Rural Sociology Commons^™

Alaskan Native Suicide, Karl T. Pfeiffer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Population Turnaround: A Case Study Of The Shire Of Toodyay, Matthew A. Tonts

Theses : Honours

During the 1970's a number of Australia's rural municipalities began to counter the long term pattern of population decline. This thesis provides empirical evidence of these changes within Western Australia and investigates the reasons for the turnaround. To develop this, a case-study examination has been made of the Shire of Toodyay in an effort to ascertain the circumstances surrounding households decisions to migrate into rural districts. This study reveals that the newcomer households exhibit a diverse range of characteristics and conform to no clear stereotypical groupings. Rather1 it appears that those who have made the transition have done so in …

Employment Migration Among Graduates Of Southern Land-Grant Universities, John A. Ballweg, Li Li

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This research addresses the geographic mobility of 2,028 graduates of 15 Southern land-grant universities. Concern was directed toward those who accepted positions outside the state where they graduated compared with those who remained within the state. The study uses panel data involving a 1976-77 survey while students were enrolled in an agriculture curriculum at land-grant schools and a follow-up survey a decade later. Migration patterns were identified and both demographic characteristics and employment history were examined. Migrant graduates were compared with non-migrant graduates according to what they considered important in accepting a first job as well as actual job earnings. …

Community Structural Changes And The Nature Of Leadership, Gina L. Gilbreath

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Many communities in the Southeastern United States have experienced dramatic social and demographic change during the past two decades. Much of this change is brought about by population growth as well as other socioeconomic transformations such as increases in per capita income and educational attainment. One result has been an obvious change in leadership and social structure at the county level as engendered by these population and socio-economic factors. The objective of this research is to examine the nature of leadership and structural change in a Southern county that has been experiencing this categorical type of transformation. More specifically, this …

Determinants Of Farmers' Satisfactions With Farming And With Life: A Replication And Extension, C. Milton Coughenour, Louis Swanson

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The purpose of this study is to broaden the understanding of the determinants of farmers' satisfactions with life as a whole and with farming per se by replicating and extending Molnar's 1985 study of the overall subjective well-being of Alabama farmers. Data from a 1982 study of Kentucky farmers are used to accomplish this objective. Molnar's conclusions regarding the individual and structural determinants of farmers' global well-being are generally confirmed. In addition, the farmer's global satisfaction with life is shown to be related to his satisfaction with farming but the structural determinants of global and farm satisfaction differ. Net farm …

Agriculture, The Environment And Rural Sociology In The South, John K. Thomas

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Agricultural conservation research was revived by rural sociologists in the late 1970s and gained momentum during the 1980s. Most of this research was focused, however, on social and farm organizational factors affecting technology adoption and diffusion. Few studies included environmental factors such as soil characteristics, land physiography, and climate. This paper reviews rural sociologists' recent attention to environmental factors. Next, it describes the ecological and agricultural variation among production regions in the South and overviews Southern producers' participation in federal farm conservation programs. Finally, it prescribes three tasks for rural sociologists in the South to consider if they are to …

Concern About Eating Genetically Engineered Food, Glenn D. Israel, Thomas J. Hoban

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Concern about eating genetically engineered food is explored for a sample of residents from Florida and North Carolina. Previous research on consumers' food safety concerns and perceived risk associated with food production suggests that concern about genetically engineered food is influenced by three factors. Concern is influenced by how well informed consumers are about food technology, their capacity to understand that information, and the compatibility of genetic engineering with consumers' moral beliefs. Utilizing logistic regression, women and persons who viewed genetic engineering to be morally wrong were found to have greater concern about eating genetically engineered foods. Awareness and educational …

Job Placement Of Jtpa-Trained Welfare Recipients: Implications For The Jobs Program In Southern And Nonmetro States, Linda M. Ghelfi

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The new Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program was instituted to provide education, training, and employment for adults receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. This study uses job placement rates for AFDC recipients trained through Job Training Partnership Act programs to gauge the difficulty participants in the new program may have in finding jobs. The results indicate that, at minimum, there would have been 56 percent more participants in the new JOBS program than there were in Job Training Partnership Act programs had the JOBS program started in the 1986 program year. Only about 60 percent of the …

Study On Street Children In Four Selected Towns In Ethiopia, Kevin Lalor, Angela Veale, Azeb Adefrisew, Unicef, University College Cork

Reports

The child is the most precious asset and the focal point of development for any country. However, unless children are brought up in a stimulating and conducive environment getting the best possible care and protection, their physical, mental, emotional and social development is susceptible to permanent damage. Ethiopia, being one of the least developed countries of the world due to interrelated and complex socio-economic factors including man-made and natural calamities, a large portion of our population - especially children - are victimized by social evils like famine, disease, poverty, mass displacement, lack of education and family instability. Owing to the …

