Public Issues Education

Abstract

ublic Issues Education (PIE) is a term used in the Cooperative Extension Senice to describe a range of multi-party approaches for addressing public issues, from formal conflict resolution procedures to coalition-building and collaborative problem solving. Although some of these activities m part of Cooperative Extension's community education tool kit from its inception, there is a renewed awmness of their potential importance today Among the societal changes making PIE especially relevant today m: the recognition of tradeoffs (read "conflict") among agriculture, environment and development; the advent of new agricultural technologies and/or production practices that address certain problems or productivity constraints, while raising other concerns about social, environmental or community impacts; an appreciation of the potential benefits of collaboration in relation to community and economic development, public health and human/social senices; budgetary and policy changes at state and federal levels that devolve some responsibilities to localities; and an appreciation that many public issues cannot be resolved by government alone, but q u i r e the active involvement of interested and affected parties from the community.cooperatve Extension's community education tool kit, the highly decentralized nature of the system at state and local levels makes it diffiDespite these indications that PIE might be flourishing in cult to know the nature and extent of PIE taking place, the constraints it faces and the requirements for strengthening this form of programming at the local level. The results of a statewide survey in New York, and intensive experiences in one of its regions highlights these issues, and some key tensions and dilemmas that may be relevant in other states, as well. k shown in Table 1, PIE is most commonly involved in natural resource or environmental issues (cited by 40 of the 50 county offices), followed by agriculture (27 counties) and community and economic development (29 counties). PIE is also mentioned frequently in relation to programs for Youth and Family (22 counties), but much less frequently for Nutrition and Food (12 counties) or Health (9 counties). It is unclear to what extent the variation across program azeas &lects the awmness of the respondent, the visibilitylpriority attached to certain program m a s by the respondent or the actual distribution of PIE across these mas. However, the overall results do suggest a high degree of involvement in some type of group processes across the state.