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The poor performance of public agricultural extension systems in developing countries engendered interest in pluralistic concepts of extension involving a variety of service providers. Within the reform agenda, modalities relying on private‐sector providers were perceived as a path to improvement. This paper aims to assess the potential and limitations of such modalities.

The paper discusses the conceptual underpinnings of these extension approaches, highlights theoretical and practical challenges inherent in their design, and provides an assessment of several performance‐based case studies described in the formal and informal literature.

Many of the modalities reviewed entail partnerships between the public sector, farmers' organizations or communities, and private‐sector providers. The paper concludes that while private‐sector participation can overcome some of the deficiencies of public extension systems, there are also challenges that have been faced, including misuse of public funds, insufficient accountability to farmers, inequitable provision of service, inadequate quality, and limited coverage of the wide range of farmers' needs.

The review suggests that private‐sector involvement in extension is no panacea. Extension systems need not be uniform, and will require different providers for different clienteles, with public providers and funding focusing more on smaller‐scale and less commercial farmers. The public sector may need to provide some regulatory oversight of private‐sector extension activities, particularly when public funding is involved.

The paper draws conclusions from a diverse range of experiences, some of which are recent, and provides comparative insights. It may be of interest to development scholars and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and identify the indicators of institutional barriers hindering the technology transfer training (TTT) process behind the technology adoption lag affecting the agricultural output in India through development of a scale.

Quantitative technique has been followed for data collection through a close-ended questionnaire scored on the seven-point Likert scale. The sample size was considered as 161; target respondents were farmers and farmer-centric individuals. Data were analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis technique.

Factor analysis revealed that there are three significant factors related to TTT process, namely, comprehension, customization and generalization, which are liable for institutional barriers in technology adoption by farmers.

The main limitation is biasness from both respondents’ end and interviewer’s end might exist during survey due to differences in perception.

The key beneficiaries from this research are the small and marginal farming community in India. They can enhance their productivity through an appropriate training process. Corporates will show interest in investment through the mechanism of corporate social responsibility.

Under this study, the factors of the institutional barriers from the farmers’ perspective are being introduced as a new research contribution, especially for the resource crunch area of Jangalmahal and other similar places in India.

At Shepparton in the Murray electorate of Victoria in 2007, the Federal Liberal Member, Sharman Stone, announced that under a returned Coalition Government, Shepparton ‘would get a stand‐alone technical college’. One year earlier, the Victorian Minister for Education, Lynn Kosky claimed that ‘We lost something when technical schools [the ‘techs’] were closed previously. Yes, the facilities were not great but we lost something that was important to young people’. This article explores the development and demise of ‘South Tech’, Shepparton South Technical School, 1966‐86 to identify the ‘something’ that Kosky claimed was lost, and to argue that technical education is essential in a reconstituted system.

This chapter explores the potential of African American male faculty and staff members to serve as mentors to high-profile African American male student-athletes at large, predominantly White institutions (PWIs) of higher education. These students are a large and very visible subset of the African American male student population at these institutions and often influence how African American male students are viewed and treated by other faculty, students, and the university communities at large. Based on empirical research and combined classroom and administrative experience of over 35 years, this chapter will present the issues that African American male student-athletes face as they transition into these institutions utilizing the athletic identity, transition, and mentoring frameworks and provide solutions for administrators and faculty members to use in their efforts to help guide these students toward achieving athletic, academic, and personal success.

SEPTEMBER this year will be unique in the history of the librarian in England in that for the first time in nearly sixty years the annual conference of the Library Association has already become a memory only. There are those who profess to believe that the conference should be restored to the autumn months. It may be suggested on the other hand that the attendance at Margate lent no assistance to that point of view; indeed, the Margate conference was one of the most pleasant, one of the most successful, of which we have record. Nevertheless, if it can be proved that any large body of librarians was unable to be present owing to the change of month, it appears to us that the matter should be considered sympathetically. Although no one holds any longer the view that one week's attendance at a conference will teach more than many months' study in hermit‐like seclusion—the words and sentiments are those of James Duff Brown—because to‐day there is much more intimate communication between librarians than there was when that sentiment was expressed, there is enormous value, and the adjective is not an exaggeration, in one large meeting of librarians in body in the year. It is an event to which every young librarian looks forward as the privilege to be his when he reaches a high enough position in the service; attendance is a privilege that no librarian anywhere would forego. And this, in spite of the fact that there is usually a grumble because the day is so full of meetings that there is very little chance of such recreation as a seaside, or indeed any other, place visited, usually provides for the delegates.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals face an elevated level of prejudice in various social settings like sports. These biases can relate to internalized stigma, which might prompt LGBTQ+ athletes to implement numerous identity coping strategies. Muslim LGBTQ+ athletes are likely to experience these dynamics more than others. However, there remains a dearth of scholarship on understanding how Muslim LGBTQ+ athletes employ different identity development coping strategies to tackle the prevalent stigma against them and use their visible identity development process as a means of social activism. Hence, in this book chapter, the authors explore the development of Muslim LGBTQ+ sportspersons' visible identity by defining the forces that shape their identity. The first author of the book chapter sheds light on his experiences while working with the LGBTQ+ community in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and his recent interactions with the Muslim LGBTQ+ community in North America. The authors then highlight how Muslim LGBTQ+ athletes might use different identity coping strategies to show personal agency against the heteronormative system. Furthermore, the authors elucidate how sexual orientation intersects with religion within the sociocultural domain in shaping the identity and present global Muslim LGBTQ+ identity typology. Finally, the authors argue that Muslim LGBTQ+ athletes' visible identity depends upon two factors: religious negative/positive self-beliefs about religion Islam's openness toward LGBTQ+ rights and social acceptance, bounded by time and space.

Empirical studies reveal Black male student-athletes have both positive and negative experiences on predominantly White college and university campuses. Mindful also of race-based stereotypic beliefs about Black male student-athletes in collegiate sports, these phenomena warrant further discourse and scrutiny. Critical race theory is a race-centered theoretical and analytical framework that has shaped discourse on race and racism in intercollegiate athletics in recent years. Discourse in this chapter is therefore grounded in the narrative of critical race theory and focuses primarily on the academic and athletic plight of Black male student-athletes matriculating at predominantly White colleges and universities with National Collegiate Athletic Association affiliation.