The Community In Rural America

The Community in Rural America, by Kenneth P. Wilkinson, is a foundational theoretical work that both defines the interactional approach to the study of the community in rural areas and frames its application to encourage and promote rural community development. Recognized for its detailed theoretical construction and logic for understanding human interactions, this book has been widely adopted and used by researchers, extension faculty, and community development practitioners for over thirty years. Presenting Wilkinson’s groundbreaking work in its original form, with a new foreword aimed at clarifying several key concepts in interactional theory, this edition of The Community in Rural America will appeal to new students of the community as well as established scholars in the field.

The twentieth century was one of profound transformation in rural America. Demographic shifts and economic restructuring have conspired to alter dramatically the lives of rural people and their communities. Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century defines these changes and interprets their implications for the future of rural America. The volume follows in the tradition of "decennial volumes" co-edited by presidents of the Rural Sociological Society and published in the Society's Rural Studies Series. Essays have been specially commissioned to examine key aspects of public policy relevant to rural America in the new century. Contributors include:Lionel Beaulieu, Alessandro Bonnano, David Brown, Ralph Brown, Frederick Buttel, Ted Bradshaw, Douglas Constance, Steve Daniels, Lynn England, William Falk, Cornelia Flora, Jan Flora, Glenn Fuguitt, Nina Glasgow, Leland Glenna, Angela Gonzales, Gary Green, Rosalind Harris, Tom Hirschl, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Leif Jensen, Ken Johnson, Richard Krannich, Daniel Lichter, Linda Lobao, Al Luloff, Tom Lyson, Kate MacTavish, David McGranahan, Diane McLaughlin, Philip McMichael, Lois Wright Morton, Domenico Parisi, Peggy Petrzelka, Kenneth Pigg, Rogelio Saenz, Sonya Salamon, Jeff Sharp, Curtis Stofferahn, Louis Swanson, Ann Tickameyer, Leanne Tigges, Cruz Torres, Mildred Warner, Ronald Wimberley, Dreamal Worthen, and Julie Zimmerman.

Communities in rural America are a complex mixture of peoples and cultures, ranging from miners who have been laid off in West Virginia, to Laotian immigrants relocating in Kansas to work at a beef processing plant, to entrepreneurs drawing up plans for a world-class ski resort in California's Sierra Nevada. Rural Communities: Legacy and Change uses its unique Community Capitals framework to examine how America's diverse rural communities use their various capitals (natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built) to address the modern challenges that face them. Each chapter opens with a case study of a community facing a particular challenge, and is followed by a comprehensive discussion of sociological concepts to be applied to understanding the case. This narrative, topical approach makes the book accessible and engaging for undergraduate students, while its integrative approach provides them with a framework for understanding rural society based on the concepts and explanations of social science. This fifth edition is updated throughout with 2013 census data and features new and expanded coverage of health and health care, food systems and alternatives, the effects of neoliberalism and globalization on rural communities, as well as an expanded resource and activity section at the end of each chapter.

America's rural areas have always held a disproportionate share of the nation's poorest populations. Rural Poverty in the United States examines why. What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty. Contributors to this volume incorporate approaches from multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, demography, race and gender studies, public health, education, criminal justice, social welfare, and other social science fields. They take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and use their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans for years to come. These essays work hard to define rural poverty's specific metrics and markers, a critical step for building better policy and practice. Considering gender, race, and immigration, the book appreciates the overlooked structural and institutional dimensions of ongoing rural poverty and its larger social consequences.

How a fraying social fabric is fueling the outrage of rural Americans What is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America’s small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order—the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities—underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans’ anger, their culture must be explored more fully, and he shows that rural America’s fury stems less from economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Moving beyond simplistic depictions of America’s heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation’s political future.

"This fourth Rural Sociological Society decennial volume provides advanced scholarship on rural North America during the 2010's, reflecting upon the increasingly global nature of social, cultural, and economic forces and the impact of neoliberal ideology upon policy, politics, and power in rural areas. The various chapters, representing the expertise of scholars in rural sociology and related social sciences, address the changing structure of North American agriculture, natural resources and the environment, demographics, diversity, and quality of life in rural communities"--

"A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face"--Provided by publisher.

In the last decade, rural development emerged as one of the prominent challenges facing the United States. Strong support for rural development is now found in both major political parties and at federal, state, and local levels. There is little doubt that the development of rural America will become even more important in the future. Despite unprecedented growth, both urban and rural areas in the United States are greatly deficient in many aspects of quality living conditions. The nation’s cities are slowly strangling themselves, jamming together people and industry while spawning pollution, transportation paralysis, housing blight, lack of privacy, and a crime-infested society. Rural areas simultaneously suffer from the other extreme: lack of sufficient employment opportunities, outmigration and depopulation, and too few people to support services and institutions. The migration from rural areas contributes to the problems of both the city and countryside depopulating rural places at the expense of overcrowded cities. This book focuses on rural development processes, problems, and solutions. Seven prominent specialists in the field, including agricultural and regional economists, demographers, and administrators, discuss the development of the open country, small towns, and smaller cities (up t fifty thousand population). They present an integrated approach to rural development problems, not a mere collection of readings. Valuable guidelines for policies to benefit both rural and urban areas are provided. Since rural development involves interdisciplinary scholarship, this book will be of interest to a wide range of social scientists working in rural areas both here and abroad. Economists, sociologists, and political scientists, as well as community leaders and planners, legislators, government officials and interested laymen, will find this volume useful in understanding the rural development effort. Chapters on the following topics are included: the Philosophy and Process of Community Development; The Emergence of Area Development; Demographic Trends of the U.S. Rural Population; The Conditions and Problems of Nonmetropolitan America; Systems Planning for rural Development; Use of Natural Resources in Community Development; and Rural Poverty and Urban Growth, An Economic Critique of Alternative Spatial Growth Patterns