point B) and were mainly making changes to meet their needs during delivery. In the case of this OSHC Coordinator, changes in the delivery approach occurred after the SSA Deliverer stopped attending the OSHC Service. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

What kinds of changes have you made in the delivery of that model? I assisted and have picked up from what they were doing and then that fellow was gone and I basically just ran it based on that … I have modified some of the rules and some of the games as such

Similarly, this OSHC Service Deliverer, once shown what to do was comfortable organising the day-to- day delivery of the OSHSP Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

So you were involved in the planning of the session or the program. after the first week when we knew where the equipment was kept, where we were doing the activities, how long would it run for, so to that sort of degree I was involved,

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Loucks, Newlove and Hall, (1998) suggest that deliverers with an overall LoU of Mechanical use are mainly focussing on short term efforts that often lead to disjointed or superficial use. In relation to the SSA Deliverers, there appeared to be two distinct levels Of Overall Use. Two of them appeared to be operating at a Routine level (IVA), involving a set pattern of established use of the sports programs. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Are you considering making any more modifications to the program you are delivering? Not unless something else arises, we are quite happy with the way it runs. All the feedback has been very good, so if it is not broken we will not change it.

In the case of this elite coach, there were suggestions that his knowledge of the overall picture of the program enabled him to enhance the impact for the participating children (Routine Level IVB). Interviewer:

OSHC Coordinator:

So would you say your planning is fairly short-term, like from week to week, seeing how something works and then following on from there or have you got an overall picture of where you want to do with it? I have an overall picture of where I want to go with it and that comes from the program that we put together. Obviously, I am a high level coaching, coaching elite juniors and State teams and things like that

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle in the past, so I guess if you find the kids are really struggling with them, then I will do it again with them. Even if though I have the program there ultimately if I don’t get to the very end as per the program I would rather they have completed skills so that they understand it and they have got a better feel for it and rather than leave them half-baked.

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The identification of an Overall LoU highlighted an interesting anomaly between the results and the actions reported by the deliverers in the categories of use. The SSA Deliverers scored a higher rating on the overall LoU when delivering their existing sporting programs. Alternatively, the OSHC Coordinators and OSHC Deliverers appeared to be working at an equal or higher LoU in all seven categories of use even though they had a slightly lower Overall LoU.

Discussion The aim of this second case study was to document the LoU of the different groups to explore if different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP. Results across the various categories of LoU highlight some similarities and differences across the groups. While there were similarities in reported LoU’s in the categories of knowledge, acquiring information, status and performing, OSHC Coordinators and Deliverers reported different LoU’s in the categories of sharing, assessing and planning. The results suggested that only in the category of sharing did OSHC deliverers and SSA Deliverers report a similar LoU. In all other categories, there the differences in the LoU ratings suggesting that the activities of the SSA Deliverers were different to both the OSHC Coordinators and Deliverers. From these combined results it would appear that while some similarities were reported by two of the groups in a few categories, there were no examples where all three groups participated to the same level in the same category. As the LoU ratings were linked to the reported behaviours of the deliverers, this finding would support the position that different deliverers participated in different type of activities while implementing the OSHSP. The Overall LoU indicated similar levels of activity occurring between the OSHC Coordinators and OSHC Deliverers, while the SSA Deliverers were operating at a higher level. Returning briefly to the results of the first case study, the trend of differences among the groups with respect to values orientations appears to have continued with the reported differences in the level of participation across the categories of LoU and Overall LoU. Differences in LoU values creates the potential for some community members not to experience the different aspects of community development that is expected (Friere, 1989) to result from active participation in a community based intiatives as a result of low levels of participation in OSHSP implementation activities. In the final case study, data from a semistructured interview structured around the LoU framework is presented to investigate if differences in participation influenced processes such as: community development; community participation; and the empowerement of individuals and communities.

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Study 3: The OSHSP as an Example of Community Development This final case study was an extension of study 2 to understand community development, community participation, and empowerment activities within the OSHSP. The community development section examines whether or not, the implementation of state –wide OSHSP resulted in locally shaped practices. The community participation section highlights deliverer comments that indicate strengthened social networks between the different groups associated with delivering the OSHSP. The empowerment section describes examples of the different community members exerting some influence on the delivery of the OSHSP as well as, illustrates how the OSHSP has mobilized community members in response to concerns of the physical activity levels of children attending the OSHSP.

Participants The participants from study 2 were invited to answer additional questions, in addition to the LoU semi-structured interviews. A total of 7 OSHC Service staff and 3 SSA Deliverers participated in a semi-structured interview around community development, community participation and empowerment.

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Procedure The interview format adopted a similar structured to the LoU interviews. During the interview an additional sheet containing working definitions of the three concepts (Community Development, Community Participation and Empowerment) was used to was used to guide the amount of probing questions that were asked of the deliverer. Data Analysis The coding sheet used during the semi-structured interview was used to code and analyse the transcripts in relation to the concepts of Community Development, Community Participation and Empowerment. The analysis of this data involved selecting relevant comments from the transcripts of the interview participants. In this instance, ‘relevance’ was determined by the match between the participant comment and the types of behaviours suggested in the working definitions of the three concepts. Individual relevant comments were coded using the same set of definitions. Results Community Development The state-wide OSHSP initiative used a standard implementation approach involving four Service Delivery Models and existing SSA and/or National Sporting Organisations (NSO) junior development programs. As suggested (Midgey, 1995) there were examples of this approach being counter-productive to the goal of developing a community development that reflects a culture that is owned and shaped by the participants themselves. The comments of this OSHC Coordinator suggest that she was quite happy using the material provided by the State OSHSP Coordinator Interviewer:

You said before you have been reading all the information that you

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OSHC Coordinator:

James O’Meara and Michael Spittle have got from VicHealth, does that help you to decide how to go about delivering each model? You have delivered a couple of different models here, is that enough information or have you had to go out and get more information? No, I think the manual that has been distributed from the Sporting Association has been enough as this is the first time we have actually done it [Deliver a sport at our OSHC Service] on our own..

In the case of this OSCH Deliverer, using a service delivery model that involved input from the SSA Deliverer, it appears that there was limited opportunity for them to shape the program at the local level. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

So your planning with the program, how much does that involve? Quite limited in the fact that the guy from the sporting association dictates what he wants me to do next session.

There was even a suggestion from this SSA Deliverer, that rather than shape his program to fit the OSHSP, he was stuck in delivery approach that reflected what he had been taught to do

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Interviewer: SSA Deliverers

So did you base it [the OSHSP] on the existing junior sports program I have done mainly just very basic skill development and then moving into extended drills … drawing on my own background I get stuck in that mentality of what I have been taught to do

These comments suggest that the potential existed for the OSHSP to be a generic sports program rolled out across OSHC Services across the State. Despite its reliance on the technical knowledge within the manuals and examples of experts from the SSA dictating the content of the sessions there were examples of community members sharing the responsibility of delivery with the experts. While not all OSHC Coordinators took an active role in delivering sports, this Coordinator appeared quite comfortable with selecting material from the manuals and running the OSHSP sessions on his own. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

And the models themselves, the different models how do you go about assessing what is needed with different models? Before now I worked [with the SSA Deliverers] as crowd control and assisting with it as well so that I could carry it on afterwards. Now I am running it on my own, …I was basically given a bag and the manuals. [Because of my experience] I can continue to deliver it [the OSHSP] at a different level on my own.

In the case of this OSHC Deliverer, although the technical knowledge of the sport and the associated risks with delivering that sport was initially a concern for them, they still managed to assume responsibility for delivering the program after a few sessions. Interviewer:

And the models themselves, the different models how do you go about

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assessing what is needed with different models? I was quite uncomfortable the first day with the program as in knowing there can be problems with safety and things like that, but once I saw what they were doing I was comfortable.

SSA Deliverers also reported deviating from the existing junior development program when confronted with delivery scenarios that were outside the scope of the manual’s activities. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

It sounds like it was a very interesting experience delivering [the OSHSP Sessions]? there was Prepies right through to Grade 6 and there is always activities that you can do for all of those age groups and within the activities you can modify them to suit all levels. I didn’t have to set up a whole lot of stations; I could just set up those activities and modify them for a different age group.

Community Participation Throughout the transcripts there were examples of community participation that contribute to the building of both bridging capital. This OSHC Coordinator was a regular attendee of meetings at VicHealth, which appears to be her main opportunity to gain experiences from other members of the OSHSP community. Interviewer:

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OSHC Coordinator:

You’re sharing your experiences with other people, are you gaining any experiences from anybody else? Only when I go to the meetings, they are only twice a year at VicHealth, and there is one next week. We sit around the table there to share different experiences and we have found out which are the popular sports and the ones not so popular.

From her comments, the opportunity to network with other OSHC Coordinators and SSA Deliverers has had a positive influence on both her and the staff back the OSHC Service. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

That information that you have gained there, has that changed your approach to the program at all? I think what it has done has made me stress to the staff the importance of it and that they need to put a lot of effort into it to make it worthwhile for the children.

There was evidence of the OSHSP facilitating links between local clubs and OSHC Services, although the comments from this Coordinator would suggest that these links were not sustained beyond the school term that the sport was delivered. Interviewer:

Have you developed any new links, contacts or links involving the Outs of School Sports Program with regard to either Out of School

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OSHC Coordinator:

James O’Meara and Michael Spittle Care or Sport Clubs? Well we did for awhile, we linked up with the local club, but we found that once the term was finished we didn’t hear any more about them and we had asked them for more brochures but they didn’t come.

This failure to establish links with local clubs was not an isolated incident; this OSHC Coordinator reported that they were never contacted by local clubs even though this was a planned outcome of the OSHSP. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

Anything else you would like to add, any other information? I know we are meant to have people ring from the local Sporting Club and try and make those links, but on each occasion it hasn’t really happened. This sort of defeats the purpose a little bit because we are trying to get these children involved in sporting programs.

The comments made by two different SSA Deliverers indicates a common theme of the limited amount of bridging capital that was developed by the SSA Deliverers with the local clubs OSHC Service staff. In the case of this representative, it appears that the bridges between the SSA and the local clubs had already been established before the OSHSP commenced. Interviewer:

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SSA Deliverer:

Since you have been involved have you developed any new links, it could be other Out of School Sports Programs or other clubs? As a major SSA, we have got links with all the clubs anyway, particularly in the game development area we are involved with every club within the State … we are a community department … so gaining extra links ‘no’ we certainly haven’t.

Another representative provided similar comments about the limited bridging that had been developed between SSA and the OSHC Service Interviewer: SSA Deliverer:

You haven’t made any other contacts with any other Centres, have you had much contact with the OSHC Coordinator here. Not really, just sort of general … she’s very good, she comes and helps out with the program.

This OSHC Service Deliverer indicated that part of the issue surrounding the lack of bridging occurring between OSHC Services may be the competition that exists between them. In this instance knowledge is restricted within the OSHC Service and this represents a good example of bonding capital and the potential negative effects it can have on community development when OSHC Service develops strong ties with it staff and avoids mixinb with other OSHC Services. Interviewer:

Is there a possibility to run a program like this where one takes their kids up to the other centre?

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Well traditionally there is always competition between centres, it is vary rare that centres do much together.

In contrast to the examples above, this SSA Deliverer appears to have used their participation in the OSHP to develop the sorts of networks Putnam (2000) refers to as bridging capital. In addition to discussing working relationships, this SSA Deliverer speaks of how his networking with the OSHC Service has lead to the positive outcome of the invitation to establish of a new sports program in the OSHC Service. Interviewer:

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SSA Deliverer:

Have you developed any new contacts or links with your involvement with the After School Hours Sports Program? Yes the links have probably been in a more of a working link with some of the other sports that has been involved through this program … obviously meetings with other development people in State sport bodies have been good … I think opening up and being involved with VicHealth has been good, it has opened up areas there. More importantly, having the opportunities to speak to Out of School Hours people has been fantastic as well and obviously they have lead on to the starting up one of our sports programs in those Out of School Hours programs as being something different they can involve with.

Gray and Crofts, (2008) spoke of the need for change through community participation in shared decision-making that involves all key members of that community. While the process may not have been as detailed as the one described by (Schwartz, 1981), there were examples of collaborative planning occurring at the OSHC Service. At this OSHC Service the Coordinator reported that her staff had received coaching from SSA Deliverers to help them with planning the delivery of the OSHSP. Interviewer:

OSHC Coordinator:

You said before you have been reading all the information that you have got from VicHealth, does that help you to decide how to go about delivering each model? Until now we have local State representatives, so the staff are coping quite well with the information they have got. This terms people from the State Sporting Association came out and gave our staff a little bit of a coaching session for a couple of hours, so that was really good for our planning.

This OSHC Service Deliverer also indicated the positive benefits associated with working with a SSA Deliverer, especially in terms of maintaining the interest of the children. Interviewer:

OSHC Deliverer:

Have you looked at the model at that you have just been working with in terms of what is required for the delivery, what you personally needed to deliver it? What I did was I helped … the girl [from the SSA] that they had coming up each week, she was brilliant, the kids loved her, she did

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle something new each time, she kept their interest and it was very enjoyable … she threw music in, the whole works, and basically she was running the program … sometimes just a matter of having the children standing on one leg …

While this SSA Deliverer, did not specifically speak of collaboration in planning, his comments indicate that there had been a change in the level of participation among the community members from the OSHC Service. Interviewer:

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SSA Deliverer:

Looking at the program, what would you say is the strength of that program? the OSHSP staff have been fantastic, “Joady’ has been the outstanding one with her staff. At least ‘John’ knows that if he’s got Preps and Grade 1’s and 2’s and 3’s and 4’s, 5’s and 6’s, they can put them into three groups and he can confidently say [to the OSHSP staff] ‘you go and to this and you go and do this and you go and do this’ and just oversee the program and the OSHP staff run it. A few weeks ago he said the staff do nothing they just sit and read a book and I said ‘well the OSHSP staff are totally different now’, they jump in and give you a hand.

Empowerment The active participation of some members involved in the OSHSP was witnessed in comments that can be linked to concepts of the empowerment of local community members. Community members at all levels were reported to have some influence over the delivery of the OSHSP. This OSHC Coordinator has reported that he feels his delivery of the OSHSP is improving as a result of both his actions and the influence of the SSA Deliverers and the junior sports development manuals. Interviewer: OSHC Coordinator:

So would you say that your varying the use of the OSHSP, is that you are trying different ideas? I am getting something every time these guys come in or just me running it in general … I read a manual for ½ hour or whatever and say ‘OK ….’ So I feel like I am just getting better at it by the very involvement and the fact that I am going to be around doing this for awhile, so I am doing it better.

On an individual level of empowerment, the comments of this OSHC Service Deliverer indicated that her participation in the OSHSP has given her the skills and confidence to initiate sports sessions with the children when they are at a loss for things to do. Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

How do you feel about your involvement, how would you describe your involvement with the OSHSP? Yes good … it is teaching me some new skills and getting to know the children more … its fun, when somebody is not doing anything or

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they don’t want to play, sometimes I just get a football and play with them and give them free play with them and make them feel that it is fun. Elsewhere, another OSHC Deliverer reported personally being responsible for organising a celebration at the end of the Term. Included in her actions was the delegation of the certificate writing to the SSA Deliverer, even though he was not directly involved in delivering the OSHP that term. Interviewer:

OSHC Deliverer:

How would you describe your personal involvement in the Out of School Hours Sports Program, do you feel comfortable that you know where you are at with it? Next week we will play games and have a BBQ and do it that way. He [the SSA Deliverer] is organising certificates and I have given him a list [of the names of the children who have participated this Term].

