Social Work Commons^™

Perceived Discrimination And Subjective Well-Being Among Rural-To-Urban Migrants In China, Juan Chen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Using data from a 2009 national household survey (N = 2,866), this study investigates the differential experience of perceived institutional and interpersonal discrimination among rural-to-urban migrants in China, and the consequences of these two types of discrimination on measures of subjective well-being. The results indicate that rural-to-urban migrants perceive institutional discrimination more frequently than interpersonal discrimination. However, perceived interpersonal discrimination has a more detrimental effect than perceived institutional discrimination for rural-to-urban migrants, and this effect takes the form of self-rated physical health and depressive distress. The research calls for a more equitable social environment and equal distribution of resources and …

Health Service Access For Rural People Living With Hiv/Aids In China: A Critical Evaluation, Xiying Wang, Xiulan Zhang, Yuebin Xu, Yurong Zhang

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The increasingly serious HIV/AIDS epidemic creates a significant burden for the public health system; however, little attention has been paid to the issue of health service access in rural China. Based on a qualitative study of 34 Chinese rural People Living with HIVIAIDS (PLWHA) and 13 health providers, this study fills a gap by examining health service access from both the demand and supply-side. Utilizing access theory, this study explores the availability, affordability and acceptability of health services in rural China. Moreover, this study focuses on access barriers and institutional obstacles that PLWHA meet during their illness and considers the …

Review Of Newcomers To Old Towns: Suburbanization Of The Heartland. Sonya Salamon. Reviewed By Joseph Deering., Joseph A. Deering

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Sonja Salamon, Newcomers to Old Towns: Suburbanization of the Heartland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. $35.00 hardcover.

The Poverty Of Hard Work: Multiple Jobs And Low Wages In Family Economies Of Rural Utah Households, Christina E. Gringeri

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The combination of paid work and poverty, or near poverty, is a growing problem in the United States, one of which is often accentuated by residence in rural, low-wage communities where underemployment is more prevalent than in metropolitan areas. This paper examines the experiences of sixty rural families with inadequate employment using data from ethnographic interviews with a particular focus on the strategies they use to meet their family's needs in spite of low-wage work.

Private Food Assistance In A Small Metropolitan Area: Urban Resources And Rural Needs, Joseph J. Molnar, Patricia A. Duffy, Latoya Claxton, Conner Bailey

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Food banks and other private feeding programs have become an institutionalized component of the social welfare system in over 190 urban areas in the U.S. More recently, private food assistance has gained importance in rural areas as well. The density and capacity of agencies to serve the poor is higher in urban areas than in sparsely populated rural locales where distance and dispersal tend to be barriers to supplying and accessing donated food. Rural food distribution strategies thus must be qualitatively different than those in larger communities, because of the smaller-scale, more informal distributional system. Little is known about how …

Review Of World's Apart: Why Poverty Persists In Rural America. Cynthia Duncan. Reviewed By William Rainford, University Of California, Berkely., William Rainford

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Cynthia Duncan, World's Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. $27.50 hardcover.

Review Of Social Work In Rural Communities. Leon H. Ginsberg (Ed.). Reviewed By Marie D. Hoff, Boise State University., Marie D. Hoff

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Leon H. Ginsberg (Ed.). Social Work in Rural Communities. Council on Social Work Education: Alexandria, VA. 1998. $17.00 papercover.

Improving The Quality Of Child Care In The Rural South, Margaret E. Griffin, R. Dwight Hare, Patrica A. Baggerly, Melinda M. Leftwich, Sue Standifer, Susan A. Elkins

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A collaborative of six social service agencies and a state university determined that the single most pressing need of families in a 14-county, rural area was child care. The Training Resource Center, developed through a W K. Kellogg Foundation grant, worked with day care licensing and early childhood professional groups to develop a plan to address the systemic nature of the problem of how to improve the quality of child care. Programs developed included training, mentoring, NAEYC accreditation, and a resource library. After 15 months, some programs show the possibility of sustainability.

Residualism And Rural America: A Decade Later, Steve Jacob, Fern K. Willits, Leif Jensen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Rural residents, more so than their urban counterparts are popularly believed to view the use of social welfare programs as appropriate only as last (residual) means of obtaining help. The extent to which this belief reflected reality was assessed by Camasso and Moore (1985) a decade ago using data from a 1980 survey of Pennsylvania residents. Congruent with the residualist hypotheses they found that rural residents were less supportive than urban people of social welfare programming, even when the effects of various personal sociodemographic characteristics were controlled. This paper replicates the workof Camasso and Moore by reporting findings from a …

