Rural Sociology Commons^™

Research Integration In Social Science Using Meta-Analysis, James G. Leibert

Great Plains Sociologist

As a rigorous literature review meta-analysis allows researchers to look for relationships between the results of studies and the characteristics of those studies. This article examines some advantages of meta-analysis for social science such as the identification of: interactions, treatment effects, and the effect of research design as well as the problem of poor accumulation of evidence. A policies study example and a hypothetical voting study are used to highlight the value of meta-analysis to social scientists.

The Art Of Applied Sociology Constructing An Applied Paradigm, William Du Bois

Great Plains Sociologist

Applied Sociology requires a different paradigm than traditional scientific sociology. A framework for doing applied sociology can be formulated from a synthesis of available sociological traditions. Science is simply an agreement of people who have studied a given body of knowledge. The question becomes: where do we stake our agreement? Synergy provides the ideal core agreement for an applied sociology. Synergy is an operational definition of the Good and should become our evaluative mechanism. It is a win-win situation, between individuals, and between the person and the community. We need to re-discover the vision of sociology as social action designed …

Intergenerational Continuity Of The Family Farm: Influence Of Parental Aspirations And Expectations For Their Children, Tonya R. Haigh, Ronald G. Stover, Mary Kay Helling

Great Plains Sociologist

The decline in the number of young people entering the farming occupation was investigated. Specifically, whether parents are encouraging their children to farm, and the links between encouragement and parental experience on the farm were explored. In-depth interviews with adult junior members of farming families were conducted regarding their experiences with farming, their attitudes about farming, and their goals for their own children. Results give preliminary support for the hypothesis that parental aspirations and expectations for their children are linked to parents' experiences and attitudes towards farming.

Front Matter

Great Plains Sociologist

Front Matter
Editorial Policy Statement
Table of Contents

Book Reviews

Great Plains Sociologist

Janet Kelly Moen, reviewer
Against All Odds: Rural Community in the Information Age
John C. Allen and Don A. Dillman

H. Elaine Landgren, reviewer
The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation Among Migrant Farmworkers
W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza

Elizabeth Evenson Williams, reviewer
American Agriculture: A Brief History
Douglas Hurt

Harlowe Hatle, reviewer
From Columbus to Conagra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food
edited by Alessandro Bonanno, Lawrence Busch, William Friedland, Lourdes Gouveia, and Enzo Mingione

Thomas C. Langham, reviewer
Getting By: Women Homeworkers and Rural Economic Development
Christina E. Gringeri

Donna J. Hess, reviewer …

A Case Study Of Eight Slain Police Officers In Rural America, Paul E. Lawson, Ted Huber

Great Plains Sociologist

Homicides are not random. Our research suggests that police officers killed while on-duty are not random samples of their departments. Using in-depth interviews with fellow officers and family members, we reconstructed the lives of eight slain officers in one rural state. The findings show that these officers exhibited personal characteristics, family difficulties and occupational dynamics quite different from average members of their departments. While no individual fit the emerging profile perfectly, these slain officers generally were: (1) verbally and physically aggressive, (2) meticulous and rigid, (3) preoccupied with handguns and competitive shooting, (4) having marital problems or divorced, (5) experiencing …

The Effectiveness Of Criminal Mediation: An Alternative To Court Proceedings In A Canadian City, Denis G. Stead

Great Plains Sociologist

This study examines a criminal diversion program. Of principle interest is the diversion program's effect on specific deterrence. This investigation utilizes a case study design. Individuals were selected from court dockets and mediation-diversion files. The cases were divided into three groups: diverted cases, cases that qualified but were processed by the court system, and cases handled by the court system. A follow-up looking for recidivism was performed. Additionally, personal data were gathered and the effects of age, education, occupation and ethnic group were controlled for in an analysis of covariance.

