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Full-Text Articles in Rural Sociology
Model Learning Outcomes For Introductory Rural Sociology: A Proposal And Rationale, Jennifer Steele
Model Learning Outcomes For Introductory Rural Sociology: A Proposal And Rationale, Jennifer Steele
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
While rural sociologists have demonstrated their commitment to sharing ideas about teaching approaches and methods, they have given less systematic attention to the content of introductory rural sociology and its connections to the field’s mission of improving rural well-being. The purpose of this note is to make a case for developing model learning outcomes for introductory rural sociology and to present an organizing framework and sample outcomes for initiating discussion. First, a rationale for using learning outcomes as the means of sharing professional expectations is presented. Next, the methods used to arrive at a proposed organizational framework are described. It …
The Mobile Bay Watershed Project: An Experiment In Collaborative Learning About The Social Construction Of Environmental And Natural Resource Problems, Michelle Worosz
The Mobile Bay Watershed Project: An Experiment In Collaborative Learning About The Social Construction Of Environmental And Natural Resource Problems, Michelle Worosz
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
A collaborative research project was developed for a multidisciplinary class of advanced undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Sociology of Natural Resources and the Environment. The goals of the project were to determine the feasibility of offering an experiential learning opportunity and to explore its usefulness in enhancing students’ thinking about the social constructedness of natural resource and environmental (NRE) problems. The context was the Mobile Bay watershed, which is the site of a variety of concerns such as land use, pollution, and habitat destruction. To explore these types of problems, students completed a series of assignments including a media …
Rural Leadership And Legacy: Partnering For Progress, Patricia Hyjer Dyk
Rural Leadership And Legacy: Partnering For Progress, Patricia Hyjer Dyk
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the Southern Rural Sociological Association, Orlando, FL, February 6, 2006
On Innovation In Teaching Rural Sociology, Keiko Tanaka
On Innovation In Teaching Rural Sociology, Keiko Tanaka
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Introduction to the special issue
Taking The Sustainable Agriculture Challenge: Recontextualizing Rural Sociology, Betty L. Wells
Taking The Sustainable Agriculture Challenge: Recontextualizing Rural Sociology, Betty L. Wells
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Agroecosystems Analysis (SusAg 509), a required course for all majors in Iowa State University’s Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture, provides an immersion experience in the situated challenges of sustainable agriculture. The field portion of SusAg 509, which takes place every year during the first two weeks of August, brings students face-to-face with different understandings of sustainability and the diverse complexity of Midwestern agriculture. Dialogue and reflection turn the raw stuff of experience into learning, as students discover the power and validity of multiple perspectives. More than two dozen site visits help make abstract concepts, such as the economy and social …
Paradoxical Perceptions Of Problems Associated With Unconventional Natural Gas Development, Gene L. Theodori
Paradoxical Perceptions Of Problems Associated With Unconventional Natural Gas Development, Gene L. Theodori
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Data collected in a general population survey from a random sample of individuals in two counties located in the Barnett Shale region of Texas were used to empirically explore potentially problematic issues associated with unconventional natural gas development. Moderate support was found for the hypothesis that individuals residing in places with diverse levels of energy development exhibit dissimilar perceptions of potentially problematic issues. The results indicate residents of the county where the natural gas industry was more mature (Wise County) were significantly more likely than residents of the county where the natural gas industry was less established (Johnson County) to …
Editor's Concluding Comments, D. Clayton Smith
Editor's Concluding Comments, D. Clayton Smith
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Editor’s Concluding Remarks
Assessing Introductory Rural Sociology, Joseph F. Donnermeyer, Benjamin Gray
Assessing Introductory Rural Sociology, Joseph F. Donnermeyer, Benjamin Gray
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
This article reports on the results of an assessment of an introductory rural sociology course offered at two land-grant universities, which are very different in size. These institutions are North Carolina A&T State University and The Ohio State University. The authors use similar assessment tools, including an embedded pre and post test of knowledge gained, students’ written comments to open-ended questions administered at the end of term about the quality of the class and the instructors, and the traditional, standardized Student Evaluation of Instruction, an instrument used across many universities. In addition, at OSU, a small group diagnostic of students …
Sharing Water Internationally, Past, Present And Future—Mexico And The United States, John M. Donahue, Irene J. Klaver
Sharing Water Internationally, Past, Present And Future—Mexico And The United States, John M. Donahue, Irene J. Klaver
