Evaluates the impact of 4 career development curricular strategies and emotional/instrumental support in preparing rural adolescents to make successful post-high school transitions. Curriculum strategies and perceived support helped 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students attain critical aspects of career development, enhanced student satisfaction,…

Discusses the importance of recognizing and understanding the consequences of stress, distress, and burnout among rural middle school students. Provides guidelines for diminishing the effects of distress and burnout among students and for conducting teacher inservice programs on distress and ways to manage personal and professional stress. (LP)

This document comprises a review of the factors which may account for the seeming general low interest among African Americans in migration and for the lack of interest among rural Southern blacks in study abroad. A review of the literature on migration indicates that the following factors directly influence the decision to migrate: (1) costs; (2)…

Utilizing data from several studies done at Texas A&M University during the last 12 years, this paper develops a systematic interpretation of the idea of "minority-group orientation" and tests the adequacy of these concepts as an aid to understanding potential diversity among rural Mexican American youth with regard to intergroup fusion. The paper…

This document contains one of two reports presented at the Governor's National Forum on Youth Employment, May 22-23, 1980. Focusing on the issue of youth employment, this report is divided into seven sections. Section 1 discusses the high national youth unemployment rate. Section 2 describes a variety of factors pertinent to youth unemployment and…

A growing body of empirical data suggests that there may be a true psychological distinction between academic and practical intelligence. If there is, then conventional ability tests used alone may reveal substantially less than we want to know about people's competence in everyday practical situations. Evidence to this effect is reviewed from…

Examines social support and coping in relation to resiliency among a sample of rural, low-income Appalachian African-American and White adolescents. Regression analyses reveal that social support from family and problem-focused, avoidance, and wishful-thinking forms of coping significantly predicted resiliency. Race and gender distinctions were…

Reports on the social relations of rural African American early adolescents and the initial impact of a multilevel intervention program aimed at enhancing the productive school engagement of at-risk youth. Students' school social relations and risk status were used in assessment. Four subgroups were identified: Model, Aggressive, Troubled, and…

Children and youth in rural American communities generally learn social studies/citizenship knowledge, skills, and attitudes from a variety of sources and to about the same extent as their nonrural counterparts. Although rural schools as a class are well within the educational mainstream, learning opportunities in rural schools vary widely. (BRR)

Cites statistics characterizing the growing problems faced by students, such as violence, drug use, declining trust, and cheating. Summarizes the contributions of this issue's articles with regard to the influence of early experience on aspirations, and observes that surveys and interview techniques can enrich understanding of the problems and…

This report examines program integration as a way to improve the delivery of rural human services in Pennsylvania. A panel of policymakers, human services providers, and representatives of state agencies identified barriers to effective rural human services delivery and generated policy recommendations. Most county-based human services in…

This paper presents a framework for assessing the economic and social costs of drug abuse in rural areas. The first section considers definitions for three key sets of concepts: (1) what is rural, the great diversity within rural contexts, and how to distinguish rural from urban; (2) the nature of social costs, as they affect communities as well…

This paper reviews the literature on rural poverty in the Northeast relating to rural education and makes suggestions for educators who teach the rural poor. Against the theory of a "culture of poverty," which suggests that the rural poor avoid hard work by choice, the more recent view is that the poor often accept the Puritan work ethic…

Rural gifted students are often characterized in the literature as sharing many of the needs and problems of other culturally diverse groups. They are viewed as having problems related to self-esteem, level of aspiration, and frustration with an instructional program which often fails to provide for learning relevant to the students' interests and…

Results of recent surveys of students, parents, and communities in west-central Minnesota indicate a great desire for vocational education and a perception of vocational education for a job as a basic skill. The rural student needs greater access to vocational programming in order to help break patterns of poverty and open the vision of students…