Service Centers: The Neglected Role Of The Town, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The dichotomy of urban and rural areas does not fit the circumstances of contemporary social life in the United States. Although needy populations redistributed across the social landscape, almost no social service agencies serving rural populations are, or ever have been, located in either urban (city) or rural (countryside) areas. Social agencies serving rural populations are nearly always located in towns. The town is a unique and distinctive rural social, economic and political institution. An adequate approach to conceptualizing rural social work must begin with recognition of one of the fundamental insights of contemporary urban theory: the regional character of …

Connecticut Local Labor Market Areas 1980, Thomas E. Steahr, Kenneth P. Hadden

Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station

No abstract provided.

Common Beliefs About The Rural Elderly: Myth Or Fact?, U.S. Senate Special Committee On Aging

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

focuses on the most disadvantaged elderly: the rural elderly. Identifies common beliefs about rural persons aged 65 and over, and provides accompanying statistical information to refute or confirm these beliefs. This synthesis of data translates detailed statistics into useable knowledge.

Rural Depopulation In Western Australia, Ross Kingwell

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Western Australia's population has recently drifted from inland rural areas to cities and coastal regions. Changes in fanning practices over several decades and the recent falls in wheat and wool prices, have forced many families to leave inland farms and rural towns .

However, many families are also developing sources of off-farm income and other activities to keep themselves, local businesses and towns suroiving.

Creating Entrepreneurship In Rural Sociology, Rusty Brooks

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Southern rural sociology finds itself at an important political, social, and economic juncture. Given present funding constraints, land grant university faculty working in rural sociology must assume a more entrepreneurial posture if the discipline in to survive the challenges that confront it. The emergence of the importance of policy analysis to the agenda of contemporary southern politics provides a "market window" for rural sociologists to contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of rural sociology in the region and to the present and future quality of life in the South. This paper examines these issues and proposes an entrepreneurial model for …

Editor's Note, Robert L. Moxley

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Testing Tdm Modifications With Mail Surveys During A Southern Farm Study: A Research Note, John Ballweg

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Based on data collected during a mail survey of crime and vandalism on farms in a southern state, this study involves a modification of two procedures in the Total Design Method: 1) individually signed cover letters; and 2) replacement questionnaires for the second mailing. While the first procedure was found to have no significant effect on the return rate, the inclusion of replacement questionnaires with the second mailing improved the response rate by a wide margin (more than double the letter-only mailing). The implications of audience type (in this case a farm audience) and other survey design features on response …

Community Attachment: A Research Note Examining The Effects Of Gender, Stephanie Sayers Fowler

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of gender on feelings of community attachment. This is done through the development of a measure of emotional response to a community, which is then tested, using the techniques of confirmatory factor analysis, for gender variation. The data are from a 1985 survey mailed to 1400 residents of four rural North Carolina counties. Responses from 1200 of these residents provide the sample. The author develops a model which focuses not on the well established relationship between satisfaction with service provision and community attachment, but on the relationship between emotional responses …

Acknowledgements, Robert L. Moxley

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Reaching Extension's Clientele: Exploring Patterns Of Preferred Information Channels Among Small Farm Operators, Glenn Israel

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Effective delivery methods are important to the impact of Extension programs. The effectiveness of delivering Extension programs can be increased by matching the information channels used by Extension to those preferred by segments of the clientele. This study explores the preference patterns of clientele for obtaining information. The influence of selected individual and structural characteristics on those patterns also is examined. Data from a mail survey (using the Total Design Method, or TDM) of small farm operators from six counties in Florida indicate that preference patterns vary. The analysis, using confirmatory factor analysis, verified the presence of a lower cost …

The Receptivity To Housing Programs In The Rural South, Gladys Shelton, Kenneth Gruber

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Adequate and affordable housing continues to be a serious problem in many rural areas of the Southern United States. This problem has been exacerbated by several major events in the past two decades, including the "population turnaround" in the 1970s, which increased the demand for housing as the number of people living in rural areas increased. The housing affordability crisis then resulted from a spiraling rise in housing costs greater than household annual income and a reduction in federal spending for housing programs. The combined effect of these events suggests local communities must now look more to state level initiatives …

Reverse Peace Corps: A Proposal On The Recruitment Of Third World Nationals As Peace Corps Volunteers Assigned To The United States, Payam Foroughi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." (Orwell 1949, p. 5). Indeed, in 1960, when President Kennedy announced his future plans for a Peace Corps of young Americans, there were already an estimated 10,000 Americans working in the Third World country of Vietnam in the capacity of "military advisors". By 1963 there were 17,000 such Americans in Vietnam and another 7,000 Americans in 44 other Third World countries working as Peace Corps Volunteers (Rice 1985).

