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Copyright of Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education is the property of Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Urban & Regional Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article will effectively place blame on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as it represents the latest Olympic host city to raise the stakes in matters of environmental protection and sustainability. Subject to isomorphic pressures operating within the organizational field, Bid Organizing Committees (BOCs) are encouraged to prescribe environmental programmes that are not only similar to, but are increasingly more ambitious than, previously successful bids. Rio's bid, by extension, represents the latest Olympic host city that has been driven to replicate, and then expand upon, elements of environmental protection and sustainability. This article will apply a range of institutional and organizational management theories to explain why BOCs have emerged as the actor responsible for enhancing the prospect of sustainability in the Olympic Movement while the International Olympic Committee's attempts at doing so have been considerably less effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Heightened inter-city competition for hosting sport mega-events has increased the involvement of levels of government. Governments are seeking to achieve public policy objectives using the sport mega-event as a vehicle to do so. The emergence of the concept of social leveraging is important to understand the involvement of host governments in attempts to amend, fast-track, or generate new public policy, curriculum, community programmes, and demonstration projects. This article presents a case study of the City of Vancouver's newly emerging post-Olympic Greenest City initiative. The purpose of this case study of social leveraging is to better understand this concept in the context of hosting the 2010 Olympic Games and the City of Vancouver's development of a sustainability business brand. This case study is explored according to Chalip [Chalip, L. (2006). Towards social leverage of sport events. Journal of Sport & Tourism, 11, 109–127. doi:10.1080/14775080601155126] and O'Brien and Chalip's [O'Brien, D., & Chalip, L. (2007a). Executive training exercise in sport event leverage. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 1, 296–304. doi:10.1108/17506180710824181; O'Brien, D., & Chalip, L. (2007b). Sport events and strategic leveraging: Pushing towards the triple bottom line. In A.G. Woodside & D. Martin (Eds.), Tourism management: Analysis, behavior, and strategy (pp. 318–338). Cambridge: CABI] framework of social leveraging. Case study analysis offers evidence that suggests that social leveraging does conceptualize the efforts by government hosts to maximize benefits from their intensive investments in sport mega-events. Findings also extend the exploratory framework of social leveraging by considering additional leverageable resources that government officials utilize, especially as these resources might fast-track policy objectives. Our research also suggests amending the sequence of and the parts of this framework in order to elaborate on social leveraging as an iterative rather than linear process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) adoption of a third pillar of the environment marked the prospect of a new standard in sustainable mega-events. In this article, case study research of a community-based coalition formed to monitor the sustainability mandate of the 2010 Olympic Games offers an inside view into community capacity building in the planning, organizing and hosting of mega-events. Evidence of community capacity building was gathered from video, questionnaires and participant observations of this coalition. According to a conceptual framework of community capacity, the evidence suggests that, although a mega-event's sustainability mandate is a good prospect for community capacity, precise timing, binding commitments and clear consequences for mega-event organizers are necessary for a community-based coalition to gain capacity. A generative model of the conditions for building community capacity is proposed to promote successful mega-events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of growth machines and urban regimes have informed the study of urban political economy for more than three decades, but these theories remain focused on intra-urban processes. Using a case study of the bidding process and the planning of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, we explore the transnational dimensions of the urban growth machine and explore common aspects between the growth machine and regime theory literature and the literatures on the entrepreneurial city and transnational urban policy transfers. Through its evolving networks with other urban regimes, Vancouver's growth machine provides a ready forum in which local elites can acquire specialized knowledge on new urban entrepreneurial strategies elsewhere. Actors situated in different parts of the local growth machine are establishing various connections with urban regimes in other cities, in what is best understood as a nascent growth machine diaspora. Growth machine and regime theories remain valid in their basic conceptualization and maintain their strength through their adaptability to various contexts, but can be enriched by analyses of policy circuits, travelling theories and learning networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall purpose of this study was to assess whether interaction with a regionally based computer simulation software tool, Gb-Quest, was an effective tool for learning about sustainability. A questionnaire was administered to 189 participants, before and after attending a workshop on Gb-Quest. Factor analysis was used to determine the factor structure of the three scales used in this study. Seven variables were identified and were examined for group differences (gender, age, and whether or not they were Canadian born). In particular, younger individuals and males were more likely to endorse the view that the earth is being destroyed by humans. In addition, Canadian-born individuals were more likely to endorse the consumption of environmentally friendly products, but less likely to be supportive of development and using public transportation. We also examined change for each of the variables and found that Gb-Quest had an effect on all of them. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors propose a more precise and encompassing definition of case study than is usually found. They support their definition by clarifying that case study is neither a method nor a methodology nor a research design as suggested by others. They use a case study prototype of their own design to propose common properties of case study and demonstrate how these properties support their definition. Next, they present several living myths about case study and refute them in relation to their definition. Finally, they discuss the interplay between the terms case study and unit of analysis to further delineate their definition of case study. The target audiences for this paper include case study researchers, research design and methods instructors, and graduate students interested in case study research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a cultural model approach to interpret and analyse the impact of an interactive computer simulation tool (GB-Quest) on the possibility of fostering dialogue about sustainability in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. We define cultural models theory, compare cultural models to mental models and illustrate some basic features of cultural models. We then describe the research process in which participants engaged in conversation, guided and facilitated by GB-Quest, about sustainability. Findings suggest that the use of cultural models frameworks reinforces participants' understanding of sustainability. In reflecting on their prior models of sustainability, we argue that study participants can elucidate how cognitive conceptual resources reflect publicly shared knowledge (Turner, 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a detailed description of the in-field experience of using community mapping as a participatory action research tool with youth. It describes a case study, the Youth Friendly Health Services project (YFHS project), in which a team of Vancouver youth carried out a participatory evaluation of health clinics by mapping out criteria for evaluation and then creating an evaluation tool based on the maps that were created. Community mapping proved to be an inclusive and appropriate tool to engage youth perspectives. The major challenges faced in the process were in determining how to represent and act upon the findings of the mapping process. Their experience suggests that while such innovative data collection tools such as community mapping can successfully engage youth, not just as participants, but as facilitators of research, they must be accompanied by equally creative and innovative approaches to formulating research results and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]