Legal And Extra-Legal Determinants Of Detention Sentences In A Juvenile Court: A Research Note, Randall R. Beger, Harry Hoffman

Great Plains Sociologist

A major limitation of research concerning juvenile detention commitments is the over-riding focus on pre-adjudicatory detention. This period of confinement applies only to youths held in secure custody pending court appearance. The purpose of this investigation was tp broaden the understanding of detention by focusing on post-adjudicatory detention commitment, which is a court sentence, and the factors influencing the decision. Data were derived from the records of a random sample of 394 youths processed by a juvenile court between 1990 and 1991. Preliminary results show that a combination of legal and extra-Iegal factors play a significant role in post-adjudicatory detention …

Assessing Fit Between Informal And Formal Support For Dependent Elderly: How Families Have Managed Elder-Care In North Dakota, Andrew Scott Ziner

Great Plains Sociologist

The South Dakota Eldercare Study was conducted to provide specialized data on caregivers (i.e., a spouse or an adult child) and their dependent elderly relatives based on a probability sample of rural communities throughout the State of South Dakota. Based on the study's data, this paper will document (!) the availability and utilization of health and social services and (2)family caregivers as a resource in the care of elderly relatives. This paper will also discuss how useful the formal service deliver system is in meeting the needs of family members.

Measures Of Student Effort As Predictors Of Student's Grades, Donald E. Arwood

Great Plains Sociologist

Astin (1984) has argued that college students' academic successes vary positively with the quality and quantity of their academic efforts. Despite this claim, empirical research has demonstrated that time spent studying-a prime example of student effort-is only a weak predictor of grades. It is argued in this article that this finding does not refute Astin's claim that effort and grades are related, because academic effort is more than just studying for exams; it is multidimensional. A cross- sectional, correlational research design was used in this study to test the relationship between academic success and the many dimensions of student effort. …

Front Matter

Great Plains Sociologist

Front Matter
Editorial Policy Statement
Table of Contents

Book Reviews

Great Plains Sociologist

Thomas C. Langham
Contemporary Rural Systems in Transition
edited by Ian R. Bowler

Carol J. Cumber
Information and Organization
Arthur L. Stinchcombe

Donna J. Hess
Analyzing Qualitative Data
edited by Alan Bryman and Robert G. Burgess

Stewart E. Kelly
Consciousness Reconsidered
Owen Flanagan

Stephen R. Shorb
Vocabularies of Public Life: Empirical Essays in Symbolic Structure
edited by Robert Wuthnow

Texas Sabine Swanjord
The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality
Sandra Lipsitz Bem

Mary Warner
Rabbis, Lawyers, Immigrants, Thieves: Exploring Women's Roles
Rita J. Simon

Diane Kayongo-Male
World Changes in Divorce Patterns
William Goode

Kathleen A. Tiemann
Constructing …

The Relationship Of Marriage Type To Fertility: The Case Of Ghana, Robert W. Y. Klomegah

Great Plains Sociologist

The study investigates the influence of marriage type (monogamous and polygynous marriages) on the fertility of married women in Ghana using a sample of 1797.wives from the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) data (1988). Regression analysis indicates that when marital age, marital duration, and length of postpartum abstinence are controlled for, there is no statistically significant relationship between marriage type and fertility. The most important determinants of differential fertility by marriage type, from the Ghanaian sample, appears to be marital age, marital duration, and abstinence.

A Comparison Of Four Professional Groups' Support For A Strengthened Dui Law, George A. Youngs Jr., Thomas D. Mcdonald, Robert A. Wood, Richard W. Rathge

Great Plains Sociologist

This study examined support patterns among criminal justice professionals for an enhanced DUI law. We surveyed North Dakota's police, prosecutors, judges, and addiction counselors to measure their personal support and their perceptions of the support of others for the law. Respondents generally favored the strengthened law, but consistent with role theory, there were significant between group differences. There also were significant differences in personal versus perceived peer support and in perceived peer support versus the perceived support of other groups. Groups tended to agree in the differential levels of support they attributed to other groups. Implications for a coordinated system …

Social Claims, Ownership, Metaphor And Cross-Sex Relations: Why Women Are Property, Mark Hansel

Great Plains Sociologist

Property is a pervasive metaphor in our society that is the source of the social meaning of social claims to such wide ranging social objects as traffic lanes and restaurant tables. These claims are attempts to appropriate temporary control of the objects. Similarly, claims to a persons' attention and claims for services are attempts to appropriate control of resources of an individual. Successful appropriation transforms resources into the temporary (metaphoric) property of the claim maker. Some claims to social resources are legitimate and others deviant. The legitimacy of social claims is in part dependent upon authority relations between persons.