Black Appalachian Families, Arthur J. Cox

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The black family in America has been subjected to social change more than the family of any other racial or ethnic group. An overview of its adjustment through successive crises of African transplantation, slavery, sudden emancipation, migration to cities and the vicissitudes of second-class citizenship help in understanding the black family's contemporary forms. The black family of Appalachia faces yet another problem - (INVISIBILITY)

Deinstitutionalization: A Review Of The Literature With Implication For Social Work Training And Practice In Rural Areas, Vicki Lawrence Young, John S. Wodarski, Jeffrey Giordano

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The manuscript reviews the social, legal, and political background of the deinstitutionalization movement, reviews successful programs for deinstitutionalized chronic mental patients in the major problem areas of socialization skills training, supportive living, interventions with families, vocational rehabilitation, and medication monitoring. Problems which prevent the successful replication of these programs in rural areas, such as differing characteristics of rural and urban clients, distance and travel, and staff attitudes are discussed. Implications for social work training and practice in rural areas include the increased need for paraprofessional staff development and supervision skills, ability to utilize and mobilize existing community helping networks, and …

Child Abuse In A Small City: Social Psychological And Ecological Correlates, Robert D. Gingrich, James R. Hudson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Child abuse has become a growing national concern. Its current status can be linked to the research by Kempe who identified the "battered child syndrome". Two models of explanation have been advanced; a medical and a social psychological. This study of 134 cases of child abuse in a small city employes the social psychological model and tests the hypothesis that social isolation is correlated with child abuse. Support for that hypothesis leads to an elaboration of the dynamics of social isolation with an emphasis on the absence of other persons with children from the milieu of the child abuse perpetrator …

Heritage And Politics Of Poverty And Inequality For Rural Women, Edith A. Cheitman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In the course of researching the subject of this paper I requested a computer literature search. Using sociological, economic and psychological data bases and a comprehensive list of descriptors, I was able to retrieve only five references. Of those, only one was of significant value to me in dealing with the specific issues involved in the oppression of rural American women.

The paucity of material available through so-called "legitimate" channels was, for me, a telling point. The worst kind of oppression and inequality occurs to groups that are, in effect, "invisible". If no one has identified rural women as an …

Factors Distinguishing Urban And Rural State Mental Hospital Patients In Florida, Elane M. Nuehring, Robert A. Ladner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study compares the patients of two state mental hospitals, one serving an urban region, the other a rural district. The purpose is to explore urban and rural patient differences on background, hospital history and experience, post-release living situation, use of community mental health services, and postrelease functioning. A summary attempt to distinguish urban from rural patients using discriminant function analysis established that rural-urban differences exist in symptom manifestation, the patient's personal and social environment, and institutional processing patterns. These patient differences have implications for the development of aftercare services.

Rural Sociology And Rural Social Work: An Historical Essay, Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The relationship between rural sociology and rural social work can be traced back to the days of the Country Life Commission (1908), and has experienced many fluctuations throughout the years. This paper examines the interconnections between the developments in the two fields, drawing from historical data which lead to che hypothesis that those fluctuations were caused by forces within each discipline as well as by developments affecting the interactions of each field with the other. It appears that academic and theoretical issues were not alone in causing contention in the relationship between rural sociology and the practice of rural social …

Public Perceptions Of Rural County Social Service Agencies, Robert W. Bilby, Robert Benson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Data gathered via interviews and mailed questionnaires in two rural counties in Western Wisconsin indicate that large segments of the general citizenry and "public opinion leaders" are generally more supportive of social services than common stereotypes suggest, while also voicing criticism of what are seen as inequities in the administration of services. Large majorities view social services as an institutionalized practice in American society, large segments hold negative views of recipients, and the samples studied are in general ill-informed about social service practices. Implications are drawn regarding public information programs aimed at better informing the public about social services.

The Socially Constructive Aspects Of Outside Agents In Community Decision-Making In A Rural Area, Barry R. Gordon, Daniel I. Rubenstein

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The "outside-change agent" is dangerous, something to be feared (based on past experiences, long since blurred by boredom and powerlessness) and not taken into the community. The outsider offers few, if any, tangible immediately useable resources -- only promises and fancy talk. Limited experience has taught the Appalachian that promises fade into misery and fancy talk to poverty. The self-fulfilling prophesy of inhospitality and disbelief in oneself, turn the Appalachian against the change agent and challenge the agent to leave the area out of self-felt persistent futility.

New Premises For Planning In Appalachia, Richard A. Ball

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Appalachian Region, particularly Southern Appalachia, has lived through several hundred years of frustration related to its history and geography. The history of the area has become better known during recent years, and it is a history of documented exploitation and socioeconomic disillusionment, a "biography of a depressed area" (Caudill, 1962). Geographically, the region has been regarded essentially as a barrier between the settled East and the fertile lands of the West, a place of rugged terrain and harsh conditions of life. This history and geography have played a large part in the problems which now afflict region and which …