Within the past ten to fifteen years, there has been a trend among churches to downsize staff and eliminate the role of "Minister of Education." With these changes in staff structure, a need has emerged for assistance in evaluating adult educational programming within the church. For this project, a process was developed called the Adult…

This paper explores the politicization of school reopenings in two swing states against the backdrop of rising COVID cases, public health warnings, and the hyper-partisan weaponization of "choice" rhetoric by parents to send children back into school. Rhetoric surrounding parental choice partnered with economic considerations placed…

Although there are questions concerning the extent of the problems facing rural Americans, there is considerable evidence that many nonmetropolitan communities are facing a multitude of serious challenges. These issues do not exist as distinct and unrelated problems. For instance, one cannot focus exclusively on depopulation without also…

In this qualitative study, we focused on a two-way model of engagement, utilizing observational and individual interview data to examine community members' perceptions of their participation in a statewide initiative to increase leadership capacity at the community level. We review barriers to engagement recognized in the literature. Our study…

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a robust scale, based on the community capital framework, to provide an empirical measure of community perceptions. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed measure was completed by a sample of Georgia citizens (n = 3374) representing a diverse cross-section of community…