In 1835, reflecting on the then young America, Tocqueville stated that "of all nations, those most fond of peace are democratic nations" and …

Family Farms: Farming Shaping Their Future, Larry Janssen

Economics Staff Paper Series (1969 - 2017)

We are living in times of rapid change in agriculture and in rural America. Interstate highways, livestock confinement systems, pesticides, fourwheel drive tractors and personal computers are innovations that did not exist or were seldom seen 30 - 35 years ago. Rural America has changed a great deal from the time I was raised on a 320 acre Nebraska farm, driving 25 hp. Ford SN tractors, and going to a one-room country school! In times of rapid changes, many people are concerned about the future of agriculture and family farms. Today, I will share with you my perspectives on the …

Editor's Note, Robert L. Moxley

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Farm Structure And Use Of The Conservation Reserve Program Of The 1985 Farm Bill, Joseph N. Kairumba, Gerald C. Wheelock

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Within the conservation and production objectives that form the current Farm Bill, there are a range of options that encourage uniquely tailored farm plans for each farm and landowner (LO) situation. In this attempt to predict use of one option, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), three broad sets of farm structure variables were employed. These were farming scale, planning horizon, and farm specialization. A two-stage systematic sample of 437 farm parcels from county ASCS lists resulted in 187 land owner interviews for discriminant analysis. Participation in CRP was most discriminated by two farm size variables--crop acres and gross farm income. …

The Adaptations Of Farmers In An Era Of Declining Groundwater Supplies, Don E. Albrecht

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that modem agricultural practices are resulting in a wide array of environmental problems, and in particular resource depletion problems. As of yet, however, there has been a relative lack of research on the adaptations made by farmers when faced with the depletion of an important resource. This paper helps address this void by exploring the adaptations of farmers (N = 700) in the Texas High Plains to the depletion of their primary source of irrigation water--the Ogallala Aquifer. It was found that the proportion of farm operators who had adopted each of …

Human Resources In The South: Rural Sociology In The 1990s, Peggy J. Ross

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This article focuses on the problem of human resources in the South during the 1980s. The author contends that the problem is especially critical in the rural South, where the impacts of widespread rural economic stress in the eighties contributed to further underdevelopment of already limited human resources. Educationally, the South not only lags other regions, but the rural South lags the urban South. Furthermore, a wide gap exists in the educational attainment of southern rural blacks and whites. It is argued that the development of an adequate human resources base in the rural South begins with building initiative and …

1890 Institutions' Extension Program And Rural Development, Adell Brown Jr.

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The black land-grant colleges' contributions to developing the rural South are traced back before they were added to the land-grant system by the passage of the Morrill Act of 1890. The 1890 Extension target clientele are small farmers and limited resource persons who were not being reached by the conventional delivery system. Before 1972, the 1890 institutions primarily assisted the 1862 universities to serve black farmers and provide training and housing for black specialists and agents. In 1972, the passage of USDA Appropriation Act, under 3(d) section of the Smith-Lever Act, provided funds for the 1890 institutions to fulfill the …

Obstacles And Opportunities: Funding Research At The 1890 Land Grant Institutions, Alton Thompson

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Similar to other university faculties, faculty members at 1890 land grant institutions are expected to support their research programs with grants from sources outside their institutions. Although the expectation of securing grants has not received the public attention that the "publish or perish" dictum has, faculty at the 1890 institutions seeking promotion and tenure must increasingly demonstrate that they can procure grant funds. Numerous inhibitive factors, however, tend to attenuate the success of 1890 faculty in obtaining research grant funding and in implementing such research projects. In this study, three key factors are examined: political, research infrastructure, and faculty initiative. …

Institutions Under Influence: The Case Of Knowledge Stratification Within The U.S. Land Grant System, Rosalind P. Harris

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The U.S. land grant system is notably stratified in its distribution of knowledge and power. In the upper strata are historically white land grant (HWLG) institutions often referred to as "1862 Institutions," which command power and resources from their historic ability to produce the agricultural and scientific knowledge supportive of state and national economic development goals. In the lower strata are historically black land grant (HBLG) institutions often called "1890 institutions." They struggle against the historical conditioning that has, until recently, restricted their efforts in producing knowledge to the manual applications and teaching of farming. This article examines how historical …

Acknowledgements, Robert L. Moxley

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

No abstract provided.