Ongoing demographic, social, economic and cultural changes point to the dynamic and continually changing contexts of rural areas in Ireland and Northern Ireland. However, the influence of such changes on the lives of older people remains under-explored, particularly the question of how older people perceive, connect to and engage in their…

This brief explores the link between rural youths' identification with their community, their self-esteem, and their future plans. The panel study of New Hampshire's Coos County youth offers a snapshot into the dynamics of a population that is developing its identity in a region that is undergoing an identity transformation of its own. Place…

This introduction presents the case, and sets the scene, for five reviews of research on rural schools and their communities, arguing that educational research in this field is relatively rare, and decreasingly visible despite the significant population of the world's children who live in rural communities and attend rural schools. After…

Context: The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 allowed some rural hospitals meeting certain requirements to convert to Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and changed their Medicare reimbursement from prospective to cost-based. Some subsequent CAH-related laws reduced restrictions and increased payments, and the number of CAHs grew rapidly. Purpose:…

In contrast to those of other industrialized western European countries, France's agricultural community continued to represent the majority of the national population for a long time and only became one of many minority groups at the end of the twentieth century. It then came under the influence of various trends, sometimes conflicting but…

The great majority of America's population now resides in urban/suburban locales and consequently most Americans do not struggle with the question of whether their community can, or should, maintain its own school. Nevertheless, this question continues to confront many rural dwellers in all states. What follows is an action research project…

A complex array of socio-historical, demographic, and organizational factors have combined in recent years to threaten both the current status of and future prospects for the discipline of rural sociology, and for the Rural Sociological Society (RSS). This paper examines the somewhat problematic recent trajectories of the RSS as a professional…

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…

Rural gentrification, which is linked in particular to the migration and permanent settlement in the countryside of middle-class or affluent urbanites, is increasingly affecting contemporary rural communities. Despite the significance of this trend, the complex and many-sided phenomenon of rural gentrification has hardly been explored in scholarly…

In this study, we explore the social basis of environmental concern, specifically focusing on attitudes about the agricultural environment in relation to an individual's geographic and social distance from agriculture. We also consider the significance of rural recreational behaviors in relation to agro-environmental concern. The analysis, based…

This article analyzes the theoretical and empirical parameters of social regulation in contemporary global food markets, focusing on the rapidly expanding Fair Trade initiative. Fair Trade seeks to transform North/South relations by fostering ethical consumption, producer empowerment, and certified commodity sales. This initiative joins an array…

According to data of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, in the 2006-2007 school year the number of daytime enrollment general education institutions was 58,500, with 38,600 of that number in rural areas. The total enrollment of all such schools was 14.3 million children, of which 4.4 million were in rural areas. From…

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…

It is common to understand the governing of rural space as the outcome of a conflict between some romantic protectors of a lost past on the one hand, and the people who worry about creating economic values on the other. However, the power to shape the rural should not only be searched for in the open struggle between protectors and developers, but…

This research examined how rural high school students' self-perceptions and environmental perceptions influence their engagement, expectations, and achievement, and how those relationships differ by geographic rural location. Participants were 224 students in four rural, public high schools in two U.S. states, Colorado and Indiana. Path models…