ESRC research projects
Environmental skills and knowledge for sustainable rural communities: problems and prospects for the inclusion of young people
University of Exeter
Dr Michael Leyshon
- Investigates how community engagements are being fostered through rural communities.
- How does this engagement relate to the future of young people in rural areas?
- Particular focus on engagement of young people through voluntary programmes.
Managing the countryside for the purposes of environmental sustainability is one of the few sectors of the rural economy that can offer young people from rural areas the opportunity to live and work locally. It is also a means by which young people can be engendered with a sense of responsibility for, and involvement in, their locales.
Harnessed correctly, it is therefore a sector that has the potential to have a measurable effect, not only on the environmental health and well-being of rural areas, but also on their social fabric and economic prosperity. Yet how are community engagements being fostered through this sector, and how does it relate to a future for young people in rural areas?
The purpose of this research is to provide some answers to these difficult questions. In particular, through a combination of extended survey and in-depth qualitative research in two contrasting landscape regions, the project aims to assess how, and with what effect, young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are being engaged in the environmental sector through programmes of voluntary work.
The project:
- Considers the roles that environmental organisations play in enabling young people to develop environmental skills and knowledge, and how these are mediated through the work of other groups at the heart of sustainable community networks.
- Considers the extent to which synergies and partnerships between organisations (and their objectives) are being effectively realised, and the problems and constraints that shape and limit their work.
- Examines the motivations and disincentives of young people to participate in these activities and how experiences translate into aspirations to live and work in the countryside.
- Ultimately considers how far these processes go towards meeting the technical, applied and attitudinal competencies of paid occupations in this sector.
ESRC is the UK's largest research funding agency for social and economic issues.
