Rural Sociology Commons^™

From Community Policing And Crime Control To Security Policing And Citizen Control: Rural And Small-Town Policing In Post 9/11 America, Josh Yeager

Online Theses and Dissertations

Research is lacking on rural and small-town policing in the post 9/11 era. This is unfortunate in view of changing perceptions of threat and insecurity, the financial crisis of 2008 and curtailments placed on funding for rural and small-town police agencies. This thesis argues that the proliferation of homeland security resources and priorities has significantly shaped rural and small-town policing in recent years. Rural and small-town law enforcement agencies, often lagging behind in resources and funding as compared to their urban counterparts, have embraced homeland security agendas, priorities and technologies as a means of securing their financial goals and abilities. …

Talking Food: Motivations Of Home Food Preservation Practitioners In Kentucky, Lisa Conley

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Recent reports detail a rise in the practice of home food preservation in the United States due to economic woes, nutritional concerns, and increasing devotion to local food production.Home food preservation is the processing of foods in order to extend its shelf-life. Current common approaches to preserving foods at home include pressure canning, freezing, drying, water bath canning, and cellaring/storing. Local food production in four Kentucky counties were examined through in-depth qualitative interviews with home food preservation practitioners to yield a rural/urban comparison. Forty home food preservation practitioners were interviewed between Fall 2009 and Fall 2013. The primary question driving …

Economic Empowerment Through Income Generating Activities And Social Mobilization: The Case Of Married Amhara Women Of Wadla Woreda, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia, Belete Deribie Woldegies

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Wadla Woreda is located in North Wollo Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. The woreda is predominantly agrarian and the population produces mainly subsistence food crops with small amounts of cash crops. Access to basic social and economic services such as health, education, and employment for rural communities is limited due to poor development of rural infrastructure. Wadla is one of the food insecure woredas in the region. As a result some of the people are internally displaced and a portion of the population is included in safety-net programs. The Wadla Woreda is prone to famine due to severe droughts, soil …

Using An Iconic Story To Bring Communities Together To Develop A Tourism Experience, Denise O'Leary, Mary Rose Stafford

Conference papers

Tourism destination governance is concerned with the development and management of a destination; who is involved and how they are involved. Although the term governance was traditionally associated with politics and government structures it has become more broadly applied in recent years to also describe more grassroots approaches involving various community stakeholders such as individual business owners in tourism product and service provision, business owners in other sectors, community leaders and community residents Morrison (2013). Turbulence in the market has forced the tourism industry to move away from centralised, government-led, hierarchical type of governance towards more participatory approaches where stakeholders …

Rural Latino Adolescent Health: Preliminary Examination Of Health Risks And Cultural Correlates, Timothy D. Nelson, Katherine M. Kidwell, Brian E. Armenta, Lisa J. Crockett, Gustavo Carlo, Les B. Whitbeck

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Latino adolescents living in rural settings may be at increased risk of health problems; however, data describing the health status of this population are limited. This study examined 60 rural Latino adolescents and found high rates of health risk, including at-risk/clinical results for hemoglobin A1C (23.3%), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (55%), systolic blood pressure (21.7%), and overweight/obesity (55%). Time in sedentary behaviors was high and physical activity was limited. Adolescent language use was associated with health risk status, with greater use of English associated with lower risk. Health psychologists could promote improved health by providing health behavior interventions to this underserved …

Dating Violence On Small Rural College Campuses: Are Administrator And Student Perceptions Similar?, Jean Allen Oldham

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

In recent years dating violence has become more and more prevalent on college campuses. Reports of the range of dating violence vary widely, with studies reporting from 20% to 85% of college women experiencing dating violence. However, almost all research has been conducted among urban and/or large colleges and universities, with virtually no attention to what is happening on small and/or rural college and university campuses.

When a possible 20% of college women have experienced dating violence on college campuses, there becomes a crucial need for administration at a college to have an accurate assessment of the college’s liability, and …

Editor's Note, Janie M. H. Fritz

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This is the Editor’s Note to Volume 33, Issue 1 of the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration.

Strategies For Easing Faculty-Management At Institutions Of Higher Education, Sarah H. Vanslette, Zachary A. Schaefer, Kathy Hagedorn

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

With calls across the discipline of communication to use our research to enhance the lived experience of organizational members and employees of all industries, this essay focuses on the often tense communication between university faculty and university leaders. Using communication and business scholarship as our foundation, we recommend communication strategies that should facilitate better communication between university faculty and management. These strategies will not only help faculty and staff overcome disagreements and avoid uncivil discourse, but the strategies can also be applied to uncivil non-academic workplace environments. The authors will also outline how these incivilities and recommended communication strategies play …

Review Of Wheeler, D. (2012). Servant Leadership For Higher Education: Principles And Practices. San Francisco, Ca: John Wiley & Sons., John Howard Iii

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Review of Wheeler, D. (2012). Servant leadership for higher education: Principles and practices. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Lowveld Practices In Mahenye, Zimbabwe: A Critical Analysis Of Resilience In A Marginalized Southern African Community, Scott Byington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The concept of resilience has been developed by scholars in the social-ecological systems resilience and community resilience/disaster literature. While initially a descriptive model, the framework of resilience has since integrated both literatures and become a prescriptive tool for sustainable development initiatives. Political ecologists critically argue that the current conceptualization of resilience is problematic given resilience scholars’ lack of engagement with situational social complexities related to power and knowledge. They also argue that mainstream resilience literature is devoid of cultural, historical and political analysis. As such, individuals and communities at the margins of power may vulnerable to the application of resilience …

Self-Reliance Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Autonomy At The Edges Of Empire, Karen Hébert, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

Across scholarly and popular accounts, self-reliance is often interpreted as either the embodiment of individual entrepreneurialism, as celebrated by neoliberal designs, or the basis for communitarian localism, increasingly imagined as central to environmental and social sustainability. In both cases, self-reliance is framed as an antidote to the failures of larger state institutions or market economies. This paper offers a different framework for understanding self-reliance by linking insights drawn from agrarian studies to current debates on alternative economies. Through an examination of the social worlds of semisubsistence producers in peripheral zones in the Global North, we show how everyday forms of …

Older Adults’ Contributions To The Tsimane Forager-Farmer Economy, Eric Schniter

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Portfolio of original photographs and an accompanying essay about the role of elders among the Tsimane, an indigenous group living in the Bolivian Amazon.

Perceptions Of Disaster Risk And Vulnerability In Rural Texas, Andrew J. Prelog, Lee M. Miller

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Rural areas are uniquely vulnerable to a variety of hazards given their social and economic composition. Economic reliance on agriculture and natural resource extraction increases vulnerability to certain types of natural hazards such as drought, wildfires, and floods. Moreover, rural communities often lack adequate resources to prepare for and respond to disasters. Using data from the Texas Rural Survey, the U.S. Census, and the Spatial Hazards Events and Losses Database for the United States; this research explores questions related to risk perception, vulnerability to disaster, and perceptions of community efficacy in a rural context. Results indicate that rural Texans show …

An Unexpected Legacy: Women, Early Rural Sociological Research, And The Limits Of Linearity, Julie N. Zimmerman

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

We often think of history in linear terms: past as prologue, one event following another, one year leading into the next. In a Rostowian-styled model of development, this kind of linear progression prefigures not only conceptualizations about the past, but also assumptions about the present. This paper reexamines the unexpected appearance of women and women’s lives embedded in early rural sociological research to consider how implicit assumptions about the past prefigure what we expect to “see” and influence the way we make sense of it.

Changes In Residents’ Views Of Natural Gas Drilling In The Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, 2009-2012, Fern K. Willits, A. E. Luloff, Gene L. Theodori

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Data from comparable surveys of residents in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania conducted in 2009 and 2012 are analyzed to ascertain changes in public views over time. The proportions of residents indicating they knew very little or nothing about the economic, social, and environmental impacts of gas drilling declined sharply. Further, residents increasingly formed opinions about the possible costs and benefits of developing the industry and whether they opposed or supported developing the gas industry. The proportions of respondents expressing various concerns about possible negative environmental impacts of drilling increased. However, most residents supported developing the industry and there …

Craig M. Klugman And Pamela M. Dalinis, Ethical Issues In Rural Health Care, Brandi Jean Felderhoff

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Review of Ethical Issues in Rural Health Care, by Craig M. Klugman and Pamela M. Dalinis (eds.)

Rural Residents For Responsible Agriculture: Hog Cafos And Democratic Action In Illinois, Barbara M. Ashwood

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

Rural Residents for Responsible Agriculture (RRRA) is a local nonprofit group formed in West Central Illinois that successfully prevented the construction of an 18,220 head Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). Here I document my participation in this group and our ability to overcome largely undemocratic channels used by the industrial swine industry to site CAFOs. I situate our struggle within the well-documented literature on CAFOs’ negative effects on the environment, economy, and health of the people living near them. I then consider the lobbying power behind industrialized agriculture and relate this information to RRRA’s fight. I provide a detailed account …

Community Capital And Local Economic Development Efforts, Andrew A. Zekeri

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

Actions by local groups and leaders constitute an essential but poorly understood element of many rural economic development efforts. Previous studies suggest that local development efforts can influence community changes, but questions remain about why localities differ in economic development efforts. Drawing upon community capital framework and human ecological theory, the purpose of this research was to examine the effects of community capital on economic development efforts in rural communities. Hierarchical regression results indicate that social capital, cultural capital, built capital significantly predict economic development effort to develop recreation and tourism and human services. Despite that, only built capital and …

The Fate Of Local Food Systems In The Global Industrialization Market: Food And Social Justice In The Rural South, Wylin D. Wilson, Reuben C. Warren, Stephen O. Sodeke, Norbert Wilson

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

This paper investigates the connection between local food systems, health disparities, and social justice in the rural South. It begins with the relationship between food insecurity and health disparities that disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minority populations, and non-minority women and children. First, we discuss the concept of health disparities within the context of bioethics and public health ethics in order to explore the link between the food system and health as a social justice issue. Second, we define health disparities and discuss how they have historically plagued and disadvantaged racial minority populations. Third, we examine these disparities within the …

The Impact Of Selected Socioeconomic Factors On Asset Building In Rural Communities, Nii O. Tackie, Judith N. Aboagye, Gwendolyn J. Johnson, Millicent Braxton, Latanya Hunt-Haralson, Gertrude D. Wall

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

The study examined the impact of selected socioeconomic factors on asset building. Using a questionnaire, data were obtained from a convenience sample of 204 participants from several Alabama Black Belt Counties, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit analysis. The results showed that a majority (64%) was willing to participate in an asset building program. Of this, an overwhelming majority (at most 70%) wanted to set up a small business; further their education, or purchase a home. In addition, one socioeconomic factor, age, had a statistically significant (p = 0.016) effect on willingness to participate in an asset building …