This study examines coping behaviors and felt experiences of homeless adults in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Data from in-depth interviews with 55 homeless adults reveal 5 general coping pattern groups: shelter users, campers, couch hoppers, mixed users, and circumstantial homeless. Homeless adults within each group experienced similar levels of…

This paper reports on research into the learning aspects of adopting integrated parasite management practices for sheep (IPM-s) applying a workplace learning framework. An analysis of four primary data sources was conducted; a postal survey of Australian wool producers, a Delphi process with IPM-s researchers, focus groups and interviews with wool…

Interest in the effects of neighborhood context on individual wellbeing has increased in recent years. We now know that neighborhood conditions, such as poverty and deprivation, negatively impact residents. However, most of the extant work has taken an urban focus. Less is known about these processes in rural settings. Neighborhood…

This paper focuses on the representation of post-productive countryside in Finland by exploring how the rural is presented in the context of second home tourism. Being an integral part of rural areas and their history, second homes are an established example of the post-productive consumption of countryside. The international and Finnish…

Economic changes and the machinations of the treadmill of production have dramatically reduced the number of jobs provided by extractive industries, such as mining and timber, in the United States and other affluent nations in the post-World War II era. As the importance of these industries to national, regional, and local economies wanes,…

Religious communities are important sources of bridging and bonding social capital that have varying implications for perceptions of social cohesion in rural areas. In particular, as well as cultivating cohesiveness more broadly, the bridging social capital associated within mainline religious communities may represent an especially important…

This article is essentially written as two linked parts. The first part considers how space, spatiality and history can contribute to understanding and "doing something about" the sustainability of rural communities. This is done by extensive reference to Soja's (1989 & 1996) space and spatial theorising and selective perspectives of…

The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of a pilot study that promoted productive and capacity-building activities among deprived rural women of Mexico. The evaluation design is observational; 1,278 women are interviewed, and the comparison group is estimated by propensity score matching. The results show a positive impact on the…

The familiar advertising slogan, "Up here it's different," used to attract visitors to the rugged beauty of County Donegal, was correct in highlighting that things are different in Donegal, although not for the reasons one might connect with tourism. For many, Donegal evokes nostalgic images of old, rural Ireland such as close community…

In this article, the author explores some particularly "luminous" paradoxes that have emerged from qualitative material gathered as part of an ethnographic study carried out over the last five years. The research, now a doctoral study, grew initially out of the author's own contradictory experiences of running learning provision in the…

It is well known that to a large extent, it is the young people of today who will determine the intellectual, economic, cultural, and spiritual face of rural Russia in the twenty-first century. Unless young people take part in the modernization of the economy and in its social development, the Russian countryside will not have a future. Among…

In this qualitative investigation, racial and ethnic minority teachers (N = 6) used personal stories to elucidate their experiences with social injustices that have impacted their teaching in rural schools. These counter-stories serve to disrupt orthodox conceptions of teachers of color, to resituate their work in their cultural positions, and to…

This paper investigates the changing relationship between land, citizenship, and power in Brazil, where land-related policies have historically served to situate political and economic rights in the hands of an elite land-owning minority. In response, contemporary grassroots movements in Brazil, including the Landless Rural Workers Movement…

In South Africa, the lack of teacher training in parent involvement is compounded by the teacher shortage in general and the overall shortfall of qualified teachers. This article describes a project developed for one of the communities in South Africa to enhance students' knowledge of and comfort with parent involvement. This study aims to answer…

This article explores the responses of school principals of small rural schools in Victoria, Australia to leadership challenges they identify as characteristic of these contexts. The research is an exercise in grounded theory building, with the focus on the principalship as it is enacted in small rural settings. The article also seeks to trace the…