In the case of this OSHC deliverer, she chose to initiate a sports session prior to the commencement of the new term, so the children could do activities related to the new sport. Interviewer:

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OSHC Deliverer:

Are there any additional actions you have taken throughout the term to lift the profile of the OSHSP? For example I set up some games just before the new sport program and tried to do related things that maybe the children didn’t know were a skill linked to that sport, but they were.

This same deliverer went onto report that she had also initiated sports sessions on nights when the OSHSP was not delivered: Interviewer: OSHC Deliverer:

Have you organised sport on other nights on other nights We did it [run sports sessions at the OSHSP] on other nights as well. There were a couple of boys that were interested in the idea of having a game coming into that season, so I organised as many as I could to come

Discussion The aim of this third case study was to examine community development, community participation and empowerment activities during the implementation of the OSHSP. Firstly, community development activities were explored to understand whether the implementation of state –wide OSHSP resulted in locally shaped practices. The reports of community development activities included examples of all three types of community members delivering the OSHSP using a standard one-size-fits all implementation approach across the State. There were also examples of locally shaped practices including OSHC Coordinators selecting material and running sessions, OSHC Deliverers sharing the responsibility of delivery with the experts and SSA Deliverers deviating from the program. These three

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James O’Meara and Michael Spittle

examples provide support for a conclusion that there were examples of local adaptation occurring within this state-wide initiative. Secondly, the investigation of community participation activities sought to determine whether social networks between different groups associated with delivering the OSHSP were strengthened. The comments provided by all three groups of deliverers provide examples of strengthened social networks within the OSHSP community. The most stable bridge was the one established through the regular VicHealth meetings. Less stable bridges were developed between the OSHC and the SSA’s, while few if any appeared to have been established between OSHC Services. Despite the limited stability of the bridge between the OSHC and SSA there were reports of both parties benefiting from time spent collaborating. While such benefits were reported, the comments suggest that in most cases the bridges formed were at best temporary, and therefore did not support the position that community participation strengthened social networks between the different groups associated with delivering the OSHSP. Finally, the investigation of empowerment activities sought to identify whether community members were mobilised in response to concerns of the physical activity levels of children attending the OSHSP. The OSCH Coordinators and SSA Deliverers agreed that mobilising members from different sections on the OSHSP community has lead to improved delivery and participant management practices. On an individual level the OSHC Deliverers have suggested increased confidence and skills linked to their participation in the OSHSP has lead to self initiated sports sessions being delivered prior to and during the term of a sport being delivered at the OSHC Service. Evidence of this kind, on both an individual and community level would suggest that empowerment had occurred at some OSHC Services during the delivery of the OSHSP.

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SUMMARY DISCUSSION In the previous sections three studies have been presented as a means of investigating whether there were differences in the implementation practices of the different community members and understanding their influence on processes such as: community development; community participation; and the empowerment of individuals and communities. From the results it appears there was evidence of practices associated with community development, individual empowerment and community development. In contrast the evidence provided about community participation did not suggest a sustained increase in stocks of bridging capital. Therefore it appears that the different practices of the OSHSP community members may have contributed to expected Freirian (1989) outcomes such as community development and empowerment while at the same time failing to have a sustained influence on the social networks expected from this type of community development.

CONCLUSION Throughout this chapter, three studies about the implementation of the OSHSP were presented to develop a position whether Gray and Crofts (2008) have comments of Freireian

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rhetoric applied to the community development initiative known as the OSHSP. The first case study of the VOI provided evidence that the OSHSP represented a diverse group with differing strengths of values. The second case study of the LoU provided support for the idea of different activities that occurred between different groups of deliverers involved with the OSHSP. The final study of a semi structured interview found that the different practices of the OSHSP deliverers may have contributed to expected Freirian (1989) outcomes such as community development and empowerment while at the same time failing to have a sustained influence on the social networks expected from this type of community development. If we can accept that the OSHSP community did represent a diverse group of deliverers with respect to their values, and that this community did provide examples of community development and empowerment when describing their delivery behaviours across the various categories of LoU, then it is possible to suggest that examples of community development in line with the ideals of Friere did occur during the implementation of the OSHSP. The area where the argument fails, is linked to the concept of active participation, in particular bridging capital. Viewing this failure, in conjunction with the successes of the OSHSP in the areas of community development and empowerment, we feel that describing the examples of the deliverers’ actions presented in this paper as rhetoric would not be entirely accurate. The identification of limitations of within an argument would not be balanced without a discussion of the limitations of the studies that were used to support comments concerning limitations. Firstly, variations in the level of program implementation across the various OSHC Services suggest that designers need to purposefully promote the need for active participation in community development activities across all levels of stakeholders from local OSHC deliverers through to the State Coordinator before the program is introduced. Program designers may need to consider strategies that aim to enrich the bridging social capital (between groups) between the various groups of community members and avoid an imbalance of bonding social capital (within groups). Unless this issue is addressed, the sharing of a common purpose may not be sufficient to facilitate the desired levels of interaction and participation between community members who reflect a diverse range of experiences, skills and values. Finally, our examination of the OSHSP failed to address the issue of sustainability. As with many funded evaluations, longitudinal studies are rare and the time frame represented is often quite short. While the authors understand the funding implications involved, the danger of a premature evaluation, contributing to the termination of a insufficiently implemented initiative may result in the loss of a local initiative that was implied to not have been given enough time to evolve. In concluding this chapter we would suggest that with any innovation that is handed over to local deliverers there is the potential for the ideals of theorist to be realised or ignored, that is a risk associated with local ownership. Local ownership has the potential to result in both positive and negative influences of community development. Empowering community members may not always result in the promotion of all of Freire’s ideals ideas, however, the resulting community developments and actions will more often reflect local community values and decisions rather than the intentions of the designers. Isn’t that an outcome Friere would support ?

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REFERENCES Australian Sports Commission. (2008). Australian Sports Commission - Junior Sport Initiatives ; Out of School Hours Sports Program Retrieved May, 25, 2008, from http://catalogue.ausport.gov.au/junior/oshsp.asp Barry, M. (2007). Researching the implementation of community mental health promotion programs. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 18(3), pp. 241 - 246. Beckhard, R. (1975). Organization development in large systems. In D. Benne, L. P. Bradford, J. R. Gibb & R. O. Lippitt (Eds.), The laboratory method of changing and learning: Theory and application (pp. pp.422 - 444). Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behaviour. Bellah, K. A., & Dyer, J. E. (2007, May 16 - 18). Elementary teachers’ attitudes and stages of concern about an agricultural literacy curriculum. Paper presented at the American Association for Agricultural Education, Minneapolis. Butler, G. (2005, July 11-13). Sustainable communities: the important role of local government in building social capital. Paper presented at the 2nd Future of Australia’s Country Towns Conference, Bendigo. Buysse, V., & Wesley, P. (1999). Community development approaches for early intervention. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 19(4), 236 - 243. Callahan, D. (2001). Promoting healthy behavior: How much freedom? Whose responsibility? Ethics, 112(1), 191 - 191. Cheung, D., & Wong, H. W. (2002). Measuring teacher beliefs about alternative curriculum designs. The Curriculum Journal, 13(2), 225 - 248. Claxton, G. (1999). Wise Up: The challenge of lifelong learning. Stroke on Trent: Network Press. Couch, J. (2007). Mind the gap: Considering the participation of refugee young people. Youth Studies Australia, 26(4), 37 - 44. Curtner-Smith, M. D., & Meek, G. A. (2000). Teachers value orientations and their compatibility with the national curriculum for physical education. European Physical Education Review, 6(1), 27 - 45 Daly, H. E., & Cobb, J. B. (1994). For the common good. Redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and a sustainable future (Updated and expanded ed.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Drier, P. (1996). Community empowerment strategies: The limits and potential of community organizing in urban neighborhoods. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 2(2), 121 - 159. Ennis, C. (1992). The influence of value orientations in curriculum decision making. Quest, 44(3), 317 - 329. Ennis, C., & Chen, A. (1993). Domain specifications and content representativeness of the revised value orientation inventory. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 64(4), 436 - 446. Ennis, C., Mueller, L. K., & Hopper, L. M. (1990). The influence of teacher value orientations on curriculum planning within the parameters of a theoretical framework. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 61(4), 360 - 368.

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Ennis, C. D., & Chen, A. (1995). Teachers Value Orientations in Urban and Rural School Settings. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 66, 41-50. Everson, J. M., & Moon, M. S. (1990). Developing community program planning and service delivery teams. In E.R. Rusch (Ed.), Supported employment: Models, methods, and issues (381 - 394). Sycamore, IL: Sycamore. Fawcett, S. B., Paine-Andrews, A., Francisco, V. T., Schultz, J. A., Richter, K. P., Lewis, R. K., et al. (1995). Using empowerment theory in collaborative partnerships for community health and development. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, pp. 677 - 697. Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gray, B. (1989). Collaborating: Finding common ground for multiparty problems. London: Jossey-Bass. Harden, C. M. (1995). Community partnerships: Principles for success. AHA News, 31(13), 6. Hardy, B., Turrell, A., & Wistow, G. (1992). Innovations in community care management. Aldershot: Avery. Hart, R. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship (No. 4). Florence: UNICEF. Hord, S. M., Rutherford, L., Huling-Austin, L., & Hall, G. E. (1987). Taking Charge of Change. Alexandria , VA: ASCD. Hudson, B., Hardy, B., Menwood, M., & Wistow, G. (1999). In pursuit of inter-agency collaboration in the public sector: What is the contribution of theory and research. Public Management, 1, 235 - 260. Ife, J. (2002). Community development: Community-based alternatives in an age of globalisation (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Longman. Jewett, A. E., Bain, L. L., & Ennis, C. (1995). The curriculum process in physical education. Milwalkee, WI: Brown & Benchmark. Johnson, P., Wistow, G., Schulz, R., & Hardy, B. (2003). Interagency and interprofessional collaboration in community care: The interdependence of structures and values. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 17(1), 69 - 83. Liu, H. Y., & Silverman, S. (2006). The value profile of physical education teachers in Taiwan, ROC Sport , Edcuation and Society, 11(2), 173 - 191. Loucks, S., & Melle, M. (1980). Implmentation of a district-wide science curriculum: The effects of a three year effort. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston. Loucks, S., Newlove, B. W., & Hall, G. (1998). Measuring Levels of Use of the innovation: A manual for trainers , interviewers and raters (2nd ed.). Austin, Texas: Research and Development Centre for teacher Education. Loucks, S. F., Newlove, B. W., & Hall, G. E. (1998). Measuring Levels of Use of the innovation: A manual for trainers, interviewers, and raters. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Magarey, A. M., Daniels, L. A., & Boulton, T. J. (2001). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australian children and adolescents: reassessment of 1985 and 1995 data against new standard international definitions. Medical Journal of Australia, 4(11), 561 564.

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McKinnon, D. H., & Nolan, P. C. (1989). Using computers in education: A concerns based approach to professional development for teachers. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 5(2), 113 - 131. Midgley, J. (1995). Social development: The developmental perspective in social welfare. London: Sage. Minkler, M. (Ed.). (1997). Community organizing and community building for health. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Mustafa, E., & Mishe, A. (1998). What is agency? Amercian Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962 - 1023. Newhouse, C. P. (2001). Applying the concerns-based adoption model to research on computers in classrooms. Journal of Research on Technology in Education Retrieved May 25, 2008, from 9, 2005, from http://www.iste.org/inhouse/publications/jrte/33/ 5/newhouse.cfm?Section=JRTE_33_5 Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Rappaport, J., Swift, C., & Hess, R. (Eds.). (1984). Studies in empowerment. Steps toward understanding and action. New York: Haworth Press. Rissel, C. (1994). Empowerment: The holy grail of health promotion? Health Promotion International, 9(1), 39 - 47. Schwartz, N. B. (1981). Anthropological views of community and community development. Human Organization, 40, 313 - 322. Skelton, R. (1994). Nursing and empowerment: Concepts and strategies. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 19, 415 - 423. Solomon, M. A., & Ashy, M. H. (1995). Value orientations of preservice teachers. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 66(3), 219 - 230. Swan, P. A., & O'Meara, J. (2006). HPE as risky practice: Litigation concerns. In R. Tinning, L. Hunter & L. McCuiag. (Eds.), Health & Physical Education in Australian Primary Schools. Sydney: Pearson Education. Wallerstein. (1992). Powerlessness, empowerment and health: Implications for health promotion programs. American Journal of Health Promotion, 6(3), 197 - 205. World Health Organisation. (1997). Jakarta Declaration on Health Promotion into the 21st century. Jakarta. World Health Organisation. (2002). Environmental health in emergencies and disasters. Retrieved May 25, 2008, from http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/ emergencies/em2002chap15.pdf

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Chapter 2

SYNTHESISING DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: LESSONS FROM THE STANAGE FORUM Stephen Elstub University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland

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ABSTRACT Environmental theorists are increasingly placing their confidence in deliberative democracy to achieve environmental sustainability. However, there are two key issues that must be addressed, and to which this chapter aims to contribute, if the synthesis between environmental sustainability and deliberative democracy is to be accepted and achieved. In terms of acceptance this connection must be empirically tested in deliberative decision-making. With relation to achievement, deliberative democracy must be approximated in practice, which involves linking citizen deliberation with decisionmaking. The Chapter focuses on a case study, the Stanage Forum, to illuminate both of these issues. It is suggested that this forum, from the Peak District in the United Kingdom, is an approximation of deliberative democracy and demonstrates the trade-offs that need to be made between the theory and practice of deliberative democracy, at each stage of the decision-making process. As environmental issues are central to the conflicts in the Stanage Forum, it is also a good test of whether environmentally sustainable decisions will be promoted through deliberative democracy in practice.

