36,951 research outputs found
Flow and cooperative learning in civic game play
Flow theory offers an individualistic explanation of media enjoyment, while cooperative learning theory posits a social explanation for enhanced learning in groups. This classroom-based experimental study examines whether game players can experience both conditions and the influence of each on several types of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. We find that high quality cooperative learning contributed to acquiring civic knowledge and skills. In contrast, flow was more influential for developing dispositions to empathy and interest in learning more about the game topics. Thus, we conclude that players can experience flow while engaged in cooperative learning, but that these two conditions may support different kinds of civic learning
Localized Learning and Social Capital The Geography Effect in Technological and Institutional Dynamics
Providing a concise working definition of social capital, this conceptual paper analyses why social capital is important for learning and economic development, why it has a regional dimension, and how it is created. It argues that with the rise of the Knowledge Economy, social capital is becoming valuable because it organizes markets, lowering business firmsâ costs of coordinating and allowing them to flexibly connect and reconnect. Thus, it serves as a social framework for localized learning in both breadth and depth. The paper suggests that a range of social phenomena such as altruism, trust, participation, and inclusion, are created when a matrix of various social relations is combined with particular normative and cognitive social institutions that facilitate cooperation and reciprocity. Such a matrix of social relations, plus facilitating institutions, is what the paper defines as âsocial capitalâ. The paper further suggests that social capital is formed at the regional (rather than national or international) level, because it is at this level we find the densest matrices of social relations. The paper also offers a discussion of how regional policies may be suited for promoting social capital.Social capital, knowledge economy, regional dimension
Mud Creek Urban Nonpoint Source Demonstration
Northwest Arkansas is the seventh fastest developing area in the nation. The conversion of rolling pastureland into paved city streets, parking lots, and buildings within this rapidly urbanizing region is reducing infiltration and intensifying stormwater runoff. In the city of Fayetteville alone, the population increased from 42,099 to 58,163 between 1990 and 1999, moving the city across the population threshold which will require the Phase II Stormwater Permit process. Approximately half of Fayetteville is included in the Illinois River Watershed, which has been identified as the third highest priority watershed in need of restoration in the state of Arkansas. Mud Creek, an urban tributary to the Illinois River, receives half of the treated effluent from the Fayetteville municipal wastewater treatment plant in addition to capturing residential and commercial runoff in Northeast Fayetteville. Pollutants including sediment, nutrients, bacteria and chemicals can be channeled off residential lawns, parking lots, and construction sites, through stormdrains, and into area water resources. For these reasons, the Mud Creek sub-basin of the Illinois River was the focus of an EPA 319(h) grant-funded project focusing on urban NPS prevention education. The Mud Creek Project was the first of itâs kind in Arkansas to target urban audiences, promoting their role and responsibility in improving and protecting the water quality in an urbanizing watershed
Corruption Drives the Emergence of Civil Society
Peer punishment of free-riders (defectors) is a key mechanism for promoting
cooperation in society. However, it is highly unstable since some cooperators
may contribute to a common project but refuse to punish defectors. Centralized
sanctioning institutions (for example, tax-funded police and criminal courts)
can solve this problem by punishing both defectors and cooperators who refuse
to punish. These institutions have been shown to emerge naturally through
social learning and then displace all other forms of punishment, including peer
punishment. However, this result provokes a number of questions. If centralized
sanctioning is so successful, then why do many highly authoritarian states
suffer from low levels of cooperation? Why do states with high levels of public
good provision tend to rely more on citizen-driven peer punishment? And what
happens if centralized institutions can be circumvented by individual acts of
bribery? Here, we consider how corruption influences the evolution of
cooperation and punishment. Our model shows that the effectiveness of
centralized punishment in promoting cooperation breaks down when some actors in
the model are allowed to bribe centralized authorities. Counterintuitively,
increasing the sanctioning power of the central institution makes things even
worse, since this prevents peer punishers from playing a role in maintaining
cooperation. As a result, a weaker centralized authority is actually more
effective because it allows peer punishment to restore cooperation in the
presence of corruption. Our results provide an evolutionary rationale for why
public goods provision rarely flourishes in polities that rely only on strong
centralized institutions. Instead, cooperation requires both decentralized and
centralized enforcement. These results help to explain why citizen
participation is a fundamental necessity for policing the commons.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures (Press embargo in place until publication
Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach
Cooperation is of utmost importance to society as a whole, but is often
challenged by individual self-interests. While game theory has studied this
problem extensively, there is little work on interactions within and across
groups with different preferences or beliefs. Yet, people from different social
or cultural backgrounds often meet and interact. This can yield conflict, since
behavior that is considered cooperative by one population might be perceived as
non-cooperative from the viewpoint of another.
To understand the dynamics and outcome of the competitive interactions within
and between groups, we study game-dynamical replicator equations for multiple
populations with incompatible interests and different power (be this due to
different population sizes, material resources, social capital, or other
factors). These equations allow us to address various important questions: For
example, can cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma be promoted, when two
interacting groups have different preferences? Under what conditions can costly
punishment, or other mechanisms, foster the evolution of norms? When does
cooperation fail, leading to antagonistic behavior, conflict, or even
revolutions? And what incentives are needed to reach peaceful agreements
between groups with conflicting interests?
Our detailed quantitative analysis reveals a large variety of interesting
results, which are relevant for society, law and economics, and have
implications for the evolution of language and culture as well
Ten Years of Community Profiles in New Hampshire
Through a program called Community Profiles, the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension has helped 57 New Hampshire communities develop a vision for their future and mobilize local residents to act on that vision. The Community Profile process is based on the premise that communities must engage members in identifying and documenting common and deeply held values from which to craft a vision for the future if they are to build and sustain community vitality. The process also helps communities find new and creative ways to pursue that vision by leveraging resources within and outside of the community. These resources include individual skills, local organizational capacity, and local, state, and regional institutional-support structures. Since creating and pursuing a vision is a challenge for communities that often rely on volunteers, the Community Profiles program was conceived to help them achieve these functions. Community Profiles is, in essence, a process that enables community residents to take stock of current conditions, build a collective set of goals for their future, and develop an action plan for realizing that vision. In the past 10 years, UNH Cooperative Extension has helped nearly a quarter of the stateâs incorporated cities and towns conduct Community Profiles. This retrospective shares with our stakeholders the various successes that communities have had as a result of the process. This publication was inspired by stories emerging from Community Profiles conducted between 1996 and 2006 in 42 communities. The communities selected for this report were either particularly successful at carrying out the Community Profiles process, or they achieved positive outcomes as a result of the process. Through this report we will tell their stories and illustrate how these and other communities can work together to shape their future through persistence, creativity and teamwork
Multilevel Fiscal Governance in a Balanced Policy Environment
The most desirable system of allocations should avoid effi ciency losses, resulting from either fi nancial dependency, or subnational fi scal operations by striking a balance between fi scal autonomy and reliance on federal transfers of SNGs.fiscal federalism; intergovernmental relations; tax policy; fiscal governance.
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