The Juvenile Court: A Case In Organization Behavior, Dennis G. Stead

Great Plains Sociologist

Most of the research in juvenile justice decision making has focused on outcomes, the criteria on which outcomes are based, the doctrine of parens patriae or the concept of "individualized justice." Both of these approaches lose much of the richness of organizational behavior and organizational processes to an empirical calculus that does not portray an accurate image of how juvenile justice decisions are made. These perspectives blur our vision because they conceal that decisions in juvenile court are socially produced by the varied actors and agencies in the juvenile judicial system. This report adopts a gestalt perspective of juvenile justice …

Front Matter

Great Plains Sociologist

Front Matter
Editorial Policy Statement
Table of Contents

Book Reviews

Great Plains Sociologist

Geoffrey Grant
The Poverty Debate: Politics and the Poor in America
C. Emory Burton

Stewart E. Kelly
Beyond Individualism
Jack Crittenden

Thomas C. Langham
Rural Communities: Legacy and Change
Cornelia Butler Flora, Jan L. Flora, Jacqueline D. Spears, and Louis E. Swanson

Patricia Ann Wasely Lomire
Next of Kin: An International Reader on Changing Families
Lorne Tepperman and Susannah J. Wilson (eds.)

B. Diane Miller
The Human Difference: Animals, Computers, and the Necessity of Social Science
Alan Wolfe

Janet Kelly Moen
The Cultures of Work Organizations
Harrison M. Trice and Janice M. Beyer

George Nielson
Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative …

Religiosity And Organ Donation Willingness, Jarilyn Schroeder-Gess, Daniel J. Klenow

Great Plains Sociologist

This exploratory study will examine the relationship between willingness to donate one's organs at death and religiosity. Four measures of religiosity will be employed as independent variables. These variables include church attendance, religious intensity, belief in an afterlife and religious affiliation.

Elwyn Robinson And Settlement Patterns In North And South Dakota, Alan Fricker

Great Plains Sociologist

What is probably Elwyn Robinson's most enduring legacy is his six themes of North Dakota history. He used them as his theory to explain how and why North Dakota was settled and developed the way it did. To an extent, he also used them to prophesize North Dakota's future.

Animal Rights, Government Regulations, And Rural Economies: An Examination Of Factors Contributing To The Economic Future Of Rural Communities, Dana C. De Witt

Great Plains Sociologist

The purpose of this paper is to examine the increased role animal-rights organizations play in shaping attitudes and regulations that impact the long term viability of rural economies. The animal-rights movement is comprised of a highly diversified, often secretive, loosely linked network of groups. This creates a certain amount of difficulty in describing "first hand" the attitudes, values, and goals of these groups. A variety of animal production and other animal based industries were examined in terms of their contribution to rural, as well as state, economies. Secondary data analysis was performed on several sociological, animal rights, hunting and trapping, …

"You Best Read It To Me My Dear": Methodological Issues With Marginally Literate Subjects, Donna L. Davis

Great Plains Sociologist

An analysis of case examples from a study of women's experience of menopause in a New found land fishing village, demonstrates the problems inherent in using questionnaires among marginally literate or illiterate populations. Evidence demonstrates that not only are the questions misunderstood by the respondents but also that questionnaires by themselves may inadvertently generate their own peculiar form of native menopause lore. Special consideration is given to describing the methodological problems of anthropological fieldwork in a small community.

Front Matter

Great Plains Sociologist

Front Matter
Editorial Policy Statement
Table of Contents

Book Reviews

Great Plains Sociologist

Keith Fernsler
Crime and Justice in Two Societies: Japan and the United States
Ted D. Westerman and James W. Burfeind

Kathleen A. Tiemann
Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems
Joel Best (ed.)