INTRODUCTION The hegemony in environmental theory, has for sometime been, that environmental sustainability is most likely to be achieved through community participation in localised decision-making and planning (Coenen et al., 1998; Plumwood, 1998, p. 569; AriasMaldonado, 2007, p. 240). More recently, with the rise to prominence of deliberative

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democracy, within democratic theory and practice, the current hegemony in environmental theory (Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 245) is the assertion that not just any form of community participation will achieve environmental goals, but participation in public debate, as this will encourage participants to offer public reasons, commensurate with public goods like environmental sustainability (Dryzek, 1990, 2000; Barry, 1999; Gundersen, 1995; Eckersley, 2000, 2004; Smith, 2001; Baber and Bartlett, 2005). However, there are two key issues that must be addressed, and to which this chapter aims to contribute, if the synthesis between environmental sustainability and deliberative democracy is to be accepted and achieved. In terms of acceptance this connection must be empirically tested in deliberative decisionmaking. With relation to achievement, deliberative democracy must be approximated in practice, which involves linking citizen deliberation with decision-making. The empirical evidence linking deliberative democracy with sustainability is inconclusive. Significantly, most of the evidence that supports the link is from instances of unpartisan deliberation that is not linked to decision making (Gundersen, 1995; Kuper, 1997; Aldred and Jacobs, 2000; Kenyon and Nevin, 2001). In contrast other evidence that disputes the link is from examples of partisan deliberation that is linked to decision-making (Zwart, 2003). Essential to the idea of deliberative democracy is that it involves public debate that leads to decisions (Bohman, 1996, p. 177; Dryzek, 2000, p. 2; Squires 2002, p. 142; Leib 2004, pp. 5-6 and 39; Elstub, 2008a) and therefore if instances of democratic deliberation do not culminate in more sustainable decisions then we must be sceptical as to whether environmental sustainability and deliberative democracy can be synthesised. In which case we must conclude, in agreement with Goodin (1992, p. 168), that there is nothing specifically environmental about democracy, deliberative or otherwise, because democracy is a set of procedures for making decisions, while environmental sustainability is a substantive issue. The empirical evidence is clearly inconclusive, and more is required, especially from instances of deliberative democracy that culminate in binding decisions. This leads to the next significant problem for the synthesis of deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability: approximating deliberative democracy in practice, especially if high levels of community participation are to be achieved and the deliberation is to culminate in binding decisions. Clearly if deliberative democracy is a counterfactual ideal that cannot be approximated in practice, it cannot be synthesised with environmental sustainability. If deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability are to be normatively linked, as they have been, then it is important to understand what challenges face the synthesis of these elements in practice and where real life exigencies require trade-offs between the practice and the ideal (Blaug, 1999). Blaug highlights the fact that deliberative democrats have paid little attention to how groups might actually deliberate and make decisions in practice (Blaug, 1999, p. 131). This is an issue that deliberative democrats are addressing as research on deliberative democracy takes an ‘empirical turn’ (Dryzek, 2008), but is still insufficient (Cohen and Rogers, 2003, p. 243; Baber and Bartlett, 2005, p.179). Empirical evidence from deliberative democracy in practice is essential for the development of deliberative democracy and its synthesis with environmental sustainability: ‘the idealising force of the deliberative model as blueprint is not especially helpful when it comes to real-world institutional design and political decision-making where time, information, knowledge and other constraints abound…’ consequently, ‘if we are to achieve feasible outcomes, then political procedures and institutions must not be formulated in the

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philosophical laboratory (where power disparities are absent), but in the real world, where power disparities, distortions in communication and other pressures are ever-present’ (Eckersley, 2000, p. 125; see also Blaug, 1999, p. 134).

Although it is essential that the theory of deliberative democracy informs the development of real life instances, as otherwise there could not be any normative critique of democracy in practice or a theory to provide inspiration for approximation (Eckersley, 2000, p. 125), in turn there is much that the theory of deliberative democracy can learn from practical examples. Consequently, this chapter will review deliberative democracy in practice to discover lessons that can be learnt about the trade-offs between theory and practice, that must be made when approximating the ideal of deliberative democracy, but will further investigate whether this instance leads to more environmentally rational preferences amongst the community participants and more sustainable decisions. The case study is the Stanage Forum, the purpose of which was to produce an effective Management Plan, through the participation of all key stakeholders, for the North Lees Estate, an area in the Peak District, a national park in the UK. It provides a suitable case study because it is an intrinsically important example, which is a legitimate methodological reason for case study selection (Yin, 1994). This is because the decision-making structure, in the Stanage Forum, approximates the norms of deliberative democracy, is based upon community participation and environmental issues are at the heart of the conflicts in the North Lees Estate. This conflict derives from a tension between recreational use, cultural, economic and environment concerns. However, the Forum aims to build consensus upon a Management Plan, through bringing together the conflicting stakeholders in dialogue. This is not to say that one case study can make amends for the lack of empirical research, only that such empirical studies are essential to a genuine understanding of deliberative democracy and its implications. Case studies are useful for both theory building and theory testing (Yin, 1994). The Stanage Forum case study should contribute to both of these functions by testing the claims that instances of deliberatively democratic decision-making, combined with community participation, can lead to greater environmentally sensitive decisions and, in terms of theory building, by contributing to understanding of the specific problems the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy faces and by providing ideas on how these might be overcome. Although such trade-offs are relative to the context, some general themes in relation to theory and practice will be articulated and this should enable the theory of deliberative democracy to be constructed and adapted in manner that is sensitive to practical exigencies and therefore make it a more robust and relevant theory to a variety of contexts. Although the processes in the Stanage Forum are not necessarily examples of the best practice available to us now, the case will shed some light upon such problems. The empirical data has been generated through a triangular combination of documentary analysis, participatory observational analysis (through participation in all of the Forums between 2000 1 and 2002 and several of the Steering group meetings), and semi- structured interviews with the Forum organiser and the Forum facilitator.

1

The Steering Group was a representative body that was seen as essential to the efficiency of the Forum. A full explanation of its role is included below.

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The chapter is structured in to four sections. The first section outlines the key norms and justifications of deliberative democracy and highlights the theoretical and empirical connections that have been made between these and environmental sustainability. Section two introduces the case study under review, the Stanage Forum. The third section then analyses the extent that the Stanage Forum is an approximation of deliberative democracy, highlighting where, and how, trade-offs have been made between theory and practice in all stages of the decision-making process. Section four then analyses the decisions that the Stanage Forum made to see if they reflect an increased environmental rationality.

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY The meaning and interpretations of deliberative democracy are expanding continuously but ‘a vague and loose core can still be identified’, around both democracy and deliberation (Elstub, 2006, p. 302). Democracy involves ‘collective decision-making through the equal participation of all relevant actors’, while deliberation is ‘the give-and-take of rational arguments’ (Elstub, 2006, p. 302; cf. Elster, 1998, p. 8). Essential to the theory of deliberative democracy is the suggestion that preferences are exogenous and can therefore adapt to, and be transformed by, the reasons provided in deliberation (Elster, 1998, p. 6). Deliberation therefore requires, ‘reflection upon preferences in non-coercive fashion’. If these reflective preferences influence collective decisions and all have had an opportunity to deliberate equally, then we have an approximation of deliberative democracy (Dryzek, 2000, p. 2; Elstub, 2006, p. 303). Several key elements of deliberative democracy can therefore be identified: the making of collective decisions involving the participation of relevant actors (the more equal this participation the more democratic) • through the consideration and exchange of reasons • aimed at the trans(formation) of preferences (Elstub, 2006, p. 303).

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• •

These elements of deliberative democracy are best embodied by the ‘ideal speech situation’, where communication is undistorted because all participants are free and equal, all views are aired in an unlimited discourse, aimed at rational consensus and the ‘unforced force of the better argument’ is decisive (Habermas, 1990, pp. 56-58; Elstub, 2008b, p. 61). It should be further noted that deliberative democracy is a decision-making mechanism (Elstub, 2008a, p. 170): ‘Unless a direct link can be established and maintained between informal deliberation and formal decision-making the decisions made cannot realistically benefit from the legitimacy generated by the deliberation alone’ (Squires, 2002, p. 142; see also Bohman, 1996, p. 177; Dryzek, 2000, p. 2; Leib, 2004, pp. 5-6 and 39). Deliberative democracy is justifiable independently of its suggested ability to lead to sustainable decisions (Arias-Maldonado, 2007), however, its prominent justifications (prudential, procedural and epistemic) relate to the various connections that have been made between deliberative

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democracy and environmental sustainability, but all require deliberative democracy to provide decisions. The prudentialist justification asserts that deliberative democracy enables citizen’s preferences to become more informed and therefore autonomous (Festenstein, 2002, p.103; Elstub, 2008b, chapter 2). By including all participants in dialogue the deliberative process increases the availability of relevant information (Manin, 1987, p. 349; Sunstein, 1984, p. 1702; Elstub, 2008b, p. 74) enabling these participants ‘to grapple with the complexity of environmental problems’ (Niemeyer, 2004, p. 348). This is especially important as environmental problems are currently not understood well by most citizens (Baber and Bartlett, 2006, p. 56). However, deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability will not be fully synthesised if these more informed participants do not get to make decisions. The proceduralist justification highlights how deliberative democracy embodies a fair set of procedures (Festenstein, 2002, p. 102-103; Warren, 2002, p.193; Elstub, 2006, pp. 304305). Due to inclusion being so central to the norms of deliberative democracy, where it is envisioned that all views should be heard, it is argued that certain views and opinions, such as environmental concerns, that are often marginalised in other decision-making methods, will gain a ‘voice’ and be ensured due consideration. This means that interests of nature and future generations are enfranchised and will at least be considered (Goodin, 1996, p. 847). As before deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability will not be fully synthesised if these procedures do not lead to decisions. The epistemic justification argues that deliberative democracy can lead to true or just decisions (Bohman, 1998, p. 403; Festenstein, 2002, p. 99; Warren, 2002, p. 192; Elstub, 2006, p. 304). Processes of deliberative democracy encourage the reasons exchanged and the resulting preferences to be ‘public’, which means they must be potentially understandable and acceptable to all citizens (Bohman, 1997, p. 26). Public reason then encourages citizens to find reasons for arrangements that will not ‘neglect the good of others’ (Cohen, 1998, p.197). It is this potential to produce public reason that has motivated green theorists (Dryzek, 1990, 2000; Crosby, 1995; Barry 1999, pp. 214-215; Gundersen, 1995; Eckersley, 2000, 2004; Smith, 2001; Ward, et al, 2003; Baber and Bartlett, 2005) to argue that democratic deliberation could lead to the promotion of the public good of greater environmental sustainability. Deliberative democracy promotes public rationality, but the deliberative environmentalists argue that this can develop into environmental rationality, defined as ‘collective, holistic, and long term thinking’ about the environment, because sustainability can be rationally established as a common good (Gundersen, 1995, p. 22) and possibly the most generalisable of all generalisable goods (Dryzek, 1990, p. 55; Zwart, 2003, p. 24; Niemeyer, 2004, p. 363).2 Deliberative democracy is thought to generate ‘public reason’ as selfish reasons will be unconvincing to others and participants in a deliberative debate will want to convince others to gain support for their proposals, so will consider public values and the interests of others to achieve this (Miller, 1993, p. 82; Benhabib, 1996, p. 72; Elster, 1997, p. 12; Elstub, 2006, p. 306). Due to this it is suggested by environmental theorists that deliberative democracy can extend beyond a consideration of the interests of other citizens to the environment, whereby deliberative participants connect their lives and roles with that of the environment, and become aware of how they are interdependent (Dryzek, 1990, 2000; Gundersen, 1995; Sagoff, 1998, p. 221; Eckersley, 2000, p. 120; Smith, 2001; Baber and 2

For a more detailed discussion of environmental rationality see Baber and Bartlett (2006), especially chapter 2.

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Bartlett, 2005). This can result in an abandonment of ‘individual subjective utilities’ (Sagoff; 1998; p. 221) and a greater focus on reasons for sustainability that do not relate to one’s own interests (Valadez, 2001). Once again deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability will not be fully synthesised if the environmental rationality, generated through deliberation, is not reflected in decisions. Gundersen (1995) has produced empirical evidence to suggest that participation in deliberative democracy does lead to more environmentally sensitive preferences. He conducted deliberative interviews with forty-six different citizens about environmental issues, most of who were not environmentally minded prior to participating in the deliberation. However, all of the citizens became more environmentally rational:

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‘Deliberation tended to improve these citizens’ understanding of the social value of the environment and simultaneously improve the fit between their environmental aims and the means they chose of realising those aims.’ He concludes therefore that ‘given the opportunity to engage in political deliberation on environmental questions, citizens do learn. Hence expanding such opportunities holds a very real promise for environmental solutions’ 3 (Gundersen, 1995, p. 5).

Other empirical evidence from citizens’ jury experiments, which are based on the norms of deliberative democracy (Coote and Lenaghan, 1997; Smith and Wales, 2000), has also suggested a greater environmental rationality will be developed amongst the participants. For example in the UK, in the citizens’ juries related to the establishment of wetland areas in the Fens (Aldred and Jacobs, 2000); waste management in Hertfordshire (Kuper, 1997); coordination of environmental activities across the South of Scotland and enhancement of air quality in Edinburgh (Kenyon and Nevin, 2001), we see that the resulting recommendations reflect ecological concerns. In a citizen jury in Queensland Australia an underlying environmentally rational consensus was released through the deliberative process as private interests were dissipated (Niemeyer, 2004). Such evidence demonstrates that citizens are capable of deliberating about complex environmental problems (Renn et al, 1995; Webler et al, 1995; Crosby, 1995; Smith, 2001, p. 83), and that their preferences can become more environmentally sensitive in light of new information, than they were at the start of the deliberative process. Nevertheless, it does not prove that citizens will be more likely to make decisions that reflect a greater environmental rationality, after engaging in deliberation. In both Gundersen’s Socratic interviews and these citizens’ juries, collective decisions were not made, as citizens’ juries have an advisory role (Crosby, 1995), and perhaps necessarily so as their legitimacy would be significantly questioned if they were given such binding powers (Parkinson, 2006). Therefore as Zwart appreciates ‘such research does not tell us how people will act in practice, when faced with a decision affecting their own material well being’ (Zwart, 2003, p. 24). The Stanage Forum did involve citizens making decisions after participating in collective deliberation. Moreover, the participants were the key stakeholders who would be directly affected by the decisions, and therefore the level of environmental rationality present in these decisions will provide important insight into the relationship between deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability. 3

Gundersen’s (1995) research methods used were ‘deliberative interviews’ between himself and the interviewee on hypothetical issues. However, I have suggested that democratic deliberation involves collective decisionmaking rather than the ‘Socratic’ interviews employed by Gundersen (Elstub, 2006, pp. 306-307).

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One of the principal reasons why citizens’ juries, and also deliberative opinion polls, have been the primary instances of deliberative democracy in practice is because such artificial forums are much easier to instigate precisely because they do not result in binding decisions. However, as already argued above, decision-making must be the result of the deliberative process if we are to approximate deliberative democracy more closely in practice. Consequently the synthesisation of deliberative democracy with sustainability is threatened by the suggestion that deliberative democracy is utopian and uninstitutionalisable in modern, large and complex societies (Baber and Bartlett, 2006, p. 12), which is a significant problem facing deliberative democracy per se (Benhabib, 1996, p. 84; Femia, 1996; Warren, 1996, p. 242; Miller, 2000, p. 143). Practical exigencies and features of complexity form significantly challenging barriers to the instutionalisation of macro deliberative democracy (Hendriks, 2006; Parkinson, 2006) across a cross a political system, an issue I have addressed elsewhere (Elstub, 2007). However, these same barriers are present when approximating deliberative democracy on the micro level (Hendriks, 2006; Parkinson, 2006) in small forums (Dryzek, 2008, Blaug, 1999). This chapter maintains that the Stanage Forum is a genuine attempt to approximate micro deliberative democracy in a small scale forum. An analysis of the Stanage Forum can therefore help illuminate the trade-offs that need to be made between the ideal theory and these practical barriers. It is then to the Stanage Forum that we now turn.