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Conflicts over the sharing of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo and Colorado Rivers between the United States and Mexico are usually understood in spatial terms. In this paper we argue for the need to add a temporal horizon. A larger historical context will reveal that water management, including water allocation and river politics, has always been influenced by larger social-political and cultural frameworks. These temporal shifts are sequential, but overlapping so that current policies as cultural constructs operate within the framework of previous treaty obligations though the historical contexts have changed. The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo is still defined as a border …
"To Come Of Age In A Dry Place": Infrastructures Of Irrigated Agriculture In The Mexico-U.S. Borderlands, Casey Walsh
"To Come Of Age In A Dry Place": Infrastructures Of Irrigated Agriculture In The Mexico-U.S. Borderlands, Casey Walsh
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
In the Mexico-U.S. borderlands the social uses of water are changing as the focus of the economy shifts slowly from agriculture to industry and services. This article discusses the changes to the physical and social infrastructures erected during the first half of the twentieth century to support a regime of accumulation based in irrigated cotton. Infrastructure is proposed as a particularly useful concept for drawing connections between these social, economic, and cultural changes, and emphasizing their materiality. The article draws upon the Social Structures of Accumulation and Regulation School literatures to explain the dynamics revealed through historical and ethnographic research …
One Decade Of Drought And Two Of Neoliberal Reforms In The Sierra Sonorense: Responses By The Rural Poor, Marcela Vásquez-León
One Decade Of Drought And Two Of Neoliberal Reforms In The Sierra Sonorense: Responses By The Rural Poor, Marcela Vásquez-León
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Since the mid-1990s, Northwest Mexico has been experiencing drought conditions. As Mexico’s number one irrigator, the state of Sonora’s agricultural sector is particularly concerned about the availability and distribution of surface and ground water. Drought has contributed to a sharp decline in cultivated area, the abandonment of land, and permanent out migration of a large sector of the rural population. This paper examines the vulnerability to drought of small farmers in the Santa Cruz and Magadalena basins, south of the Sonora-Arizona international border. Farmers’ ability to respond to drought is considered within the larger context of neoliberal reform policies, social …
The Political Ecology Of The Colonias On The U.S.-Mexico Border: Human-Environmental Challenges And Community Responses In Southern New Mexico, Guillermina G. Núñez-Mchiri
The Political Ecology Of The Colonias On The U.S.-Mexico Border: Human-Environmental Challenges And Community Responses In Southern New Mexico, Guillermina G. Núñez-Mchiri
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Economic development and population growth along the U.S.-Mexico border have been determined by the natural resources available for the physical and social transformations in this region. A critical political ecology of the U.S.-Mexico border links environmental hazards with the socioeconomic and political aspects that have generated colonia population settlements as locales within the border region’s spatialized hierarchies. The political ecological approach to community development processes also brings in the larger border issues associated with Mexico and the United States. By exploring human-environmental challenges facing colonia residents, we can gain valuable insights into ecological vulnerabilities also faced by similar population settlements …
Cafos, Culture, And Conflict On Sand Mountain: Framing Rights And Responsibilities In Appalachian Alabama, Zachary Henson, Conner Bailey
Cafos, Culture, And Conflict On Sand Mountain: Framing Rights And Responsibilities In Appalachian Alabama, Zachary Henson, Conner Bailey
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
This paper presents a case study of controversy associated with large confined animal feed operations (CAFOs) on Sand Mountain in the northeast corner of Alabama, the tail-end of the Appalachian Mountains. We examine competing cultural frames developed by supporters and opponents of CAFOs that produce hogs. Both sides of the CAFO controversy utilize locally-specific cultural understandings of private property. Those opposed have framed their concerns both in terms of formal environmental standards of regulatory agencies and the responsibility of landowners not to engage in activities that adversely affect neighboring land owners. CAFO operators have framed the issue by drawing upon …
Environmental Issues On The Mexico-U.S. Border: An Introduction, Rogelio Sáenz, Karen Manges Douglas
Environmental Issues On The Mexico-U.S. Border: An Introduction, Rogelio Sáenz, Karen Manges Douglas
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
The Mexico-U.S. border is one of the most dynamic regions in the world and represents one of the greatest economic contrasts between the developed and developing world. The construction of policies and programs such as the Border Industrialization Program (BIP) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been primarily responsible for massive population growth and industrialization along the Mexico-U.S. border region. Such changes have also placed tremendous pressures on the environment and natural resources spanning the international boundary. This article provides an introduction and a description of the context for the articles featured in this special issue related …
