"Small Schools, Education, and the Importance of Community" focuses on three successful approaches for using the school as a catalyst for community development and revitalization, particularly in rural areas. The strategies also work well in suburban and urban areas. The three approaches described include: leadership by K-12 teachers,…

This concluding volume in the series presents the work of faculty who have been moved to make sustainability the focus of their work, and to use service learning as one method of teaching sustainability to their students. The chapters in the opening section of this book-- Environmental Awareness--offer models for opening students to the awareness…

How do people use education to respond to change? How do people learn what is expected of "good citizens" in their communities? These questions have long concerned educational historians, civic educators, and social scientists. In recent years, they have captured national attention through high-profile education reform proposals and…

Intended for rural development practitioners and extension educators, this publication examines trends and issues in the revitalization of rural America. Chapter 1 defines community economic vitality as the capacity to ensure a flow of jobs and income over time; focuses attention on the realities of competition between communities and the…

Rural development literature yields three images of improved social well-being--economic technical growth, human-interpersonal growth, and environmental-quality protection. While the economic growth dimension of rural development has received much attention, little is known about the structural conditions in the social organization or the kinds of…

China's official history maintains that the radical egalitarianism of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) led to economic disaster. This book challenges that view. Drawing on local interviews and records in rural Jimo County, Shandong Province, this study contends that the Cultural Revolution's political convulsions democratized village political…

Depicting how people in nine countries can improve their lives while living within their environmental means is the primary aim of this book. Chapter 1 highlights the division of earth's people into the haves and the have nots and describes the inequity of so few having so much of the available resources. Chapter 2 examines the problem of how…

This book outlines the competitive challenge facing rural America and discusses signs of hope for the rural economy. It reports some "secrets of success" in 16 rural farm belt counties that have gained employment while most rural areas are losing jobs. It also describes new state initiatives to help rural communities and lists operating…

The major contention of this paper is that the emphasis in developing countries on non-formal alternatives to formal schooling can be related to a major reconstruction now underway of the concept of economic development. The earlier concept of development is defined as economic growth reflected in increased gross national product, principally…

In an effort to clarify and synthesize recent explanations of underdevelopment and poverty in Central Appalachia, the following three models were explored: (1) the subculture of poverty model (identifies the internal deficiencies of the Southern Appalachian traditional subculture as the source of poverty problems); (2) the regional development…

Written by some of the foremost experts on rural America, this book focuses on policy-relevant research on the problems of rural areas. In each chapter, rural policy needs are identified by examining the flow of events and rural sociology of the 1980s. Chapters are: (1) "Critical Times for Rural America: The Challenge for Rural Policy in the…

Assuming that schools, colleges, and adult education programs cannot alone produce significant rural improvement in developing nations, this booklet presents argument for educational policy that is part of a total planned rural policy and that incorporates an indirect rural bias. It is argued that if education with a rural bias is to be acceptable…

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer opportunities for renewed development for many rural and remote areas that have long experienced economic decline and outmigration. But there is a risk of a territorial digital divide between urban and rural areas. Investments in telecommunications infrastructure and services tend to be…

Conference participants examined how other states are preparing their farmers and rural communities to survive in the present "new world order," and considered whether Arkansas, one of only three states without a central agricultural agency, has the tools to forge strategies for the 1990's. "The Role of State Government in…

This book synthesizes and analyzes much of the theoretical and practical literature on rural economic development and related issues from the past two decades with the aim of initiating construction of a new model for U.S. rural development policy. Part I emphasizes the national and global context within which U.S. rural development must take…