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INTRODUCING THE STANAGE FORUM The Peak District is a national park in the north of England in the UK. The Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) has been devolved the power to manage the Peak District National Park. Decisions within the PDNPA are made by its thirty-eight members. These members consist of representatives from the Park’s local councils ‘whose boundaries fall within the Park’, as well as those appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs due to their specialist knowledge (PDNPA, 2000a). Although in many ways the PDNPA operates like a local authority (Connelly, 2006, p. 274), it does not enjoy the same powers and the significant decision-making role of appointed specialists ultimately gives it a quango status. As with most quangos there are issues of legitimacy (Weir, 1996; Harden and Marquand, 1997; Flinders, 1999). Therefore, the PDNPA has tried to increase its legitimacy by attaining a more democratic structure, of openness and accountability to all stakeholders (PDNPA, 2000a). To achieve this aim, the PDNPA have opened up all their meetings to more direct participation from the public, and implemented several public participation initiatives. One such initiative is the Stanage Forum. The purpose of the Stanage Forum, as set out by the organisers themselves, is to produce an effective Management Plan, by involving stakeholders, for the North Lees Estate. This is an area in the Peak District National Park, six miles from the centre of Sheffield, a city located in South Yorkshire in the north of England. Stanage Edge is a cliff feature that is central to the North Lees Estate, hence the name of the Forum, and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to appreciate its natural beauty, to climb, to walk, to cycle, to hang-glide, boulder, run, horse ride, and camp. The area is also internationally important for wildlife, as it provides a range of habitats e.g. flower-rich pastures, hay meadows, woodlands, crags and boulder slopes, and ‘supports as dense a breeding population of rare wetland birds

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4

as anywhere else in the U.K’ (PDNPA, 2000b; Croney and Smith, 2003, p. 15). Consequently, certain parts have been designated a ‘Special Protected Area’ under the EU Birds Directive. There are also areas of archaeological, cultural and historical interest on the estate e.g. a Catholic chapel, a Roman-British settlement, Bronze Age sites and a Grade II listed 16th century hall. In addition the estate hosts a working farm and has several rural communities within it and nearby. As the estate is situated between two large cities, Sheffield and Manchester, there is also significant commuter traffic, as no motorway links these cities. This range of uses and features has meant that a tension between recreational use, cultural, economic and environmental concerns exists in the Estate. Nevertheless, the Stanage Forum aimed to build consensus upon a Management Plan. The previous ten year Management Plan was drafted by a representative from the PDNPA, and then the Park’s users were consulted and given the opportunity to give feed back on it. There are obvious problems with the legitimacy of this method, and it was also considered a poor method to resolve the conflicts that existed between the users. This provided part of the incentive to hold the deliberative forum to create the new Management Plan (PDNPA, 2003). In fact this top-down method was actually escalating the conflict as users could not understand the decisions in the Management Plan, and felt frustration at being unable to effectively change them (Croney and Smith, 2003, p. 15). 5 The PDNPA selected ICARUS as Forum facilitator out of tenders from five companies that were ‘independent’ and skilled in using participative decision-making techniques in countryside management. ICARUS was selected, because it was felt it had the necessary skills and experience of co-ordinating this type of decision-making and furthermore it offered a tender with what the PDNPA considered a realistic time frame and budget (PDNPA, 2003). Between 2000 and 2002 there were three Forums held to form the Management Plan and a fourth Forum to launch and ratify it. Since then there has been an annual Forum to review and revise the Management Plan. Each Forum lasts a day. The first Forum was used to discuss the environmental capital of the North Lees Estate. In the second Forum participants debated what they wanted from the area for the future. Both these Forums led to the identification of key problems and tensions as well as shared objectives. Solutions to these problems and methods to achieve the objectives, was the main topic of discussion in the third Forum. In the fourth Forum the Plan was ratified and launched. The diagram in Figure1 outlines the organisational structure of the Stanage Forum. As should be apparent from the diagram, in addition to the PDNPA, ICARUS and the Forum, there was also a Design Group and a Steering Group. The Design Group’s roles included helping design a process and a set of procedures for the first Forum meeting, and selecting those who would be members of the Steering Group.

4

The notable bird species in the area are Golden Plover, Curlew, Snipe, Ring Ouzel, Whinchat, Long and Short Eared Owls, Pied Flycatcher, Reed Bunting and Linnet. 5 ICARUS is a community development collective based in the north of England. The collective was formed with the aim of achieving excellence in the facilitation and delivery of training, research, evaluation and developmental work (ICARUS, 2001).

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Figure 1. Organisational Structure and Roles in the Stanage Forum

The Steering Group’s role included discussion and clarification of issues covered in the Forum; selection and consultation of Technical Groups to act as advisers; setting of deadlines for the various stages of the Management Plan process; approving and commenting upon the draft of the Management Plan and providing representation for the key stakeholders. Essential to the legitimacy of the Steering Group, and to the approximation of the norms of deliberative democracy within the Forum as a whole, was transparency and accountability. To achieve these aims the Steering Group regularly provided detailed reports back to the main Forum (Connelly et al, 2006, p. 273). In total the Steering Group met twenty-two times over the two years the Management Plan was decided upon (Croney and Smith, 2003, p. 16). Issue-based Technical Groups, selected by the Steering Group, were also used to provide specialist information on certain areas where information was lacking, such as ecological issues and traffic management, but had no decision-making powers themselves. Participants in the Stanage Forum were predominantly representatives from the local community and voluntary associations and were self-selecting. Nevertheless, prior to the commencement of the Forum, ‘relevant actors’ were identified and these associations were categorised into three broad groups of ‘stakeholder’: recreationalists, environmentalists, and locals (residents and business). The voluntary associations representing these stakeholder groups that participated in the Forum, between 2000 and 2002, are listed in Figure 2. These stakeholder groups are not mutually exclusive as it is possible to be in all three at once. For example a local resident could use the area for the recreational pursuit of walking, but like walking there because of the natural environment, birds and plants, which they have a desire to conserve. Nevertheless, in general the recreationalists’ main concern was access and they sought the promotion of opportunities for the enjoyment of the special qualities of the area by the public, although in different ways and to different degrees.

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Stakeholder Category

Associations Included in the Forum

E N V I R O N M E N T A L I S T S

British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, Council for the Protection of Rural England, Countryside Alliance, Countryside Agency, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Entomological Society, Derbyshire Bat Group, Derbyshire Ornithological Society, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, English Heritage, English Nature, Greenpeace, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Peak District National Park Authority, Peak Wildlife Advisory Group, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Sheffield Bird Study Group, Sheffield Wildlife Action Partnership, South Peak Raptor Study Group, St. Michael’s Environmental Centre, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Yorkshire Naturalists Union Aereomodellers Club, All Wheel Drive Club, British Horse Society, British Mountaineering Council, Castle Climbing Centre, Climb, Climber, Corporate Pursuits, Cycling and Touring Club, Dark Peak Fell Runners, Derbyshire Association of Residential Training, Derbyshire Soaring Club, Disabled Off-road Association, Edge Climbing Centre, Hope Valley Riding Club, O-Zone, Peak and Dukeries Land Rover Club, Pedal Pushers, Ramblers Association, Ride to Roam, Rock Lea Activity Centre, Sheffield Area Youth Centres, Trail Riders Fellwoship

R E C R E A T I O N A L I S T S

Associations Included in the Design Group Peak District National Park Authority, Sheffield Bird Study Group

Associations Included in the Steering Group Peak District National Park Authority, Sheffield Bird Study Group

British Mountaineering Council, Ramblers Association

British Mountaineering Council, Dark Peak Fell Runners Derbyshire Soaring Club, Green Lanes Assoiation, Ride to Roam, Ramblers Association, Trail Riders Fellwoship

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Synthesising Deliberative Democracy and Environmental Sustainability L O C A L S

Bamford with Thornhill Parish Council, Black Community Forum, Derbyshire County Council, Derbyshire Dales District Council, Grindleford Parish Council, Hagg Farm, Hathersage Parish Council, King Edward VII Secondary, Outseats Parish Council, Parson House Farm, Peak Park Moorland Owners and Tenants Association, Sheffield City Council, Silverdale Secondary School, St.Michael’s Primary School, Tapton Secondary School

Outseats Parish Council, Derbyshire Association for Residential Education

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Outseats Parish Council, Derbyshire County Council, Derbyshire Dales District Council, Hagg Farm

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Figure 2. Stakeholder Associations in the Stanage Forum 2000-2002.

Therefore, the dominant goals for this stakeholder group were cost free and easy access by car and public transport, unrestricted access to the whole estate, opportunities for recreational pursuits and convenience for local facilities. At the start of the Forum many of the recreationalists refused to accept that their access had any detrimental affect on the local ecology at all. The environmentalists’ priorities were the conservation and enhancement of the local ecology. Therefore, key issues for this stakeholder group were the preservation and enhancement of localised and rare species of animal and plant, protection against excessive erosion and in general keeping the environment as natural and undisturbed as possible. To achieve this it was thought necessary to restrict and control access to the estate. The locals were seeking to foster the economic and social well being of the local communities. This was by far the most divided stakeholder group. Much of the local economy is generated by the tourism of the area so many locals were loathed to restrict access. They also wanted to ensure convenient commuter links to the cities of Sheffield and Manchester. However, other important economies like farming have been threatened by tourism, with many sheep being killed by traffic. Locals also wanted to preserve the area as a nice place to live and limiting tourism was seen as important to achieve this. Although there are many commonalities of interests between the stakeholder groups, there are also clear tensions. Unrestricted access is incompatible with the preservation of the environment. Easy access by car is incompatible with farming, maintenance of the beauty of the estate, lack of pollution of the area, and the area being a nice place to live. Use for all recreational pursuits is incompatible with peacefulness, wilderness and environmental considerations of the area. The Stanage Forum provides a suitable case study because it is an intrinsically important case6 in terms of the relationship between deliberative democracy, community participation and environmental sustainability. The Stanage Forum is of intrinsic importance because it is an approximation of deliberative democracy, involving participants from the local community

6

Which is a legitimate methodological reason for case study selection (Yin, 1994).

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in public dialogue with the aim making collective decisions in which environmental considerations are central.

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TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN THE STANAGE FORUM Even in micro deliberative forums, practical realities mean that model deliberative democracy only exists as a theoretical construct, as the ideal speech situation is a ‘methodological fiction’, (Habermas, 1996, p. 326), but this ideal should still be employed to guide practice (Habermas, 1996, p. 340): ‘The idealised and demanding conditions of deliberative democracy are aspirational and therefore can only ever be approximated (rather than fully realised) in everyday politics’ (Eckersley, 2000, p. 127; see also Cohen, 1997; Lieb, 2004, p. 40; Elstub, 2008b, p. 99). Trade-offs between the ideal and practice, to regulate between legitimacy and efficiency, are therefore inevitable and these trade-offs will vary in relation to the practical situation (Blaug, 1999, p. 140). Inevitably instances of deliberative democracy will approximate some aspects of deliberative democracy more closely than others. It seems likely that the elements are all interrelated and the very fact that it can approximate one aspect of deliberative democracy relatively closely might prevent it from approximating another aspect more closely. The Stanage Forum is no exception, and tradeoffs have been made between efficiency and legitimacy. Surely, then, Fishkin is right to suggest that it is unrealistic to expect real life instances of deliberative democracy to meet impossible normative standards: ‘In practical contexts a great deal of incompleteness must be tolerated. Hence, when we talk of improving deliberation, it is a matter of improving the completeness of the debate and the public’s engagement in it, not a matter of perfecting it’ (Fishkin, 1995, p. 41). Although ‘approximation’ is a scalar value making it possible to have varying degrees of approximation, nonetheless, it is not a completely relative value. In which case, a practical example, such as the Stanage Forum, still requires significant evidence that the principles of the ideal are embedded. Exactly how closely the Forum approximates the norms of deliberative democracy will be the focus of this section of the chapter. To enable the analysis of the trade-offs between theory and practice, the procedures and processes of the Stanage Forum will be broken down and analysed. Blaug (1999) has outlined five stages that occur in a decision-making process. The first is agenda setting and the recognition that there is a problem that requires a collective decision; the second element is the process of deliberation; third is the making of the decision, while in the fourth, the decision is implemented; and the fifth and final element is the evaluation of this whole process: ‘if the process of decision-making as a whole is to be legitimate, all these moments must be as fair as possible under the circumstances’ (Blaug, 1999, p. 141). Each of these stages, within the Stanage Forum, will be considered in turn. At each stage the ideal of what ‘should’ happen according to the theory of deliberative democracy will be outlined, and then the actual practice of the Stanage Forum will be compared to this theory, thereby using the theory of deliberative democracy as a lens to examine practice (Blaug, 1999, p. 43), the lessons from which will be used to reflect on the theory.

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Stage 1: Setting the Agenda The controlling of the agenda is one of the most dynamic ‘faces’ of power (Bachrach and Barratz, 1962; Lukes, 1974; Schattsneider, 1975). Due to the agenda-setting potential of the organisers of forums, the ‘mobilisation of bias is at its highest’ prior to the commencement of the forum’ (Smith, 2001, p. 84). Ideally, in a deliberative democracy the agenda would be set through democratic deliberation itself (Parkinson, 2006, p. 170). Such an ideal process is though difficult to achieve, as it leads to an inevitable regression (Michelman, 1997), as who would organise and set the agenda for the deliberation on the agenda and so on. In practice deliberation must start somewhere, and it tends to be elites that will determine the start (Parkinson, 2006, pp. 128-33). Inevitably then the PDNPA had a significant agenda setting role in the Stanage Forum and the first element of the decision-making process (the realisation for the need for a collective decision to be made) came from the PDNPA themselves. This is significant because the PDNPA is not a neutral apolitical body, but has its own interests. Nevertheless, the need for a forum did not emerge solely from the PDNPA acting in isolation. It was a response to the legitimacy and implementation problems they had experienced with the previous top-down Management Plan, but also demands from recreational visitors to the area (particularly climbers, and especially the BCA) who opposed the PDNPA’s decision to introduce car park charges and launched a national campaign against it (Croney and Smith, 2003). Therefore, influence over the agenda can come from civil society and the informal public sphere (Habermas, 1996) where macro-deliberation often occurs (Hendriks, 2006). However, messages from the informal public sphere are unlikely to be specific enough for forums like Stanage, as such micro-deliberative sights require a clear and, often, narrowly focused agenda to be effective and enable rational decision-making, and good deliberation (Thompson and Hoggert, 2001, p. 358) as such forums ‘could not decide anything if they were chaotic’ (Leib, 2004, p. 120). In addition agendas arising from the macro-public sphere will still need to be interpreted and, inevitably, this seems to be a role that will still involve elites (Parkinson, 2006, pp. 128-33), which was the case in Stanage where the PDNPA called the Forum and set its broad ‘Management Plan’ agenda. To decide that the Forum must result in a Management Plan does constrain decisions to a degree, especially as the PDNPA had a clear idea of what criteria they wanted the Management Plan to fulfil. According to the PDNPA a Management Plan needs to fulfil two main functions of strategy and operation. A strategic plan provides information about the site, identifies the value and significance of the site, and sets out aims to be achieved. An operational plan outlines how these aims are to be achieved, stipulates who will fulfil the tasks, when they will be fulfilled, considers what resources will be required to achieve this, and provides criteria for checking the effectiveness of site management (PDNPA, 2000c). Nonetheless, even within this framework, there is still plenty of scope for determining the issues that needed to be addressed in the Management Plan, and these were decided on by the Forum and Steering Group. Despite this the agenda was disputed. Many of the climbers who attended the first Forum were under the impression that the Forum’s purpose was simply to resolve the parking charge issue. Consequently when they were required to discuss many other issues, this led to frustration and led to several of these climbers not attending the subsequent Forums. The PDNPA also had the significant authority to select the Forum’s facilitator, although the fact that they resisted the temptation to facilitate the Forum themselves, and instead chose

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to have an ‘independent’ facilitator, was vital and in keeping with the norms of deliberative democracy. When selecting a facilitator there are two general principles that can inform this decision: they should be either process experts or alternatively experts on the issues that are under debate. Buttoud (1999, pp. 11-28) is in favour of the latter, as issue experts ‘cinch down’ the debate. However, Forester (1999) and Edward-Jones (1997) argue that it is not the role of the facilitator to substantively influence the debate, but only provide influence through the enforcement of agreed upon procedures that are compatible with the norms of deliberative democracy. Otherwise too much power and influence would be in the hands of the facilitator. Fortunately then it is the former approach that the PDNPA opted for, as ICARUS were seen as process specialists (Richardson and Connelly, 2002, p. 40). Once the PDNPA had decided to hold a forum to decide on a Management Plan, and had selected the facilitator, they were conscious of the influence they held over the Forum and wanted the initial stages of the Forum design to be seen as legitimate. Consequently, in order to ensure that the PDNPA did not exert excessive control at the initiation of the Forum, a Design Group was constructed by ICARUS and the PDNPA to help with the Forum design. Although the Design Group did not determine any substantive issues it did have a considerable amount of power. The group had two meetings, the first helped design a process and a set of procedures for the first Forum meeting, while the second meeting selected members for the Steering Group from applications. As will be detailed below, the Steering Group was a part of the Forum process which would go on to wield much decision-making power. However, the role of the very first Forum was to set an agenda for the rest of the Forums by deciding what the key problems and tensions were that needed to be resolved in the Management Plan. Therefore, although the PDNPA, and the Design Group, did enjoy much influence in the first stage of the decision-making process, this was combined with influence from the participating stakeholders in the first Forum. In general much of the agenda did derive from deliberative democracy itself, as the theory advocates it should, although with some influence from elites, which might be inescapable in practice.

