Developing Communities Through Learning: Demonstrating Impact (Education in a Competitive and Globalizing World)

Increasingly, those who work with communities are required to demonstrate the impact of what they do for purposes that include evaluation, self-evaluation and demonstrating the evidence of impact for funders. This book is for professionals from any discipline who choose to work with individuals or groups in a community setting and who wish to show that their practice has an impact, where impact is defined as a strong effect or influence on participants. The purpose of the book is to explore the complexity of demonstrating impact in a context where the learning is frequently informal and where outcomes are complex, multifaceted and difficult to pin down. An individual’s journey in his or her learning is idiosyncratic and often unpredictable. The book explores ways to think about demonstrating impact in community settings, and draws on the contrasting perspectives and experiences of the editors, all of whom draw on their experience of work with communities in different ways. The book a