Local Leaders’ Perceptions Of Energy Development In The Barnett Shale, Brooklynn J. Anderson, Gene L. Theodori
Local Leaders’ Perceptions Of Energy Development In The Barnett Shale, Brooklynn J. Anderson, Gene L. Theodori
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
In recent decades, the production of natural gas from unconventional reservoirs (i.e., tight gas sands, coalbed methane resources, and gas shales) has become commonplace within the U.S. energy industry. The Newark East Fort Worth Basin field–called in the vernacular, the Barnett Shale–in north-central Texas is one of the largest unconventional natural gas fields (by production volume) in the United States. Unlike many conventional energy development projects, which typically occurred in small rural areas, much of the Barnett Shale production is occurring in and around a highly urbanized geographical setting. In spite of recent efforts to assess the economic effects of …
A Social Currency Approach To Improving Health-Related Quality Of Life For Migrant Workers, Alfonso Morales
A Social Currency Approach To Improving Health-Related Quality Of Life For Migrant Workers, Alfonso Morales
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
This ten-week pilot study promoted health-related quality of life among migrant workers in rural New Mexico. In cooperation with local organizations, migrant workers formed the organization Nuevos Amigos. Members provided various types of social support to each other, hours were enumerated and exchanged for cash to pay health-related quality-of-life expenses. The program was funded by grant funds from HRSA and administered in cooperation with a clinic and a nearby university. Intake and other interviews, observations of members in action, and spending practices provided data to evaluate the program. The pilot program showed that migrant workers could manage their own organization, …
Occupational Aspirations, Rural To Urban Migration, And Intersectionality: A Comparison Of White, Black, And Hispanic Male And Female Group Chances For Leaving Rural Counties, W. Trevor Brooks, Meredith Redlin
Occupational Aspirations, Rural To Urban Migration, And Intersectionality: A Comparison Of White, Black, And Hispanic Male And Female Group Chances For Leaving Rural Counties, W. Trevor Brooks, Meredith Redlin
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
It has been documented that not all rural residents are leaving rural counties equally. Social positions may prevent some groups from migrating, while pushing other groups away from rural counties. This paper uses an intersectionality theoretical approach to explain how race/ethnicity, gender, and class shape occupational aspirations and the migration decision. Using the NLSY79, race/ethnicity, gender, and mothers’ educational attainment were each combined with the respondent’s occupational aspiration to predict migration rates for selected intersectional groups. Results show that females with high occupational aspirations, whites with high occupational aspirations, and individuals with high occupational aspirations whose mothers had high educational …
Quantile Regression: An Education Policy Research Tool, Edward B. Reeves, Jesse Lowe
Quantile Regression: An Education Policy Research Tool, Edward B. Reeves, Jesse Lowe
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
Ordinary least squares regression is often used in education policy research. Unfortunately, OLS regression coefficients may mislead. In OLS models, the coefficients express the conditional mean relations among the variables. Still, what if this estimate of central tendency in the conditional distribution fails to convey important information about the distribution? Quantile regression is a statistical technique that allows variation in the conditional distribution to be examined. Therefore, it can be used to check the validity and applicable range of OLS coefficients. Following the method of Koenker and Hallock (2001), we compare OLS and quantile regression results, examining variables related to …
Southerner And Irish? Regional And Ethnic Consciousness In Savannah, Georgia, William L. Smith
Southerner And Irish? Regional And Ethnic Consciousness In Savannah, Georgia, William L. Smith
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
This paper attempts to answer the following question regarding regional and ethnic consciousness: Does southern identity vary by the level of ethnic identity one professes? Less than one-third of those who identified themselves as southerners, indicate that their identity as a southerner is much more important than their other identities including their ethnic identity. Some of these respondents practice a symbolic regionalism. Ethnic identity for most of the respondents is more important than their regional identity, although for them southerner and Irish are not mutually exclusive identities. The strength of ethnic identity is not significantly related to the importance of …
Durkheim Did Not Say "Normlessness": The Concept Of Anomic Suicide For Introductory Sociology Courses, Phyllis Puffer
Durkheim Did Not Say "Normlessness": The Concept Of Anomic Suicide For Introductory Sociology Courses, Phyllis Puffer
Journal of Rural Social Sciences
The definitions of anomic suicide presented in introductory sociology textbooks from 1996 to 2007 were compared with the definition given by Durkheim in his own writings both in the original French and the English translation. It was found that only one textbook correctly gave Durkheim’s own definition while the other definitions showed little or no relationship to the original concept. The original concept was based on an analysis of the economy, more particularly the business cycle, and refers only to the structure of society and not to the mental state of the individual. An attempt is made to discover the …