Stage 2: The Process of Deliberation The process of deliberation will be broken into two elements. Firstly issues of participation and representation in the Stanage Forum will be considered to determine who deliberated. Secondly the type of deliberation between these participants will be reviewed.

Participation and Representation The ideal in a deliberative democracy is that all affected by a decision will participate equally in a deliberative process together. Achieving the inclusion of all in debates is a key problem facing the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy in practice, especially in micro deliberative forums where decisions are made. There are logistical difficulties in including all in debate. To have all citizens meet together and deliberate together, actually or virtually, is an empirical impossibility, especially if debates are to be inclusive and have depth (Bohman, 1996, p.2; Parkinson, 2006, p. 151; Elstub, 2007, p. 15). Collective action problems mean that not all affected want to participate directly in decision-making (Olson, 1965). Inclusion is made easier with forums like Stanage as it is operating at a decentralised level and this means that decisions affect less people; decisions are closer to the people they affect

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so participation is available to more citizens (Warren, 2002, pp.188-189; Elstub, 2007, p. 16); it is easier to ensure the representation of all key interests; and informed participation and representation is easier because less information is relevant to the decision (Follesdal, 1999, p. 15; Elstub, 2007, p. 16). Decentralisation can also enable citizens to have a potentially greater influence on decisions, which can lead to greater efficacy and, consequently, more participation (Hyland, 1995, p. 261; Elstub, 2008b, p. 194). Nevertheless even a decentred forum like Stanage had significant problems in including all stakeholders in open, public, transparent and inclusive debate (Connelly et al, 2006, p. 273). As mentioned above, participants in the Stanage Forum are predominantly self-selected representatives from the local community and voluntary associations with relevant interests regarding recreation, environmental concerns, and the locality as an area to live and work. There have been participants from each of the three key stakeholder groups at all four of the Forums, although some stakeholders have been represented more than others. Recreationalists were the best represented, especially climbers and in particular the BCA. In the first Forum, there were sixty-seven participants; in the second Forum, there were forty-three; the third Forum had forty-four participants; and thirty-five people attended the fourth Forum. In total approximately one hundred and fifty different people participated in the first four Forums held between 2000 and 2002. Since the Management Plan has been launched, attendance has dropped at the annual review Forum, although the average has been thirty, with all three stakeholder groups still represented at each Forum. Many of those participating in the Forum were not representing any particular voluntary association, however most did belong to a specific and organised group. The full list of which voluntary associations had representatives involved in the Forum is listed in Figure2. There are significant inequalities of power and resources between these associations and although they have all been involved in some manner, they have participated in different ways and to different extents. For example, some associations were involved in both the Design Group and the Steering Group, some associations have only acted as invited technical advisors and attendances in the Forums themselves have varied considerably. Whereas representatives from certain associations have been in attendance in all Forums, others have retracted their participation, and there have been notable absentees from particular interests; specifically from the motorised recreational section, the local cement works factory, a gas works company and local transport companies. The extent the agenda of the Forum has been determined by the PDNPA was discussed in the above section. However, there still remains the very real problem of framing the decision through controlling who participates (Rippe and Schaber, 1999, p.82), and therefore the manner in which the PDNPA has sought to engage stakeholders in the Forum is of paramount importance. As with all democratic arrangements, who participates and to what level and who does not participate and why, determines the nature of the conflict and ultimately the decision (Schattsneider, 1975): ‘By recognising ‘established’ groups and leaders, and subtly encouraging others to participate, the intermediator effectively shapes public understandings of what is at stake, perceptions of who has power in the community, and assumptions about what subjects merit public concern’ (Reich, 1988, pp. 140-141). Therefore the PDNPA had an opportunity to exert significant influence on the process by controlling who participated, although this is not completely under the control of the Forum organisers. Part of the reason for this is the greater the level of exclusion the greater the deficit in legitimacy and potentially the harder it is to enforce the resulting decisions

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(Connelly and Richardson, 2002, pp. 16-17). In this instance there were no formal barriers to participating in the Forum, as anyone who wanted to was allowed to attend. To a degree then the participants in the Stanage Forum were a ‘self selected minority’, which Jordan fears is an inevitable consequence of institutionalizing deliberative democracy (Jordan, 2007, p. 62), and usually means that they are not socially representative (Mason, 1999), which was also the case with the Stanage Forum. Informal barriers exist which prevent people from participating in such forums, however, it was not necessarily the fault of the PDNPA that certain groups are excluded, but the cause of broader inequalities of civil society. Socio-economic inequalities can affect the potential for certain socio-economic groups to mobilise and form groups, or to join existing ones (Schattsneider, 1975; Verba et al, 1995, chapter 12; Salamon and Anheier, 1996; Van Deth, 1997, p. 9; Rosenblum, 1998, p. 189; Gutmann, 1998, pp. 331; Skocpol, 1999, pp. 66-73). One informal barrier is not being aware of the forum, but the PDNPA made a genuine effort to advertise the Stanage Forum, and to contact easily identifiable stakeholders. The Forum was advertised on a national radio station (BBC Radio 4), in a national newspaper (The Guardian), in all local radio and newspapers, in specialist national magazines (Climber and the Great Outdoors), on television (on BBC1’s Countryfile) and on the PDNPA’s website. In addition several of the larger associations, e.g. the BCA, advertised the Forum to their members (PDNPA, 2001). However, the level of advertising dramatically reduced after the first Forum, meaning those who were unaware of the first Forum were given less opportunity to participate at the later Forums. Another informal barrier is being unable to attend due to the time and location. The time and day of the week (i.e. weekend, weekday; evening, daytime) for the Forums was altered with the hope of enabling all stakeholders to participate, at least in part of the Forum, if they wished. It is then fair to say that most people had an opportunity to attend the Forum, or part of it. Furthermore, the inclusion of a variety of associational groups in the Forum provided an important source of representation. If members of these associations were unable to attend, or not sufficiently interested in, the Forums themselves, another member of their association could still represent them, as they are likely to share some relevant interests through virtue of being a member of the same association. This is an example of how representation offers a solution to the problem of including all in deliberative debates, with those not participating directly ideally feeling as though their reasons have been aired by their representatives (Parkinson, 2006, p. 29). Consequently, participation must be combined and balanced with representation in any democratic process (Baber and Barteltt, 2006, p. 125). In contrast, individuals, if unable to attend, are not included in the process. However, in the Stanage Forum those unable to attend the Forums can participate in the on-line discussion on the website. Such electronic and interactive media are therefore essential to ensure openness and inclusivity (Ward et al, 2003, pp. 291-292). Other forms of representation were also seen as essential to adapting deliberative democracy to the practicalities. Design and Steering Groups were seen as necessary representative mechanisms due to limitations of time, money and number of participants, which meant that the Forum was not able to cover all issues in sufficient detail. The representative from the ICARUS collective accepts that ideally, the Steering Group would have had much less power and influence than it has enjoyed, and that in similar local governance forums on which he has facilitated, the Steering Group has had a reduced role in comparison to the Stanage Forum, which indicates that this was not necessarily an example of best democratic practice, at least in this respect. This is evidence of a significant trade–off

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between theory and practice. The theory of deliberative democracy stipulates open and equal participation between all relevant actors. If there had been more time for the Forums and more money available to hold more Forums then the Steering Group would have had a reduced role. It was then practical constraints, which led to a movement away from the deliberative ideal in this situation (ICARUS, 2001). The Forum, up to the launch of the Management Plan in 2002, cost £14,000 (plus the PDNPA’s staff time of 160 days) (Croney and Smith, 2003, p. 18). Although the Forum kept to budget, this suggests this is a minimum cost to hold such a forum. Had the PDNPA released more funds then the Steering Group’s role could have been reduced, making for a more legitimate process and potentially making the implementation process more successful too. However, less power to the Steering Group and more power with the Forum would also have required more participation from Forum members, as more Forums would have been required to fill the gap left by the Steering Group meetings. As the Steering Group met twenty-two times, it is unlikely that such a level of participation in the Forums could have been sustained. However, this still does not mean the appropriate balance of power, between the Forum and the Steering Group, was reached. Members of the Design Group were ‘chosen at short notice for availability and to give a broad range of views of the Estate’ (PDNPA, 2000d). Representation in the Design Group was therefore based on interest representation. However, it is certainly debatable whether the Design Group did fully represent the full range of views and interests. There were ten members on the Design Group altogether, the full details of which can be seen in Figure 2. It appears here that certain interests (climbing, PDNPA) are over-represented, and other recreational pursuits (hang-gliding, cycling), environmental interests and local residents were under represented. Nevertheless, there were representatives from all three stakeholder groups, and the Design Group was not discussing any substantive issues. However, it becomes apparent that the group did exercise considerable power when we see that of the ten members, all of them made it into the seventeen member strong Steering Group. These seventeen representatives were selected to achieve ‘a broad representation of the wide cross section of interests that are present in the Forum’ (ICARUS, 2001). The Steering Group was then based upon symbolic and interest representation and was definitely more inclusive in its representation of groups and interests than the Design Group with a cycling association, hang-gliding association, local farm and the County Council now represented. In both the Design and Steering Group there is still the over-representation of recreational interests in comparison to the other stakeholders, especially climbing and particularly the BMC. The PDNPA justifies this by pointing out that climbers are the greatest number of visitors to the Stanage area (PDNPA, 2001). However, this does not justify their overrepresentation in a deliberative context. Each association should have the same number of representatives in the Forum, regardless of the size of their membership. This is appropriate in a deliberative democracy as it is the inclusion of all relevant reasons, rather than an equal representation of all interests and identities, which is key, as Parkinson appreciates: ‘So long as group representatives are present in proportion to their numerical strength, identities and views which command the allegiance of many will always dominate those of the few, regardless of the reasonableness of those views’ (Parkinson, 2006, pp. 33-4; see also Williams, 2000, p. 125). This is a key difference between aggregative decision making methods, where sheer numbers are decisive and deliberative democracy where reasons should have more sway.

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The Steering Group also decided that it should ‘remain central to assist implementation, monitoring, evaluation and revision of the Plan’ and that ‘Steering Group membership should be based on the existing members and their representation. Each year, the Steering Group will assess whether it is still representative of the wider Forum’ (PDNPA, 2002a). The Steering Group has therefore given itself the power to re-elect itself and to determine the terms of how they will be accountable to the Forum. This makes it unlikely that the Steering Group will achieve its own objectives of being ‘transparent, open and receptive, have ability to co-opt members and be accountable to the Forum and the groups it is representing’ (PDNPA, 2002a). This statement on the Group’s objectives also highlights the lack of clarity over who the Group is meant to represent and be held accountable to, the Forum or the voluntary associations of which they are members. If the principles of deliberative democracy are to be approximated the Steering Group must be held accountable to the Forum rather than the various associations, as this is where open participation has been sought, in concurrence with democratic principles. Granted, those participating in the Forum should be held accountable to their associations, but the Steering Group is meant to co-ordinate the decisions made in the Forum so must be representing the Forum and no one else. The PDNPA representative thought that they might be able to represent both (PDNPA, 2003), but this seems untenable if conflicts of interests arise. This was clearly demonstrated by an example from one of the Steering Group meetings, where a member from the BMC criticised one of the objectives that had received majority support in the Forum. Moreover, he wanted it to be abandoned because he felt it went against the BMC’s interests. However, to the credit of the other Steering Group members this representative was told that it was not the role of the Steering Group to question the principles behind objectives that arise from the Forum, but only to decide the best way to co-ordinate them, prioritise them and make practical recommendations for their achievement. One of the suggestions to come out of the Forum review process is for the Steering Group to be elected by the Forum (PDNPA, 2008a). This would clarify accountability between the Forum and Steering Group, but could mean that the Steering Group no longer reflects the diversity of all views and interests present in the Forum. The Stanage Forum was well advertised, with a diversity of meeting times and this meant that all key interests were included in the Forum and the Design and Steering Groups. However, these latter representative bodies could have been more balanced. These representative bodies were seen as essential to overcome practical exigencies, which although were alleviated by the decentralised nature of the Stanage Forum, still impacted, and were selective, meaning that most were prevented in participating in these powerful arenas of the Forum. Despite the necessity of these representative bodies, they still seemed to have too much power, and there was a clack of clarity over which agency they should be representing, the Forum or the associations of which they were members.