Jon Flanagin
The Age of Information
Stephen Saxby

Geoffrey Grant
Breaking Chains: Social Movements and Collective Action Comparative Urban and Community Research, Vol. 3
Michael Peter Smith (ed.)

Harlowe G. Hatle
Military Organizations, Complex Machines: Modernization in the U.S. Armed Services
Chris C. Demchak

Terry E. Huffman
Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America
Richard D. Alba

Thomas C. Lanham
Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes: Agrarian Myths …

"Women And Crime" In Criminology Textbooks, Patricia Ann Wasely Lomire

Great Plains Sociologist

The purpose of this research note is to encourage both students and faculty to critically evaluate assumptions regarding the limited coverage of "women and crime" topics in contemporary criminology textbooks. The specific objectives are 1) to briefly review the research findings of Richard A. Wright's 1987 article entitled "Are Sisters in Crime Finally Being Booked? The Coverage of Women and Crime in Journals and Textbooks"; 20 to evaluate the coverage of female related topics in 631 articles form Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal -- The Official Publication of the American Society of Criminology, (1970-1989); 3) to critique a variety of explanations …

Do Rural North Dakotans Have A Negative Mindset?, Curtis W. Stofferahn

Great Plains Sociologist

North Dakota residents experienced two memorable events in 1989: the centennial anniversary of statehood and an agonizing debate about the economic future of the state. It was not incidental that these two events were coincident. As we celebrated our past, we looked to the future. But as we looked into that future was none too bright. Indeed, the title of the Vision 2000 committee's widely disseminated summary report was "Is North Dakota Dying? Will We Stand By and Watch?". Studies commissioned by the vision 2000 Committee concluded that a major obstacle to the state's economic development was the resident's negative …

Attitudes Toward The Environment: How Do The Attitudes Of Conventional, No-Till, And Organic Farmers Compare?, George A. Youngs, David L. Watt

Great Plains Sociologist

One of Che key dynamics in today's increased interest in alternative fanning is concern for the environment (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). Many advocates of alternative farming argue that conventional farming harms the environment and may even destroy the future of agriculture. The implicit, and often explicit, notion associated with this view is that conventional farmers are less concerned about the environment than are alternative farmers. The present study will test this notion by comparing the attitudes toward the environment of conventional farmers with two types of alternative farmers, organic and no-till. By definition, conventional farmers are those farmers who practice …

Ideological Currents Of The Rural Crisis: The Fats, Small Town, And Rural Peoples' Conf, Thomas C. Langham

Great Plains Sociologist

The rural crisis of the 1900s plowed a deep furrow across the economic, political, cultural, social, and psychological landscape of the Upper Midwest. Rooted in the financial problems of farmers, the crisis rippled not only through farm families but also into the region's small towns (Buttel, 1909; "Farm Crisis," 1986; Cinder et al., 1986; Heffernan and Heffernan. 1986; Rosenblatt, 1990: 3-13). Responses to the crisis were many and varied. Some people, although in actual numbers only slightly greater than the previous fifty years, followed perhaps the most traditional response to rural crisis and fled in search of work to more …

Political And Economic Class Practices In U.S. Farmers ' Mobilizations: Continuities And Discontinuities, Patrick Mooney

Great Plains Sociologist

Carl C. Taylor's publication of The Farmers' Movement: 1620-1920 constitutes one of the few attempts by a single author to review the history of farmers' movements in the U.S. More significantly, Taylor hypothesizes a continuity that links these various farmers' movements to one another. Indeed, Taylor (1953:2) contends that "the various farmer revolts have only been the high tides of a Farmers' Movement which 'is as persistent as the Labor Movement'. Taylor's thesis stands out against a literature that is primarily oriented Coward analysis of each episode of agrarian mobilization as a distinct, historical event. Taylor's thesis provokes "a framework …

Front Matter

Great Plains Sociologist

Front Matter
Editor Notes
Table of Contents