Rural Sociology Commons^™

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

“No Masses Without Muslims’ Approval” The Crisis Of Building And Restoring Churches In Egypt: Three Case Studies From El-Minya Governorate, Sara Shaltout

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined the crisis of building and renovating churches in Egypt in the light of the Church-state relation. I focused on three case studies in the El-Minya governorate that includes the largest Christian concentration in the Middle East to shed light on the existing difficulties that face Christians there regarding building a house of worship. The first case study, "church No 1", was demolished due to political conflict between Islamists and the state after the Rabaa massacre in 2013. In comparison, church No 2 asserts that Muslims' approval is a prerequisite for Christians' prayers. In addition to church No …

Racial, Ethnic, And Urban/Rural Differences In Transitions Into Diabetes: Evidence From The Health And Retirement Survey Biomarker And Self-Reported Data, Hyeran Chung, Mary Arends-Kuenning

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

We examine differences in transitions between stages of type 2 diabetes across racial, ethnic, and urban/rural statuses. The individual-level data from the 2006 to 2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and county-level data from the 1990-2000 U.S. Censuses, the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research are used to analyze the transition from the stage of prediabetic to diabetic, and the transition from having no diabetes to being prediabetic and diabetic. The HRS includes both biomarker data and self- reported doctors’ diagnoses of diabetes, which allow us to identify people …

Exploring Rural-Urban Differences In Polygenic Associations For Health Among Older Adults In The United States, Trent Davidson, Jason D. Boardman, Lori M. Hunter

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

A complex combination of genes and environment influence health and, as a result, both genes and environment can play a role in shaping health disparities. We consider distinctions in these influences across rural and urban settings, expanding upon work that shows lower genetic associations in rural compared to urban places by studying an older age group and examining more than the typical outcomes of alcohol/substance abuse. Using a sample of 14,994 adults from the 1992 through 2016 waves of the Health andRetirement Study, our results suggest genetic associations for BMI and heart conditions are significantly lower in rural compared to …

Socio-Spatial Disparities In County-Level Availability Of Aging And Disability Services Organizations, Claire Pendergrast, Danielle Rhubart

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Aging and disability services are essential for supporting older adults in living independently in their homes and communities as they age. Applying theoretical perspectives of community gerontology and spatial inequality, we use county-level data (N=3142) from the National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA) and the American Community Survey to explore if and how availability of aging and disability services organizations varies across the rural-urban continuum and across compositional characteristics of counties. Results show that rural counties are significantly more likely to be aging and disability services deserts. Stratified models show that poverty rates and relative shares of non-Hispanic Blacks are positively …

Support From Adult Children And Parental Health In Rural America, Shelley Clark, Elizabeth M. Lawrence, Shannon M. Monnat

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Adult children are a primary source of care for their aging parents. Parents in rural areas, however, live further from their adult children than parents in urban areas, potentially limiting the support they receive and compromising their health and ability to age in place. We use two waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (2013 and 2017) to investigate the relationships among geographic proximity, adult children’s instrumental and financial support, and parental health. Rural parents live further from their adult children and receive less financial support, but they are more likely to receive instrumental assistance. In addition, rural parents …

Rural Population Health And Aging: Introduction To The Special Issue, John J. Green, Shannon M. Monnat, Leif Jensen, Lori Hunter, Martin Sliwinski

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This special issue of the Journal of Rural Social Sciences (JRSS) focuses on rural population health and aging. It showcases the work of scholars from several backgrounds and social science disciplines to advance knowledge in a critical field of investigation. Assembled through an open call for submissions coordinated through the National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA), the collection of articles helps inform a more nuanced understanding of the factors associated with rural places, which often have different health outcomes and aging patterns than their urban counterparts. The authors achieve this through …

Book Reviews

Great Plains Sociologist

Geoffrey W. Grant
Crime in Biological, Social, and Moral Contexts
Lee Ellis and Harry Hoffnan (Eds.)

Thomas C. Langham
Sociological Practice: Community Development and Other Community Applications, Volume 8
Alvin S. Lackey (Ed.)

Jerome R. Rosonke
Mirrors of Madness: Patrolling the Psychic Border
Bruce Luske

Kathleen A. Tiemann
Social Control and Deviance: A Critical Approach
Nanette J. Davis and Clarice Stasz

Harry Hoffman
Can Modernity Survive?
Agnes Heller

Janet Kelly Moen
Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques
Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin

Patricia Ann Wasely Lomir
The Sociology of Gender
Laura Kramer (Ed.)

John Flanagin
Maiginal …

Trend Analysis Of Rural Underemployment: An Example From North Dakota, Curtis W. Stofferahn, Cordell A. Fontaine, Lonny A. Borgerson

Great Plains Sociologist

The unemployment rate continues to be the major criterion used in selecting counties for special economic assistance. But the official unemployment rate is not a valid measure of either the quality or quantity of the rural labor force. The continued use of the official unemployment measure leaves rural areas at a disadvantage compared to urban areas in the distribution of economic development assistance. Home, et al. (1974) found that selecting counties on the basis of unemployment omitted many countieswith both the greatest labor potential and economic need for expanded industrialization. They found that under-employment was a much better indicator of …

Recent Changes In Hutterite Colony Expansion, William L. Smith

Great Plains Sociologist

Two thirds of present day Hutterians reside in the following four Canadian provinces: Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British,Columbia.- The remaining one third have settled m five northern states of the U.SA.: South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Washington, and Minnesota. The number of Hutterites vary according to the sources quoted but the best current estimates indicate that there are approximately between 33,309 (Anderson, 1989) and 32,850 (Raber, 1987:55) as compared to 21,521 in 1974 (Hosteller, 1974) and 16,931 listed in a 1969 census of Hutterite members (Friedmann, 1970:101) and 16,500 in 1965 (Hostetler and Huntington, 1980:1).

Assessing The Myth: A Study Of Eligible Athletes' Grade Point Averages, Dave Vilhauer, Jerome Rosonke

Great Plains Sociologist

There is a common notion that athletes are not highly intelligent. For instance, the label "dumb jock" is often applied to an athletic competitor, and the phrase "big like-tractor, dumb like tractor" has been used to describe linemen in football. There is little question about society's view of athletes, however what is debatable is just how valid these stereotypes are. This research project is a study of athletes during a one-year period at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. (hereafter referred to as NSU). The institution of higher learning is located in the upper midwest in an agricultural environment, with …