Little is known about preventing alcohol use by youth in rural America, and almost no rural alcohol prevention program has been evaluated. To address these deficiencies, this paper critically examines the issue of alcohol use by rural youth within a public health framework. The literature is reviewed to identify what is known about the prevalence…

The Upward Bound program seeks to promote high school completion and college attendance of high school students who come from low-income families or have parents who did not complete college. Specifically, Upward Bound projects provide academic instruction, career planning, and college application services, during the regular school year and…

An intervention for fifth graders at risk for school problems focused on life-skills training and cross-age teaching of younger students. Parent involvement included two meetings and weekly postcards from their children. Parents reported communication with their child about the program; increased knowledge about life skills, support from school,…

An Australian project aimed to strengthen relationships of general practitioners (GPs) with rural adolescents and school personnel through GP school visits, educational seminars on health topics for students, and student visits to GP clinics. Surveys of 5 project personnel, 6 GPs, 3 school counselors, and 30 secondary school students found…

This report is a summary of discussions that took place at the Rural Voluntary Sector Leaders' Dialogue, entitled "Innovation and Skills Development in the Rural Voluntary Sector in Nova Scotia", held in Truro, Nova Scotia on September 20, 2002. Many of the discussions took place in brainstorming sessions at which no limits were placed…

This report presents the results of an 18-month research project that studied the effectiveness of youth work with vulnerable young people. The research, representing six distinct geographical areas of Scotland characterized by disadvantage, focused on young people aged 13 to 16. In each neighborhood, the project examined the experiences of young…

Despite the current attention directed at rural education, rural minority youth may be in some danger of becoming invisible. A lack of specific and detailed knowledge of minority conditions and potential opportunities at regional, sub-regional, state, and local levels has inhibited the development of sound programs and policies for the redress of…

This document reports on 13 pilot projects of the Flexible Services Development Project (FSDP), which was initiated in Ontario, Canada, in 1988 to improve child care services for rural families, families with unusual work schedules, families facing short-term emergencies, and families with children who have short-term illnesses. The data and…

In the face of extreme poverty and inequality in South Africa, community mobilization interventions represent an important way in which people can be empowered to improve their life. Successfully conducting community mobilization interventions in rural South African communities requires anticipating and addressing a number of potential barriers in…

Louisiana Tech University conducted a program to reduce drop-out probabilities for at-risk special needs adolescents as part of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Eighty-six students between the ages of 14 and 16 were chosen as "at-risk" based on economic disadvantage, lower academic performance, behavioral and adjustment problems,…

Performance of rural 13-year-olds on the 1971-1972 social studies assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were reviewed in terms of three major exercise themes. Performance on skill exercises revealed rural strengths in source selection and human affairs insights, but weaknesses in reading maps and graphs. Fewer than…

Structural and cultural inequalities hinder the attainment of approximately 25 million rural American youth. A characteristic lack of education and employment opportunities is combined with a restricted realm of attainment in rural areas. Rural people are negatively stereotyped by the mass society, as seen in an examination of linguistic terms…

The Rural Intervention Project was intended to reduce status offenses and delinquent behavior by youths and to increase the opportunities for positive youth involvement by providing problem solving services to the youth and families of rural Pima County, Arizona. Begun by Portable Practical Educational Preparation, Inc. in 1978 and operating on a…

Young people growing up in rural and isolated areas of Australia face particular challenges because structural change to the rural economy has dramatically affected their communities. Structural challenges include limited transportation, health and community services that are difficult to access and not confidential, scarcity of affordable…

Estimates impact of community resource development (CRD) programs on a variety of quality of life indicators for 73 Arkansas counties that were nonmetropolitan in 1960. Results indicate that few quality of life indicators were affected in the direction intended by CRD programs. Examines substantive and methodological implications of the findings.…