Teens Who Make a Difference in Rural Communities

Teens Who Make a Difference in Rural Communities PDF

Author: Jean Otto Ford

Publisher: Mason Crest

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9781422200131

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Highlights the volunteer efforts of rural teens in the United States and Canada to deal with the social problems in their communities, as well as issues relevant to the wider world.

Hollowing Out the Middle

Hollowing Out the Middle PDF

Author: Patrick J. Carr

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2009-10-01

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0807042390

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Two sociologists reveal how small towns in Middle America are exporting their most precious resource—young people—and share what can be done to save these dwindling communities In 2001, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the rural brain drain and the exodus of young people from America’s countryside. They met and followed working-class “stayers”; ambitious and college-bound “achievers”; “seekers,” who head off to war to see what the world beyond offers; and “returners,” who eventually circle back to their hometowns. What surprised them most was that adults in the community were playing a pivotal part in the town’s decline by pushing the best and brightest young people to leave. In a timely, new afterword, Carr and Kefalas address the question “so what can be done to save our communities?” They profile the efforts of dedicated community leaders actively resisting the hollowing out of Middle America. These individuals have creatively engaged small town youth—stayers and returners, seekers and achievers—and have implemented a variety of programs to combat the rural brain drain. These stories of civic engagement will certainly inspire and encourage readers struggling to defend their communities.

Achieving Behavioral Health Equity for Children, Families, and Communities

Achieving Behavioral Health Equity for Children, Families, and Communities PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 0309488087

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In November 2017, the The Forum on Promoting Children's Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health, in collaboration with the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity, convened a workshop on promoting children's behavioral health equity. The workshop used a socio-ecological developmental model to explore health equity of children and families, including those with complex needs and chronic conditions. Particular attention was paid to challenges experienced by children and families in both rural and urban contexts, to include but not limited to poverty, individual and institutional racism, low-resourced communities, and hindered access to educational and health care services. Workshop participants also engaged in solution-oriented discussions of initiatives, policies, and programs that aim to improve social determinants of health, opportunities for behavioral health promotion, and access to quality services that address the behavioral health of all children and families. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the event.

Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century

Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century PDF

Author: David L. Brown

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2011-03-14

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0745641288

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Rural people and communities continue to play important social, economic and environmental roles at a time in which societies are rapidly urbanizing, and the identities of local places are increasingly subsumed by flows of people, information and economic activity across global spaces. However, while the organization of rural life has been fundamentally transformed by institutional and social changes that have occurred since the mid-twentieth century, rural people and communities have proved resilient in the face of these transformations. This book examines the causes and consequences of major social and economic changes affecting rural communities and populations during the first decades of the twenty-first century, and explores policies developed to ameliorate problems or enhance opportunities. Primarily focused on the U.S. context, while also providing international comparative discussion, the book is organized into five sections each of which explores both socio-demographic and political economic aspects of rural transformation. It features an accessible and up-to-date blend of theory and empirical analysis, with each chapter's discussion grounded in real-life situations through the use of empirical case-study materials. Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in rural sociology, community sociology, rural and/or population geography, community development, and population studies.

Rural Youth at the Crossroads

Rural Youth at the Crossroads PDF

Author: Kai. A Schafft

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-30

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1000289559

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Featuring chapters by an international group of scholars and academics, Rural Youth at the Crossroads discusses the challenges and contexts facing youth from rural communities in countries with legacies of socialism undergoing social, political, and economic transition. The chapters employ a variety of sources and approaches to examine rural youth outcomes, and the well-being and sustainability of rural areas. The book focuses particularly on career and educational goals, the often contradictory relations between rural schools and communities, majority-minoritized group relations, community engagement, and political attitudes. Individual chapters examine these questions and dynamics within Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Vietnam. In total the volume represents a unique and timely comparative discussion of the relationship between youth and rural development within transitional societies, and the challenges and opportunities for enhancing the well-being and sustainability of rural communities. Aimed at informing strategies to revitalize rural social space, this book is targeted towards social scientists with interest in sociology and rural sociology, demography, education, youth development, community/regional development, rurality, public policy, and identity formation in transitional contexts. As such, this book will have international appeal to researchers, educators, and policymakers in transitional countries, and to those interested in these topics, regions, and communities.

Out in the Country

Out in the Country PDF

Author: Mary L. Gray

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0814732208

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Winner of the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Monograph from the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Sexualities Section Winner of the 2010 Congress Inaugural Qualitative Inquiry Book Award Honorable Mention An unprecedented contemporary account of the online and offline lives of rural LGBT youth From Wal-Mart drag parties to renegade Homemaker’s Clubs, Out in the Country offers an unprecedented contemporary account of the lives of today’s rural queer youth. Mary L. Gray maps out the experiences of young people living in small towns across rural Kentucky and along its desolate Appalachian borders, providing a fascinating and often surprising look at the contours of gay life beyond the big city. Gray illustrates that, against a backdrop of an increasingly impoverished and privatized rural America, LGBT youth and their allies visibly—and often vibrantly—work the boundaries of the public spaces available to them, whether in their high schools, public libraries, town hall meetings, churches, or through websites. This important book shows that, in addition to the spaces of Main Street, rural LGBT youth explore and carve out online spaces to fashion their emerging queer identities. Their triumphs and travails defy clear distinctions often drawn between online and offline experiences of identity, fundamentally redefining our understanding of the term ‘queer visibility’ and its political stakes. Gray combines ethnographic insight with incisive cultural critique, engaging with some of the biggest issues facing both queer studies and media scholarship. Out in the Country is a timely and groundbreaking study of sexuality and gender, new media, youth culture, and the meaning of identity and social movements in a digital age.

Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth

Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth PDF

Author: Ruth Panelli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-11-21

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1134153899

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This collection of international research and collaborative theoretical innovation examines the socio-cultural contexts and negotiations that young people face when growing up in rural settings across the world. This book is strikingly different to a standard edited book of loosely linked, but basically independent, chapters. In this case, the book presents both thematically organised case studies and co-authored commentaries that integrate and advance current understandings and debates about rural childhood and youth.

Heartland

Heartland PDF

Author: Sarah Smarsh

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1501133101

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*Finalist for the National Book Award* *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize* *Instant New York Times Bestseller* *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, New York Post, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly* An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country and “a deeply humane memoir that crackles with clarifying insight”.* Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through her experiences growing up on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are given a unique and essential look into the lives of poor and working class Americans living in the heartland. During Sarah’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, she enjoyed the freedom of a country childhood, but observed the painful challenges of the poverty around her; untreated medical conditions for lack of insurance or consistent care, unsafe job conditions, abusive relationships, and limited resources and information that would provide for the upward mobility that is the American Dream. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves with clarity and precision but without judgement, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country. Beautifully written, in a distinctive voice, Heartland combines personal narrative with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, challenging the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. “Heartland is one of a growing number of important works—including Matthew Desmond’s Evicted and Amy Goldstein’s Janesville—that together merit their own section in nonfiction aisles across the country: America’s postindustrial decline...Smarsh shows how the false promise of the ‘American dream’ was used to subjugate the poor. It’s a powerful mantra” *(The New York Times Book Review).