Processes of Deliberation In addition to having participation from the key stakeholders, the procedures introduced by the facilitator have enabled the Stanage Forum to approximate the ideal of deliberative democracy. In the first Stanage Forum the meeting started with all members having to accept the following principles that clearly embody the ideals of deliberative democracy outlined earlier: •

Participants speak directly to each other and reach agreement openly

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Everyone will have a say and their opinion will be valued Everyone who has an interest in the Management of the North Lees Estate can participate • Every effort is made to reach agreements acceptable to everyone, rather than by voting • People will work from an open position, where their interests are stated and understood, even if not agreeable to others • People accept, and are willing to work with, each group’s differences in order to reach a consensus that benefits all • An independent facilitator will be used to design and facilitate the work and activities of the Forum (Croney and Smith, 2003, p. 16)

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• •

Embodied in these procedures are the ideals that problems should be resolved through discussion, aimed at consensus on the common good, that all affected should have a chance to participate, and that all views should be listened to and included in the debate. These are the same principles that are at the heart of democratic deliberation. The Stanage Forum is therefore a serious attempt to approximate democratic deliberation in practice. Procedures create the conditions for equal access to the deliberative arenas at both the agenda setting and decision-making stages. The design of fair procedures is a very complicated process. It is important that the procedures are the subject of democratic debate themselves, for the same reasons decisions should be, as the formation of procedures are decisions that could bias the decision-making process. In the Stanage Forum the procedures have been designed by the ICARUS collective, and through debate in the Design Group initially and then the Steering Group. In the Forum participants did not get to discuss the procedures, but had an opportunity to contest and reject the procedures, although all the above procedures were accepted by everyone, and consequently it was thought legitimate to ensure all abide by them. The facilitator justified this approach to procedural design by arguing that democratic decision-making and debate ‘must start somewhere.’ He questioned ‘what procedures would regulate the debate on procedures?’ Again we see practical necessity forcing a trade-off between the ideal and practice, but the facilitator thought this was ‘inevitable’ (ICARUS, 2001). This indicates that despite the relevancy of the normative justification that trade-offs should be made discursively and democratically between all participants (Blaug, 1999), empirically this may be impossible to attain, and will inevitable be made by elites, otherwise there is an infinite regress (Michelman, 1997). At least in this instance the procedures were designed by a process facilitator in conjunction with a representative and deliberative body. The type of deliberation prevalent in the forum resembled an ‘evidence-driven’ deliberation style. In evidence–driven deliberation certain options and opinions are discussed without people being categorised or formerly associated with any particular perspective. In contrast, in verdict-driven deliberation participants are associated with certain proposals early on in the process, (sometimes taking an early vote). The ‘verdict-driven’ style approximates more closely the aggregative model of decision-making as it accepts the validity of prepolitical preferences, and concentrates more on conflict. In this method few preferences change and the decision usually reflects the initial views of the majority (Elstub, 2006, p. 32). Evidence-driven deliberation appears more inclusive because it encourages all views to be

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expressed and so more participants speak and this in turn causes more people to change their opinions. Moreover, there is a greater emphasis of all participants trying to reach an acceptable decision for all, rather than having one view winning out. It is more equipped to do this as it avoids people conforming to majority opinion (Sanders, 1997, p. 367). However, the evidence-driven approach does present the danger that conflict is suppressed, giving a false appearance of agreement (Richardson and Connelly, 2002, p. 41), potentially disarming ‘participants of their legitimate feelings of outrage and frustration’ (Amy, 1987, p. 126). It is further suggested that ‘genuine’ transformation in preferences requires the conflict that the verdict-driven style embodies, as the evidence driven method can just give the ‘illusion of common ground’ (Connelly and Richardson, 2002, p.19). For example, some participants at the Stanage Forum criticised the Forum’s procedures, questioning when they would get to talk about the ‘real issues’ (Richardson and Connelly, 2002, p. 41). On balance, however, the evidence-driven approach seems to more accurately embody the characteristics of ‘good political deliberation’ (Miller, 2000, p. 146). However, it might well be the case that different deliberation styles are required for different types of conflict. As discussed above, deliberative democracy relies on participants exchanging reasons. This form of communication certainly dominated the exchanges in the Fourm, but other forms of communication were also apparent. Young (1996) and Sanders (1997) argue that a sole reliance on reason disadvantages subordinate groups, and have consequently advocated the inclusion of greeting, rhetoric and storytelling. They argue that these forms of communication will make debates more inclusive and equal because they are more amenable to social diversity and the particularity of participants (Elstub. 2006, p. 309). It is further argued that these forms of communication are also essential for the promotion of environmental goals, as these can not always be communicated through reason (Ward et al, 2003). Many deliberative democrats have accepted that greeting, rhetoric and storytelling could and should play a part in deliberation (Dryzek, 2000, pp. 67-71; Miller, 2000, pp. 156-157), and other empirical evidence also confirms that these forms of communication will be incorporated in instances of deliberative democracy (Barnes et al, 2004; Parkinson, 2006, pp. 139-42). These three forms of communication have all been present in the Stanage Forum. Storytelling has played a particularly important role and enabled many to share their personal experiences on the Estate. Although storytelling was common place in the process, it was not always accepted as a valid contribution to debate, with one climber criticising some testimonies, by environmentalists, on nesting birds as being ‘spurious’ and merely ‘anecdotal’ evidence to restrict access. The problem of scale within the Forum still affects the opportunities for all to deliberate together, as despite the use of decentralization and representation here, which both help alleviate the problem of scale, the 40-70 people typically attending the Stanage Forum is too many to ensure effective, equal and inclusive deliberation, as the number of people that can deliberate together is very limited (Gutmann and Thompson, 1996, p. 131). Research from focus groups suggests that between 7-12 people is the optimum number for inclusive deliberation (Kruger, 1994, p. 78; Stewart and Shamdasani, 1990). The facilitator also confirmed that this was the optimum number of participants from his experience of running community governing initiatives (ICARUS, 2001). This is a very small number indeed and would preclude other key norms of deliberative democracy being approximated if followed, such as ensuring all affected participate or are represented in the decision-making process, and that all relevant reasons are made public. Therefore innovative mechanisms are required

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to adapt deliberative democracy to the scale of the decision and participants affected. In all the Stanage Forums participants were split into mixed stakeholder groups, with seven in each group, with each group discussing the same issues. This method allowed each individual a reasonable amount of opportunity to participate, and with the mixture of groups, still allows people to hear a range of views and express their views to a range of people. This is obviously a trade-off between the ideal of deliberative democracy, in which all participants are involved in the same debate, and the practical necessities of real life decisionmaking. However, such methods are common in German Planning Cells, which are based on the norms of deliberative democracy, and according to empirical research by Thompson and Hoggert (2001), can reduce the potential for the development of factions that would otherwise offset the benefits of the deliberative process. This is because in small groups, factions and ‘internal psychological divisions’ are less likely to develop. Moreover, these subgroups do not need to have ‘rigidly defined boundaries’, if the subgroups have revolving membership, which was the case in the Stanage Forum (Thompson and Hoggert, 2001, p. 358). One of the deficiencies of the methods used here in the Stanage Forum is that there is a lack of communication and debate between each sub-group, meaning all participants do not get to hear all arguments which could potentially affect their preferences, so the sub-groups need to be combined with deliberative plenary sessions (Thompson and Hoggert, 2001). Alternatively a member of each sub-group could have come together to form another group and then discussed what each group decided so that everyone gets to hear what the other groups have discussed, but this makes an already long process of participation even longer. Deliberation also occurred in the Steering Group but with much smaller numbers, with a maximum of seventeen participants. This is slightly higher than the optimum deliberative numbers of 7-12, but this number of Steering Group participants was seen as necessary to ensure representation of all the relevant interests and is still a relatively small and manageable number of deliberators. Consequently the Steering Group all deliberated together and sub-groups were not needed. The Steering Group set up their own deliberative procedures for their meetings, in their first meeting. These were bracketed under three principles: ‘freedom to speak’, ‘decisionmaking’ and ‘accountability’ and resembled the deliberative norms of the Forum itself, with all agreeing that all should have an equal chance to participate in a debate, that aimed at consensus, in which all were listened to. Due to the representative element, accountability was also introduced with the group further agreeing to be transparent and to publicise their minutes and decisions through the website, and through reporting back to the Forum (PDNPA, 2001b; Connelly et al, 2006, p. 273). Without this the general Forum participants are completely excluded from hearing the reasons of the representatives, and the element of publicity, an essential aspect of deliberative democracy, is compromised. Reporting back by the Steering Group certainly occurred, and all meeting reports were posted on the PDNPA website, but was still something that could have been increased to ensure greater accountability. For example after the Steering Group had drafted the Management Plan and it was presented at the fourth Forum, the Forum participants were not given the opportunity to raise any issues as to whether it accurately encapsulated the decisions made at the previous Forums. Steering Group members were given an opportunity to justify their decisions, but

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Forum participants were not given the opportunity to challenge them. In this sense the ‘clear lines of communication’ that were meant to hold Steering Group members accountable to the Forum were one-way, and therefore not consistent with the norms of deliberative democracy. This trend of the Forums being used as a mechanism for Steering Group members to inform the Forum participants of their decisions, rather than being an opportunity for meaningful deliberation between the participants themselves, has continued in the review Forums, following the launch of the Management Plan. In a deliberative democracy Young argues that we need ‘representation as relationship’ (Young, 2000, p. 125) where the representatives must explain and justify the resulting decision to the members and provide the information that caused them to change their preferences, but such a relationship was not sufficiently in place here. In a deliberative democracy representation will be essential, but it should be an interactive and deliberative relationship; and not one where the represented just receive reasons, but one where they can give them as well (Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). In the Stanage Forum, however, the relationship between the Steering Group and the Forum was excessively one way. In a deliberative democracy all participants should receive the same information, as it can impact upon preferences. However, in the Stanage Forum information supplied by the Technical Groups was only presented to the Steering Group because of insufficient time for the Technical Groups to report all their information to the Forums, meaning the Forum did not receive the information directly. Again then there is a trade-off between the ideal and the practical need for efficiency and perhaps displaying the information on the website is a good method to provide a balance between these two aims. Overall then the Stanage Forum was certainly deliberative, but again practical exigencies meant this deliberative processes were excessively dominated by the representative bodies within the Forum.

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Stage 3: Decision-Making Due to the relationship, outlined earlier, between deliberative democracy and public reason, where participants are encouraged to find reasons that all affected will find convincing, it has been suggested that decisions in a deliberative democracy could be consensual as participants form and find common interests through the exchange of reasons (Cohen, 1989, p. 23; Habermas, 1996, pp. 17-19; Elstub, 2006, p. 308). In contrast many deliberative theorists have suggested that a consensus will not be achieved due to the pluralism of ultimate values (Elster, 1989; Christiano, 1997; Weale, 2000) and interests (Benhabib, 1996; Elstub, 2006, p. 308). Debate can also increase disagreement by generating a greater diversity of opinions on an issue as it is explored more extensively and deeply (Mansbridge, 1980, p. 65; Knight and Johnson, 1994, p. 289; Fearon, 1998, p. 57; Christiano, 1997, p. 249; Shapiro, 1999, p. 31; Budge, 2000, p. 203; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002, p. 195; Elstub, 2006, p. 308). Moreover, there is an influential argument from some democratic theorists that consensus is not desirable because it disadvantages minority social groups, by 7

In the last forum, when one Steering Group member was challenged during one of the small group debates, she became indignant, as she and the Steering Group had obviously invested much time and energy into the process, she therefore felt that she was owed gratitude rather than appreciating that her actions did need to be held to account. This shows the necessity of formal procedures to hold representatives to account.

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promoting the status quo and should therefore not be the aim of democratic deliberation (Mansbridge, 1980, p. 32; Gould, 1988, p. 18; Young, 1996, p. 127; Sanders, 1997; Gambetta, 1998, p. 21; Elstub, 2006, p. 308). Consensual decisions are desirable as they are perceived to be legitimate, because all have agreed to them, but this leads to a temptation to ‘make’ rather than ‘build’ a ‘consensus’, where the decisions can favour the interests of more powerful groups. In such circumstances coercion is often involved and only weaker participants change their preferences (Connelly and Richardson, 2002, pp. 13-14). The desire to achieve consensus can motivate facilitators to limit decision-making to ‘acceptable issues’ and to exclude people, issues, or possible outcomes (Connelly and Richardson, 2002, p. 11). Despite all these arguments it is still maintained by some deliberative theorists that consensus should remain the ideal guiding discussion (Cohen, 1998, p. 197; Habermas, 1996, pp. 304305). A consensus building approach to decision-making was explicitly employed in the Stanage Forum from the outset. As discussed above the aim of the evidence style deliberative procedures, employed in the Forum, is to deflect the focus from the areas of conflict, so that people were not simply ‘defending their position’, but deliberating about common solutions to common problems, with the possibility of preference change. Other research on the Stanage Forum concluded that the approach to consensus building used meant the process was manipulated with contentious decisions being removed from the agenda, which indicated that the decision-making approach used, and the Forum facilitator, were not neutral (Connelly et al, 2006, p. 273). In fact Richardson and Connelly argue that if consensus is to be achieved some level of exclusion is inevitable, but that decisions on exclusion should be ‘explicit and accountable’ (Richardson and Connelly, 2002, p. 44), which they do not think was the case in the Stanage Forum (Connelly et al, 2006). This analysis of the Stanage Forum therefore supports the suggestions that consensus should not be explicitly sought in micro deliberative forums. Despite this accusation of manipulation to achieve consensus in the Stanage Forum there certainly was no agreement upon all the specifics of the Management Plan, but perhaps there was a broader agreement upon general principles reached through compromise under deliberative conditions. Theory suggests that if consensus is not reached, then compromise, achieved under deliberatively democratic conditions, might be the best alternative (Dryzek, 1990, p. 16-17; Festenstein, 2002, p. 92-95; Richardson, 2002, Chapter 11; Warren, 2002, p.185). Deliberative democracy helps make compromise easier to achieve, as it improves understanding of alternatives and rival positions, which can in turn lead to respect and empathy (Warren, 2002, p. 184; Festenstein, 2005, p. 127; Elstub, 2008b, p. 67). Due to the absence of consensus voting was necessary to make the final decisions on the specifics of the Management Plan. However, consistent with the ideal of deliberative democracy, voting occurred following deliberatively democratic debate, therefore the aggregation was of transformed, post-deliberative preferences. However, the fact that voting did have to occur for decisions to be made, does indicate the necessity for participation to be evenly spread across all interested stakeholders. It was unfair that the BMC would have had more votes than any other association. The facilitator and PDNPA Forum organiser defended this by claiming it should not be viewed as voting ‘but indicating support’, but this seems to be ignoring the reality (ICARUS, 2001; PDNPA, 2003). Many of the decisions in forming the Management Plan were not taken in the Forum itself, but in the Steering Group. As the published Plan itself states: ‘This Plan has been

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agreed in principle by all stakeholders who have taken part in the Forum process and in detail by all Steering group members’ (PDNPA, 2002b, Section 2.4). Again the power held by the Steering Group has been much to do with limited resources of money, time and participation. This has caused a trade-off between the ideal of all participating in a deliberative arena to make collectively binding decisions and the need for representation due to problems of size and time. In one of the Steering Group reports, it is accepted that although most of the objectives that arose from the Steering Group were originally agreed upon in the Forum (or at least received majority support when voting occurred in the third Forum), some of the recommendations were supplemented by Technical Group advice and from website suggestions. It is therefore apparent that the Steering Group was sovereign and not the Forum; as the Steering Group was not completely bound by Forum decisions (PDNPA, 2002c; PDNPA, 2002d). However, it was claimed that proposals not agreed on in the Forum were added only if all Steering Group members agreed that they ‘obviously added to the package of proposals’ (PDNPA, 2002a). It is also important that those participating via the website have their views heard and considered. Clearly the Steering Group used a range of decisionmaking procedures, at times accepting the advice of the technical experts, at others rejecting it and taking suggestions from the Forum or website. Some of the Steering Group’s decisions were made through consensus, but in general it took majority decisions as the necessity of time and the need for decisions to be made overrode the desire for consensus (Connelly et al, 2006, p. 273). The Steering Group’s considerable decision-making powers were predominantly justified because the output from the Forum was uncoordinated, with little or no direction. The co-ordination problems have been exacerbated due to some of the procedures in the Forum, which have divided participants into small mixed stakeholder deliberative sub-groups. Here we see a discursive dilemma. The Management Plan could reflect the preferences that received majority support in the Forum vote, regardless of their compatibility. Alternatively decisions could be co-ordinated to be rationally consistent, but be unresponsive to the Forum’s preferences. The former is more democratic, but at a sacrifice to deliberation and the latter more deliberative, but at a loss to democracy (Pettit, 2003, p. 138). Petit suggests that it is more important that decisions meet deliberative requirements and are rationally compatible (Pettit, 2003, p. 155), which is what the Steering Group in the Stanage Forum attempted to ensure. Petit further suggests that it is necessary to ensure that all decisions remain contestable, especially as participants will change over time (Pettit, 2003, p. 156), as they have done in the Stanage Forum. Importantly then the Stanage Forums have continued with an annual review of the Management Plan. A range of decision-making methods were used in the Forum. Decision-making was not achieved through consensus, despite attempts to manipulate one. However, a deliberative compromise on broad principles was achieved with voting required to decide on the specifics. These were co-ordinated by the Steering Group to ensure compatibility. The Steering Group used combinations of consensus, compromise, voting and deferring to the Forum, the website and specialists when making these decisions.

