Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies--1992.

Overview & Synopsis

This publication reports the major discussions at a conference that was held to improve the policy education efforts of extension workers responsible for public affairs programs. It begins with abstracts of the 22 presentations. Four papers deal with public policy education in the 1990s: "To Inform Their Discretion: Policy Education and Democratic Politics" (Briand); "Issues, Alternatives, and Consequences" (House); "The Case for Advocacy in Extension Public Policy Education" (Hite); "Limits of Public Policy Education" (Barron); and "An Extension Lay Leader's Reaction to the Morning Program" (Grezaffi). Ten papers are found in the section on agriculture and environmental policymaking--issues, actors, strategies: "Agriculture and the Environment in the 1990s: Changing Setting and Characteristics" (Zinn); "Right Versus Right--Finding Common Ground" (Campbell); "Agriculture and Environmental Policymaking: Issues, Actors, and Strategies--State Government Perspective" (Armstrong-Cummings); "Innovation in Environmental Policy Education through Coalitions: The Groundwater Policy Education Project" (Abdalla); "Initiating a Coalition for Groundwater Policy Education: Observations and Lessons from a Rural Iowa County" (Padgitt); "Groundwater Policy Education Project: North Carolina" (Danielson); "Emerging Rural Farm-Nonfarm Conflicts: Whose Preferences Count?" (Lohr, Harvey); "Wetlands and Endangered Species: Educational Assistance Needs of Extension Educators" (House, Greenway); "Resource Issues and Options--RIO: A Coordinated Approach to Education on Natural Resource Issues" (Cleaves, Reed); and "Public Policy Education for Wetlands Issues" (Johnson). In the section on the rural social infrastructure are these four presentations: "Reinvesting in the Social Infrastructure of Communities" (Harvey); "The State of the Rural Health Care System" (McDowell); "Alternatives and Consequences of Health Care Prototypes and Developing a Public Policy Education Program" (Fretwell, Feeney); and "Rural Elementary and Secondary Education: Funding and Allocation Issues" (Jones, McNamara). The section on domestic consequences of evolving international trade contains these three papers: "How NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Will Affect Agriculture in the United States: Regional Impacts" (Sumner); "International Trade Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Agriculture" (Sanders, Rosson); and "Social Indicators, Basebook, Baseline, and Indicator Model" (Womack). Other contents include lists of invited poster/display session topics and conference participants. (YLB)