SUPPORT PROGRAMS

Postgraduate Student Profile

Maragaret Gooch: Volunteering - linking social capital, learning, and environmental care

Back to main Postgraduates Page

Supervisors

• Professor John Fien Griffith University

CRCCH project links

• Project 8.2 - Public Participation and Community Change

Personal background

• BSc (Australian Environmental Studies)
• Dip Teach, Griffith University
• MSc (Tropical Ecology), James Cook University, North Queensland
• CRCCH PhD student, Faculty of Australian Environmental Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Qld

Anticipated research outcomes/products

• The purpose of my research is to strengthen volunteer effectiveness within community-based water quality monitoring programs in Queensland
• The specific goal is to identify relationships between social learning, social capital building, and the attributes of effective water quality monitoring groups in Queensland

Particular research questions are:

1. To what extent do group attributes influence the perceived effectiveness of Queensland community-based water quality monitoring programs and their key stakeholders?
2. How do members of community-based water quality monitoring programs in Queensland contribute to social learning and social capital building?
3. How might the experience of volunteering for an effective community-based water quality monitoring group or program relate to social learning and social capital?
4. How might the effectiveness of community -based water quality monitoring programs be strengthened?

“I have a personal interest in volunteerism, particularly in the area of environmental care. In voluntary organisations, people tend to collectively share problems and work towards solutions, which individually they might not be able to do - in the words of Milbrath (1989), they are 'learning their way out'. I hope that through my study, Queensland community-based water quality monitoring groups gain the long-term support they need to continue building bridges between other groups, and all levels of government. Through the processes of social learning and social capital building, both the community and the environment should benefit.”

Contact