Stage 4: Implementation The Steering Group also decided who should be responsible for implementing the Management Plan’s proposals, and provided a timescale for implementation, and set out

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which objectives should have priority (PDNPA, 2002b, Section 4.2). Since 2002 implementation has been ongoing and it has been suggested is stalling as the original conflicts that were present at the start of the Forum, between recreationalists and envionmentalists, over access and conservation, are still persisting (Connelly et al, 2006, p. 272). Certainly more research is required on the implementation of the Stanage Forum’s Management Plan to establish if this is the case. Nevertheless, many of the aspects of the Management Plan have been implemented and many of the stakeholders have been actively involved in this implementation. Theory suggests that the main advantage of stakeholders being actively involved in decision-making processes is that once the decision has been made, it generally becomes easier to implement (Barber, 1984; Fung and Wright, 2001, p. 26). This is partly to do with the fact that stakeholders, who have participated in making the decision, are more likely to see the process as a legitimate one and, therefore, accept the consequential decision, even if it is not what they hoped for, than if it was imposed by an external authority without their involvement. Moreover, if the members have been engaged in democratic debate about these issues themselves, they can see how their own views may have influenced that debate, again making the resulting decision even more legitimate. Secondly, the participants can then help in the implementation of the decision, either through the carrying out of the services/ activities set out, or in dissemination of information about the decision. Due to the fact that decisions are now easier to enforce, more options become open, rather than being ruled out tout court (Fung and Wright, 2001, p. 18). Voluntary associations, involved in the Forum, have been actively involved in the implementation of much of the Management Plan. Furthermore, many of these associations, such as BMC, Ramblers Associations, Derbyshire Soaring Club and Dark Peak Fell-runners, have been able to disseminate the decisions made in the Management Plan and advise on the most environmentally friendly ways to access the Estate to their members. Although this has not led to complete compliance, by all recreationalists from these groups, with all the decisions made in the Plan, it is suggested that implementation ‘has been much easier and much more successful than before the Forum process began’ (PDNPA, 2008b). It is further suggested that participatory processes mean that powerful organisations have less ability to veto any decisions that they dislike because their co-operation will become less important, due to the increased co-operation of other stakeholders (Cohen and Rogers, 1995, pp. 65-6; Smith, 2001, p. 78). However, the experience of the Stanage Forum process suggests that certain organisations are so powerful, and their co-operation so vital to implementing decisions that they can derail any decisions that they dislike. There were several pertinent examples of this in the Stanage Forum including local bus companies, the cement and gas works, none of which the PDNPA has been devolved sufficient powers to control, despite proposals coming from the Forum aiming to increase and integrate bus provision to the Estate and reduce pollution. Consequently, these companies cannot be forced to abide by these proposals and the PDNPA was left to try and persuade, negotiate and compromise with these companies in order to implement these proposals, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Therefore the status quo has remained in these key respects and the status quo will usually favour already dominant groups, which it has done here, at the expense of environmental concerns. The inability to implement decisions made then has seriously prevented the synthesisation of deliberative democracy and sustainability. Richardson and Connelly have rightly realised that one problem to the consensus building approach is that

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certain stakeholder groups may be unwilling for authority to be democratically shared, and think that a continuation of conflict is a better strategy to further their interests than through striving for consensus (Richardson and Connelly, 2002, p. 21). This certainly seems to be the case with local bus companies, the cement works and gas company, as they have been able to achieve the promotion of their interests without having to participate in the Stanage Forum, where they would have had to justify these interests publicly. This indicates that the PDNPA has not been devolved sufficient powers, as the powers to control these companies have been retained by the national government. If deliberative democracy is to be genuinely institutionalised, and deliberation and decision-making linked, then it is essential that micro forums like Stanage have binding decision making power to ensure the decisions are implemented and enforced: ‘Democracy involves debate and discussion, but these are not enough if they remain inconclusive and ineffective in determining actual policies’ (Dahl, cited in Gastill, 1993, p. 16; Elstub, 2008a, p. 178). As the evidence from Stanage indicates if forums do not have the power to make binding decisions then it is more likely that some stakeholders, especially those with commercial interests, will choose not to participate or withdraw, if they feel the forums are going against their interests, especially if they have ‘a lot to lose’ (Hendriks, 2002, p. 65; Hendriks 2006; Cohen and Rogers, 2003, p. 252). This also suggests that if the deliberative forums do result in binding and enforceable decisions, stakeholders are more likely to want to participate, precisely because they have a lot to lose or gain, as the most effective way to influence outcomes will be through participation in the forums (Fung and Wright, 2001, p. 24; Newman et al, 2004, p. 213; Hendriks, 2006; Elstub, 2008b, p. 149). This is the case with local bus companies, the cement works and gas company as they have had effective veto over decisions, as their cooperation was essential for several aspects of the Management Plan to be implemented. However, it is impossible to say whether different proposals would have been agreed on in the Forum, if they had participated. Some of the Forum’s more environmentally sensitive decisions were also overruled by the introduction of Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000), which ensured access for all, even previous areas on the estate where access had previously been limited. In addition the Police and the County Council refused to implement a roadside parking clearway that had been advocated in the Management Plan (PDNPA, 2008b). Therefore another threat to democracy in arenas such as the Stanage Forum is that powerful groups can operate, ‘from points outside the range of observable political behaviour…’ without actually intervening ‘directly in the deliberations’ of those participating (Crenson in Lukes, 1974, p. 43). In complex societies, with multiple modes and levels of governance that constantly change and overlap, all decision-making arenas are likely to be curtailed by decisions taken in other locations of governance. Here we see the PDNPA being restricted by both National and Local government. It seems the participation of the key stakeholders in the Forum has made the implementation of the Management Plan easier and more efficient. However, more evidence is required, and implementation of the Plan is still very much an ongoing process. However, where implementation has occurred, a variety of stakeholders have been involved. However, much of the implementation of the plan has been prevented by powerful, private companies refusing to comply, or by alternative forms of governance. If deliberation and decisionmaking are to be joined, and deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability

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synthesised, then citizens’ forums must be devolved sufficient power to enforce the decisions they make.

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Stage 5: Review Although the Management Plan was ratified in the fourth Forum in 2002, it was not the end of the forum or the democratic deliberative process, as there has been an annual Forum held to evaluate the Management Plan, its implementation and its effectiveness. This means that all decisions made in the Forum were provisional and potentially subject to change as new information and reasons come available for consideration. Deliberative democracy is not a decision-making mechanism that leads to ‘final’ decisions, as the process often reveals deeper problems than had been anticipated, and preferences continue to change in light of new information (Niemeyer, 2004, p. 364). As ecologies are complex, uncertain and variable ‘definitive once-and-for-all outcomes are not possible’, review procedures are essential to environmentally sensitive decision-making (Niemeyer, 2004, p. 352). Several proposals, incorporated in the original Management Plan have been reviewed changed and implemented through this process, although the overriding principles agreed in the Forum have remained the same. Decision-making review processes are considerably faster where the decisions have been decentralised as ‘the distance and time between decisions, action, effect, observation, and reconsideration’ is vastly reduced. Therefore, if poor decisions have been made, which is always inevitable even in a deliberative democracy, they can be amended expediently (Fung and Wright, 2001, p. 26). It is important that the review process also embodies the norms of deliberative democracy. The idea has been for the deliberative Forum’s to continue annually to ensure this. Unfortunately, despite attracting a large number of new participants, levels of participation in these review Forums has declined. The Steering Group has also continued to meet and review the Plan, holding approximately four meetings a year to do this. Overall the Steering Group has gained in power over the Forum since the launch of the Management Plan. The Forum meetings now have fewer opportunities for deliberative participation, and tend to be dominated by reports from the Steering Group. The Forum is now used more as a body to ratify suggestions for reform that have originated from the Steering Group, rather than a deliberative event to produce suggestions.

THE STANAGE FORUM’S DECISIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL RATIONALITY Despite the fact that the Stanage Forum could have approximated the norms of deliberative democracy more closely, especially in relation to reducing the power of the Steering Group to ensure all participants had an equal say in the making and review of the decisions, it is still an example of deliberative democracy in practice. Consequently, if environmental theorists are right in suggesting that such a decision-making structure will generate environmentally rational preferences and decisions, then an analysis of the Stanage Forum’s Management Plan will be a good test of this theory.

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As detailed above, consensus was not reached in the Forum, but there was deliberative compromise on the overall aims. The key aims of the Management Plan was to guarantee access to the estate for visitors, (including those with special needs), local residents, local businesses, commuters and people passing through, while ensuring that this access was compatible with the protection and enhancement of the ecology and the landscape. Therefore, proposals that did not ensure access would be incompatible with this aim and it is then immediately evident that the overall focus of the decisions did not reflect a particularly strong environmental rationality. Although the conservation of the ecology was a key priority, it was secondary to access to the area. The overall aim is to balance both of these, but in all circumstances that is unrealistic due to the inherent tensions between these aims, and the stakeholders associated with them. Consequently, the evidence here indicates that deliberative democracy will not inevitably lead to environmental sustainability. One of the main reasons for this is deliberative democracy is unlikely to result in a consensus, so compromise and aggregation are required to make final decisions. Even if the compromise occurs under deliberatively democratic conditions, and the preferences that are aggregated are post-deliberative ones, experience from the Stanage Forum indicates that democratic deliberation will aid people in focusing on and accepting the common goods like sustainability, but this will still conflict with other common goods, such as access. Sustainability is then destined to be compromised with other goods, meaning that the most environmentally sustainable suggestions fail to be included in the final decisions. In the Stanage Forum the most environmentally rational proposals did not receive majority support and in some instances environmental considerations were completely overridden. Measures that were proposed and discussed that had a strong environmental rationality, but did not make it into the Management Plan, included road closures and tolls, parking limits, speed limits, footpaths used to channel visitors away from sensitive areas and the active discouragement of hang-gliders from using a sensitive site during the breeding season (PDNPA, 2002b). A key reason why these proposals were not adopted was that they restricted access to the estate too significantly. It seems that environmentally rational reasons will not necessarily be the most convincing in all circumstances. Another argument that was offered against the more radical environmental proposals, listed above, and that ultimately proved decisive, were that many of these measures would have a negative impact on the view, natural landscape and wilderness experience of the Estate. Although this argument was ‘public’ and proved persuasive, it was put forward by the recreationalists, especially climbers and particularly by the BMC. It could therefore have been an argument that was instrumentally motivated to ensure access was not compromised to achieve sustainability. Therefore although deliberative democracy encourages participants to offer public reasons, these can still be offered to justify instrumental ends (Cohen, 1989; Miller, 1993, p. 76), especially where there is an established majority in the forum as there was with recreationalists, climbers and the BMC in particular in the Stanage Forum. The experience of the Stanage Forum therefore supports, to a degree, the findings of Zwart (2003, pp. 37-38), that following instances of democratic deliberation between stakeholders, where participants enter the forum with strong opinions on an issue, public reasons can be produced to defend pre-deliberative self-interested preferences, which prevents a ‘generalisable interest’ arising. Or at the very least that participants associate with the interpretation of the common good that most closely mirrors their initial interests.

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Consequently, the majority of measures included in the Management Plan, were a compromise between access and sustainability in favour of access and therefore tried to ensure access, but reduce its impact on the environment. Therefore, included in the Plan were many proposals to increase and integrate public transport. These included new bus routes, a shuttle bus between Stanage Edge and local stations, park and ride schemes, co-ordination of buses with local trains, the encouragement of cycle access through the introduction of cycle lanes, and drop off points by the cliffs for special needs and elderly visitors and those with 8 heavy equipment, e.g. climbers and hang-gliders. As well as trying to reduce the amount of traffic into the estate, measures such as free and hidden parking outside the estate, with public transport connections, restricted parking and parking charges in the estate were also advocated to reduce the impact of access, but once again not to curtail it. Similarly environmentally sensitive access by all recreational users was also to be maintained by encouraging people to use recreational paths through improved education and information and the temporary fencing-off of key areas to ensure sufficient provision of essential food sources to birds. It was decided that money generated from the outdoor industries should be used to subsidise management of the area and public transport. The farm’s role was also redefined with the priority now being maintenance of the landscape rather than profit generation (PDNPA, 2002b). Therefore there is still evidence, from the Stanage Forum, of a link between deliberative democracy and environmental rationality. Although these decisions favour access over environmental sustainability many of these measures were still significant because they went directly against the original interests and preferences of many of the recreationalists, as set out in the first Forum. However, most of the recreationalists voted for these proposals in the fourth Forum, which indicates that preference change, to take into account environmental issues, did occur due to the deliberative process (PDNPA, 2002b). Therefore, although the participants in the Stanage Forum have not discarded their own interests in favour of environmental interests, they have at least realised, to a greater extent, how their interests and actions affect the environment and how their interests are connected to the environmental wellbeing of the area. This is what Eckersley predicted democratic deliberation on environmental issues might produce (Eckersley, 2000, p. 120). There were some more radical proposals included in the Management Plan which favoured environmental concerns above access, which further indicates this to be the case. For example the use of off road four-wheel drive and motor bike was banned. This was significant because it goes completely against the interests of those who participate in these 9 recreational activities. Other recreational pursuits that, although not as damaging to the environment as the use of motorized vehicles, still had a negative environmental impact had their activities restricted, but not banned. For example the access of hang-gliders and para8

As discussed above the problems in implementing this proposal has been trying to get local bus companies, none of which actually participated in the forum, to carry roof racks or trailers to transport recreational equipment. Consequently, the PDNPA has started running its own bus service with these features instead (PDNPA 2008c). 9 However, there were no representatives from these recreational groups in the Forum to articulate their reasons for maintaining this activity. This suggests if participants from a certain interest are not present their interests will not be protected by the other participants. (Having realised that by refusing to participate in the Forum they were effectively excluding themselves, associations representing these interests have participated in the review Forums and a compromise is being sought). However, it is also the motorised recreational pursuits that cause the most environmental damage, so it could also indicate an environmental rationality taking precedence over unlimited access.

