Educating Citizens About Controversial Issues: The Case of Suburban Goose Management

The authors explored how citizens reasoned to decide which management options were most appropriate for addressing concerns about an overpopulation of Canada geese in Rockland County, New York. Data were collected through a set of in-depth, semistructured interviews. The reasons respondents offered...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Society & natural resources 2002-08, Vol.15 (7), p.581-597
Main Authors: Lauber, T. Bruce, Knuth, Barbara A., Deshler, J. David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Branta canadensis
Canada
Citizen Participation
Decision Making
Goose Management
Management development
Natural resources
New York
Policy Making
Public education
Public Policy
Public Policy Education
Resource Management
Skills
U.S.A
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The authors explored how citizens reasoned to decide which management options were most appropriate for addressing concerns about an overpopulation of Canada geese in Rockland County, New York. Data were collected through a set of in-depth, semistructured interviews. The reasons respondents offered in support of management alternatives, and the assumptions they made in their reasoning, were identified during the analysis. Seven types of reasons used by citizens to support different management actions were detected, including who was responsible for a situation, who supported different management options, and what procedures were used to select a management option. Among some respondents, thinking about appropriate management options could be constrained unnecessarily by their skills at logical argument, their beliefs about knowledge, their own and others' choice of language to describe their perceptions, and their perceptions of other people. Based on these results, it would be worthwhile to expand the scope of what is normally addressed in public policy education efforts to address the most common assumptions that influence how people think about controversial resource issues.
ISSN:0894-1920
1521-0723
DOI:10.1080/08941920290069209