The Boone Hope Foundation has given away over $130,000 in gift cards, rent checks, and eyeglasses--all targeted to help students with emergency needs related to food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare in its rural Iowa community. This is the story of teachers from a typical Midwestern school--relatively small and certainly not affluent--who have…

Establishing rapport between researcher and participants when conducting ethnography is essential to the successful outcome of the research. However, when participants are unwilling to engage, a different approach must be adopted. This article is an examination of the appropriation of a situated learning model during fieldwork with a group of…

Poverty and unemployment aren't spread evenly across cities or regions, but rather are concentrated in disinvested urban neighborhoods and rural communities around the country. These communities are home to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. Despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions for families in the United…

Purposes of this guide for change agents are to (1) present four methods for identifying community power actors (community leaders), (2) provide a description of how change agents might use each of the four methods, (3) compare the four methods, (4) suggest ways to use a combination of methods or combine elements from various methods, and (5)…

This paper overviews the evolution of rural society in Ontario (Canada) from the author's personal experience and research. The paper defines "rural" and "culture" and discusses how these concepts are relevant to social change and the resulting effects on technology, demographics, social organization, and community beliefs and…

To aid communities with similar concerns, this bulletin shares the proceedings of a workshop which focused on local issues surrounding rural crime and its prevention. Eight members of the Fairfield County (Ohio) Resource Development Committee assessed the need for and support of a workshop, invited speakers, scheduled a meeting place, printed an…

The difficulties presently being faced by rural communities in the North Central Extension Region are well known. Many of these communities have economies which are closely tied to farming and therefore suffer economic hardship in direct relationship to those encountered by farmers. However, a dominant characteristic of communities in the region…

The Chevak Village Youth Association (CVYA) was developed in a rural Eskimo village (population 520) both to educate youth and to integrate them into functional roles in the community. CVYA is an entirely indigenous youth organization, created and managed by the youth and young adults of the village. It has evolved, in part, as a response to the…