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gliders was restricted to locations that did not affect anticipated bird breeding sites. Once again highlighting a growing ecological rationality, as the hang-gliders had been loathed to restrict their access at all when the Forum began. The Management Plan also included the development of designated areas for nature conservation, where access would be permanently restricted and localised temporary access restrictions and voluntary restriction on access to certain less visited areas during the bird breeding season. These measures were significant, because they demonstrate the change in preferences of the recreationalists, who were prepared to restrict their own access, at least to an extent, in favour of environmental considerations, following the debate in the Forums. Moreover, it shows that following the Forum debates they have acknowledged responsibility for environment damage and taken on the duty of environmental protection, which they were reluctant to do at the start of the process (PDNPA, 2002b). Despite this increasing awareness of environmental issues that deliberative democracy in the Stanage Forum produced, it seems apparent that in a deliberative democracy environmental values cannot be guaranteed to prevail; a claim that is supported elsewhere both theoretically (Goodin, 1992; Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 236), and empirically (Zwart, 2003). It is clear that although sustaining the ecology of the estate was seen as a common good, access to the estate was also seen as a common good, which indicates that there will often be more than one common good in any situation. A compromise between access and sustainability, more in favour of access, was the ultimate result. Although there is evidence to suggest that the Stanage Forum’s participant’s preferences have changed due to debate in the deliberative arena and that they have become more environmentally aware, this change is also limited as most participants were not willing to overly restrict their access. However, much of this analysis depends on one’s conception of sustainability, and it is not an objective concept (Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 247) or a ‘fixed goal’ (Niemeyer, 2004, p. 367). Therefore the most important contribution that deliberative democracy could make to environmentalism, and the synthesis between these two theories, is enabling public debate on the varying and competing interpretations of sustainability in a given context. If this is accepted then ‘there is a necessary link connecting an open view of sustainability and deliberative politics’ (Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 247). The Stanage Forum has, in varying degrees, approximated the norms of deliberative democracy, and enabled those with a stake in the North Lees Estate to do exactly this. The resulting vision of sustainability is one that aims to protect, preserve and enhance the local environment, but is also purely anthropocentric in that sustainability here also involves ensuring people get to enjoy this environment too.

CONCLUSION The current hegemony in environmental theory is that deliberative democracy will lead to the promotion of environmental sustainability. However, if this synthesisation is to occur deliberation must result in binding decisions. There are significant challenges to linking deliberative democracy with decision-making, which the case study of the Stanage Forum highlights. Ultimately many trade-offs need to be made between the ideal of deliberative democracy and its approximation in practice. Because these trade-offs, between ideal and practice, are to do with empirical necessities, which vary from situation to situation, the

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nature of the trade-offs will differ from context to context. Despite this, the Stanage Forum can help identify some general problems, and solutions, in relation to the various decisionmaking stages. Ideally the agenda would emerge through democratic deliberation itself. In reality it seems elites will play a significant role, although pressure for an agenda can also derive from civil society. In addition the pressure to make legitimate decisions means elites may well open formal routes for stakeholders to participate in agenda setting. This was the case in the Stanage Forum, where the PDNPA determined the broad agenda, with the specific agenda being determined through deliberation in the Forum. The agenda and nature of the decision is also determined by who participates in deliberation and decision-making. Ideally all affected should participate in collective deliberations, but there are significant problems with this in practice. Including all in a debate is logistically impossible and not all people want to participate, even in decisions in which they have a stake. Although decentralisation helps alleviate both of these problems, it cannot remove the need for representation. Within the Stanage Forum the key stakeholders were mainly represented through members of voluntary associations and through the Steering Group. The difficulties with these representative mechanisms included ensuring a balance of all views (which the theory of deliberative democracy demands), having clear lines of representation and accountability, and ensuring the representatives do not gain excessive and unaccountable power. It was in all these aspects that the Stanage Forum proved most unsuccessful, and where the greatest movement away from the deliberative ideal was experienced. More funding for the Forum could have alleviated these problems, at least to a degree, but there are tensions between these varying aims. The representative bodies could be elected by the Forum to establish principle-agent bonds and clear lines of accountability, but this could compromise the balance of views in the body. Ideally the procedures that regulate deliberation will be designed through democratic deliberation. The obvious regress here means that elites will inevitably play a role in procedure design, although this can be done in conjunction with citizen representatives, as was the case in the Stanage Forum. Broadly speaking, there are two choices in deliberative style; evidence and verdict. Evidence style deliberation is inclusive, consensual, with more chance of preference transformation, but it can suppress conflict, but ultimately seems more in line with the norms of deliberative democracy. Reasons will dominate deliberative exchanges, but other forms of communication, including greeting, rhetoric and storytelling, will also be prevalent. Logistical problems can necessitate the breaking down of a deliberative body into small fluid groups, but this can also reduce factions developing, and therefore facilitate preference change. The Stanage Forum also indicates that an interactive website is essential to ensure that all have access to all relevant information and reasons, can offer their own information and reasons, which might impact upon preferences, and to publicise the deliberations of representatives. Deliberative theorists dispute whether it is possible or desirable to have consensual decision-making. In the Stanage Forum no consensus was reached, despite this being the aim, but there was compromise on the overall aims and a vote taken on the specifics, after a period of deliberation. This led to a discursive dilemma of whether to ensure democratic responsiveness to the proposals that received majority support or to ensure rational compatibility between these proposals. The Stanage Forum opted for the latter, which further added to the importance of representative bodies, like the Steering Group used here.

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When it comes to implementing these decisions it seems likely that the stakeholders who participated in the decision-making process will assist, which will accommodate implementation. However, this can be significantly offset by powerful groups, who operate outside the forum process, and who benefit from maintaining the status quo. Consequently, the decentralisation of sufficient powers to such forums to enforce the decisions they make is absolutely essential. However, in systems of multi-level governance there will inevitably be conflicting sources of authority. Decisions must also be reviewed and changed in light of new reasons and information. This review process must also approximate the norms of deliberative democracy. However, the experience of the Stanage Forum suggests it is more difficult to sustain the same levels of participation in the review process, providing more opportunity for elites to dominate. Overall, trade-offs between theory and practice are essential and consequently the Stanage Forum is an approximation of deliberative democracy. This means analysis of its decisions can be employed to judge whether deliberative democracy will lead to sustainable decisions. Some of the decisions did reflect a greater environmental rationality, than was present at the start of the Forum, and participants certainly became more aware of how their behaviour impacts upon the environment. Ultimately though, environmental goods were compromised with other general goods, such as access, which was seen as the most important, and generalisable, good in this context. Therefore environmentally sustainable proposals, that went against access too excessively, were not accepted. Although much more empirical evidence is needed to establish this, the Stanage Forum case does indicate that Goodin (1992, p. 168) is right to argue that there is no necessary connection between deliberative democracy, environmental rationality and sustainable decisions, because the process cannot guarantee any outcome, even when environmental issues are on the agenda. Although environmental arguments were heard throughout the Stanage Forum, ‘to listen to is not necessarily to embrace’ (Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 238). People will not always find environmental arguments the most convincing. Environmental theorists are therefore asking deliberative democracy ‘to do more than it can deliver’ (Arias-Maldonado, 2007, p. 246), if they expect deliberative democracy and environmental sustainability to be synthesised in every context. However, ‘sustainability’ is not a fixed and objective concept, and should therefore be determined in each context through deliberative democracy. Environmental theorists are therefore right to see deliberative democracy as the most justifiable decisionmaking mechanism, but not because it can guarantee sustainable outcomes. The good news is that deliberative democracy can be approximated in practice, but we must learn from this practice to constantly strive to approximate it even closer.

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In: Community Participation and Empowerment Editors: M. F. Hindsworth, T. B. Lang

ISBN: 978-1-60692-189-0 © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 3

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES, POWERLESSNESS AND SOMATIC HEALTH IN A WELFARE STATE Odd Steffen Dalgard Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Department of Mental Health, Oslo, Norway

Bjørgulf Claussen Department of General Practice and Community Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway

Michael McCubbin Faculty of Nursing Sciences, Laval University, Quebec, Canada

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ABSTRACT Objectives A social gradient in somatic health is found all over Europe, and seems to be increasing. The objective of the present article is to explore the role of psychosocial factors, in particular the perception of powerlessness and lack of control over own life, as mediating factors between social status and somatic health in Norway.

Methods The study was based on the Oslo Health Survey, which was conducted during 2000 – 2001, covering all habitants in Oslo in the age groups 30, 40, 45, 59-60, and 75-76 years, 40 888 individuals. The response rate was 46 %. For the present study the age group 7576 years and immigrants from non-Western countries were excluded, resulting in a sample of 12 310. Data on health, psychosocial variables, including power/powerlessness and self-efficacy, life style and occupation were collected by a structured interview, whereas data on education and income was based on register information. Somatic health was measured as the sum of self- reported disorders, whereas social status was measured by the combination of education, income and occupational status.

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Results There was a social gradient in somatic health, which was substantially reduced when adjusting for powerlessness, other psychosocial variables and life style. Sense of powerlessness emerged as an explanatory factor at least as important as life style, and this effect seemed to a large extent to be mediated by psychological distress. The effect of self-efficacy was eliminated when adjusting for powerlessness, indicating that awkward social conditions, linked to low social status, rather than personality related traits, explained the social gradient in health.

Conclusion Powerlessness and lack of control over own life are important mediating factors between social status and somatic health, and this is explained by the actual life situation rather than the personality.

Keywords: Social inequalities in somatic health, psychosocial variables, life style, powerlessness

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INTRODUCTION The Norwegian welfare system has been known for its universal coverage and high benefit levels, and the country has been ranked on the top on the Human Development Index of 2007/2008 [1]. Even so, a social gradient with respect to mortality has been reported, and the social inequalities in health seems to be increasing [2, 3]. The present study will focus on morbidity, rather than mortality, and investigate possible mediating factors between social status and health. There are a number of suggested explanations for the social gradient in somatic health, based on variables related to both socio-economic status and somatic health. Life style is one set of possibly explanatory variables. Among the life-style factors smoking, lack of physical exercise and high Body Mass Index, which all show a social gradient and increase the risk of somatic disorder [4], have been in the centre of interest, but have been shown to explain only a part of the social gradient [5]. Psychosocial conditions are another set of variables (6). Among these, lack of social support [7-10], low social participation [11,12] and negative life events [13] have been in focus. Like the life style, these factors have all been shown to increase the risk for somatic disorders, and to show a social gradient [6]. Powerlessness and lack of control of own life has also been suggested as explanatory factors, and by some authors these factors have has been considered to be the most important one [14,15]. Lack of control of own life has been defined and measured in different ways, reflecting concepts like sense of mastery [16], locus of control [17], self-efficacy [18] and powerlessness [19]. Lack of self direction at work might also be included in this set of factors [20], which are all associated with low social status and increased risk of somatic illness [21, 22, 23, 24, 25]. Interesting parallels to the association between social status, control and health has been drawn to the association between power, autonomy and health related

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physiological reactions in the animal hierarchy [26]. Even if lack of control seems to contribute strongly to the social gradient in health, it is not clear what causes the lack of control, and exactly how lack of control influences health. Two major routes have been suggested to explain the association between social status and somatic health, one direct through stress, and one indirect through life style:

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1) Sustained stress, elicited by the feeling of powerlessness and helplessness, affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical and the sympathetic-adrenomedullary systems, which in turn affect health [14, 28]. 2) Life style factors, like smoking, lack of exercise and unhealthy eating habits, as a consequence of powerlessness and lack of control [27], affect health in a negative way. It has, however, also been suggested that control may affect health by a positive route: The good feeling of being in control, like optimism, may have a positive effect on health, irrespective of stress [29, 30]. Also in this case, physiological pathways have been suggested, with the immunological system as an important element. These mechanisms are, however, less explored and understood than the stress-mechanism. With respect to the causes of powerlessness and lack of control, negative learning experiences, with disproportions between effort and reward in the upbringing, has been suggested [31]. In this case the perception of control would be related to the personality, like a trait, and be rather stable over time. But lack of control could also be caused by the social structure, offering small possibilities for autonomy and self determination for those in the lower part of the social hierarchy [23]. In this case the perception of control could change over time, like a state, depending on the social conditions. Whereas self-efficacy and locus of control are commonly considered to be rather stable characteristics of the individual, sense of mastery, powerlessness, and lack of self-determination at work are more likely to reflect the actual social conditions. This means that the chosen measure of control in a study may have important implications for the interpretation of results. If for instance lack of self-efficacy seems to explain much of the social gradient in health, preventive interventions should be targeted toward the individual, aiming at “empowerment” and strengthening of coping abilities. If on the other side, sense of powerlessness, or lack of control at work, seems to be important explanatory variables, interventions should rather be targeted towards the social conditions. At present there are few studies investigating simultaneously the relative importance of the different sets of variables possibly explaining the social gradient in somatic health, especially with respect to morbidity, and few studies looking into the effect of different measures of control.

Aims of Present Study The aims of the study is to investigate the social gradient in somatic health in a large community sample, and to study the explanatory effect of powerlessness and lack of control, when adjusting for the effect of life style factors, social support, negative life events and psychological distress.

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Hypotheses We expect to find a social gradient in the occurrence of somatic disorders, in life style factors, social support, negative life events, lack of control, powerlessness and psychological distress. When statistically adjusting for life style factors and psychosocial factors, the social gradient in health is expected to be substantially reduced, and powerlessness is expected to play a major role as explanatory factor. As stress is supposed to be a proximal risk factor, mediating the effect of powerlessness and other psychosocial factors on somatic health, the effect of these factors is supposed to be substantially reduced when adjusting for psychological distress.

METHODS

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Sample The Oslo Health Survey was conducted during 2000-01 as collaboration between the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the University of Oslo and Oslo Municipality [32]. The population was all inhabitants in Oslo aged 30, 40, 45, 60 and 75 years, in total 40 888 persons. The response rate was 46%, yielding a study sample of 18 770. Attrition bias was studied by linking register-based data from Statistics Norway of demographics, lifestyle and social security grants to the whole population, showing that prevalence of chronic diseases was robust except for a slight bias due to low participation rate among immigrants, and that lifestyle estimates were not influenced by the low participation rate [32]. For the purpose of the present study with focus on the working population, the age group 30 – 60 years was chosen. Because of the special social situation of immigrants from low-income countries, only persons born in Norway, Western Europe and America were included. This left us with a study sample of 12 310. In this sample the response rate was as follows: Men: 30 years (32.2%), 40 years (37.6%), 45 years (39.9%), 59.60 years (53.4%). Women: 30 years (39.9%), 40 years (50.1%), 45 years (53.5%), 59-60 years (57.3%). Table 1. Somatic disorders by gender in the Oslo Health Survey. Absolute numbers(percent) Somatic disorder Bronchitis Asthma Osteoporosis Diabetes Cardiovascular disorder Fibromyalgia/pain Skin disorder

148 418 21 112 239 110 426

Men (2.7) (7.6) (0.4) (2.0) (4.3) (2.1) (9.9)

Women 236 (3.5) 686 (10.1) 165 (2.4) 89 (1.3) 105 (1.5) 538 (8.2) 662 (12.1)

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Variables

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Somatic Health Information on somatic health was based on the question: Do you have any of these illnesses, or have you suffered from them in the past? Yes/no. The following somatic illnesses were included as separate response categories: Asthma, chronic bronchitis/emphysema, diabetes, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia/chronic pain syndrome, cardiac infarction, angina pectoris, stroke/cerebral haemorrhage (“drip”). Skin disease was measured by a detailed questionnaire about various skin symptoms, which have been transformed into a validated scale [33]. In the present study the cut off point for caseness was 1.5 on the scale, indicating a clinical skin illness. Cardiac infarction, angina pectoris, and stroke/cerebral haemorrhage (“drip”) were collapsed into one dichotomous variable, cardiovascular disorder, with the categories “none” or “any”. The information on somatic health was then based on seven mainly chronic illnesses, and summarized into an index of number of illnesses reported. Social Status The classification of social status was based on self-reported occupation and register information on education and income. Level of education was split in five categories: primary [1] secondary [2] post-secondary [3] first stage tertiary [4] and second stage tertiary [5]. Income was also split in five categories: