Educating the Individual or the Collective?

Paulo Freire, Eduard Lindeman and others have reminded us that some problems must be dealt with collectively-they can't be solved solely through individual educational efforts. For many social problems, the educational effort must focus on the collective, on the community, rather than on individuals.1

Most of Extension's educational efforts since World War II have centered on changing individuals. While Extension educators frequently work with groups, the focus is on the individual. The intent is usually to help individual decision making or promote individual self-improvement. This individualized approach has been particularly effective in disseminating agricultural technology and research. Agricultural innovations have been taught to individuals, and through various diffusion paths these innovations have been extended throughout the agricultural sector.2

Extension's current focus on issues-based programming is forcing a re-examination of this approach and the consideration of additional options. The expert-to-individual model of education can benefit the person who interacts with the expert, but Extension doesn't have the resources to use that model everywhere a need exists. This approach won't produce the broad- based societal impacts Extension is now trying to achieve.

Issues, by definition, are public problems.3 Their solutions will require public, or collective, change. Individual or private change isn't enough. Extension must focus more of its efforts on education for collective change-that is, change in the systems and policies that affect the public. Sauer says:

...Extension must become involved in community action, allying with local citizens in influencing lawmakers and developing policies.4

Whether you label this approach as social action, advocacy, policy education, or politics, it means a much more public role for Extension.

Is it appropriate for Extension educators to engage in policy work, in collective change? Yes. Has it been done before? Yes indeed. One of the best examples was the significant public role played by Extension in the federal agricultural programs of the 1930s. The local interpretation and implementation of a variety of important public policies were largely in the hands of county agricultural agents, and the development of those policies were directly influenced by the advocacy role played by state Extension directors and specialists.5 Extension efforts on behalf of policy change were also demonstrated in Minnesota in the 1950s, when county agents held 835 public meetings to educate farmers and circulate petitions supporting state help for brucellosis testing of cattle herds.6

Contemporary examples of Extension staff working to change public systems and policies are found within Minnesota Extension's Youth and Families at Risk Initiative, where staff have been actively engaged in youth policy work. At the state level, Extension youth faculty have actively worked for legislative changes on behalf of youth. In 1991, those efforts led to the enactment of state policies that established a formal role for youth on school boards, and created an $8 million learning readiness program for needy four-year-olds.

At the local level, agents have joined with community coalitions to convince school administrators to permit teen volunteers to do sex education in schools, and have helped establish policies creating in-school day care for teen parents. They've worked to create opportunities for youth membership on community boards and commissions, and have advocated with community officials for the establishment of various youth- focused programs, facilities, and organizations.

Should Extension faculty work towards public policy changes? Do they? Look at your own state, both today and yesterday. Once Extension championed public policies on behalf of rural electrification and brucellosis testing. Today, Extension works for collective, public change in the way we treat children. Tomorrow, Extension may target policies involving water quality, waste management, or alternative agriculture.

Effective issues-based programming will require Extension staff to become more strategic, more focused, more articulate, and yes, more political. Educating for collective change involves organizing coalitions and working with citizen groups, contributing to the public debate, providing access to information, and targeting public decision makers for educational intervention. To act publicly also means Extension staff must be willing to be publicly accountable. Meyers and Pigg say it well:

To become both effective and relevant, Extension must become willing to stand and act on the side of an issue with involved constituents, not merely to offer supposedly impartial information to whomever will avail themselves of it.7

Using Extension education to affect public issues is a bit like using fluoride to fight tooth decay. Fluoride can be used by individuals through toothpaste or through visits to the dentist's office. It can also be used by an entire community when it's added to the public water system. If we rely only on toothpaste and the dentist, some people will never benefit from fluoride. Extension must give more attention to public policies and systems. We must shift our priorities from serving individual needs to solving collective problems.

1. Jerold W. Apps, "Wanted: Educators with Convictions," Adult Learning, I (September 1989), 13.

2. Everett Rodgers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York: Free Press, 1983).

3. K. A. Dalgaard and others, Issues Programming in Extension (Washington, D.C.: USDA, ECOP, and Minnesota Extension Service, 1988).

4. Richard Sauer, "Meeting the Challenges to Agricultural Research and Extension," American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, V (No. 4, 1990),184-87.

5. W. D. Rasmussen, Taking the University to the People: Seventy-Five Years of Cooperative Extension (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989).

6. Roland Abraham, Helping People Help Themselves: Agricultural Extension in Minnesota, 1879-1979 (St. Paul: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Extension Service, 1986).

7. James Meyers and Kenneth Pigg, "Redefining Education for Action: Issues Programming in Extension," The Rural Sociologist , X (Summer 1990), 42-45.