Routes to economic development attract considerable attention in community and rural sociology. Social scientists draw increasingly on studies of social capital and environmental surroundings as they examine the factors that facilitate and inhibit economic development. However, few empirical analyses exist that analyze the impact of the…

Nationally oriented institutions of the developmentalist era are being replaced by globally oriented institutions under the legitimizing cloak of efficiency and financial credibility. Meanwhile, producing communities either seek niches in the global economy or resist global pressures, thereby newly emphasizing the local. Explores the conjunction…

Examines women's place in academic sociology, describing situations ostensibly structured to provide equal opportunities, but function to penalize female players. Discusses mentoring, role models, career and family responsibilities, tenure, promotion, dual academic career families, and research issues. Concludes there are still many barriers…

In two marginal dairy communities with similar physical environment, ethnic composition, and farm structure, a significant difference in productivity (milk yield per cow) was related to differences in educational attainment of farmers, proximity to an urban area, and availability of marketing outlets and agricultural information sources. Contains…

Historically, the consolidation of school districts has brought with it many promises and perils. In this paper, the author links curriculum and community involvement within the consolidation context.

This paper asks, what are the attributes of the rural working class population in England and Wales? Drawing on the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) Longitudinal Study (LS), household and personal attributes at both the 1991 and 2001 Censuses are examined, with a view to exploring how far the rural working classes can be conceptualised as a…

There have been calls recently to challenge some of the orthodoxies of counterurbanisation. This paper contributes to this by highlighting the complexity of rural in-migration processes, through a focus on rural return migration. There has been a significant increase in return migration to the Republic of Ireland (ROI) since 1996. The paper is…

Presents salary data for rural sociologists employed in U.S. colleges and universities as full professors, associate professors, and assistant professors. Reports maximum, minimum, and mean salaries by region and year from 1986-87 to 1988-89. (SV)

Shifts the focus of poverty theory from individual characteristics to a more structural, community level. Defines and tests a measurement model of a structural conceptualization of poverty by applying confirmatory factor analysis to data on 5 poverty indicators from 881 nonadjacent nonmetropolitan counties. Contains 69 references. (SV)

This analysis draws on interview data from a three-year study of educational decision making of youth living in a coastal community in Atlantic Canada. Students whose educational and mobility aspirations extend outside the known spaces of the community develop the ability to negotiate multiple social spaces in and out of school. The school- …

This article focuses on the accepted identity of the countryside as a hegemonic, idyllic and stable environment. Making use of the experiences of a group of 25 15-year-old London students on a recent residential trip to the Dorset coast, it seeks to understand whether or not the countryside is seen as a "welcoming place" for inner-city…

Sketches some events in the life and career of Lowry Nelson, a rural sociologist, and relates these events to the development of rural sociology and the Rural Sociological Society. Asserts that the dream of using science to ameliorate social problems during the early development of rural sociology is still present today. (KS)

This paper uses a study of women's participation in the Australian sugar industry to illustrate and critique the process and usefulness of reflexivity in rural research. I begin by situating the use of reflexivity within the feminist literature. Following this, I describe the way in which I used reflexivity to examine different identities I…

Rural communities have experienced dramatic demographic, social, and economic transformations over the past 30 years. Historically characterized by close links between natural resources and social, cultural, and economic structures, few of today's rural communities remain heavily dependent upon traditional extractive industries like ranching,…

This paper explores and questions some of the evidence used to support early childhood interventions in the UK, and reports on discussions with three rural Mini Sure Start project leaders in Devon. Sure Start funding in the UK has been repeatedly increased to provide more centres for 0-3-year-olds and their parents. It is increasingly linked to…