Exploring learning in a small rural community

In Australia, residents in some rural areas in particular have taken up the concept of learning communities in an attempt to address changing and challenging economic and social circumstances (CRLRA 2001; ANTA 2002; Kearns 2005). Faris (2001, in Martin and Faris 2004: 2) defined a learning community as ‘a form of learning-based community development in which the concept of lifelong learning is explicitly used to mobilize the learning resources of all community sectors’.