A survey of 41 rural high school counselors from eight western states indicates an emerging problem with crime and youth gangs in rural schools and communities. In addition, school counselors do not feel adequately trained or equipped to deal with gang-related activity in their schools. Includes survey questionnaire. (LP)

An ethnographic study of high school seniors in a small rural midwestern high school revealed that, although there was a lack of direct parent and community involvement, the small cohesive class of 30 students constructed a school culture that promoted participation, cooperation, high expectations, and academic achievement. (LP)

Examination of the impact of gender and academic-risk behavior on the career maturity and competence of 110 rural youth revealed that females were more involved and independent in their career development and that high-risk students were less able to solve career-related problems. Addresses implications for rural career education and vocational…

Investigates rural and urban adolescents' perceptions of mental health. Provides insight into rural and urban students' perceptions of problematic behaviors, who should intervene, and how. Recommends that health care providers help adolescents expand their range of coping behaviors, especially in regard to alcohol abuse and violence. (Author/GCP)

Draws on ethnographic fieldwork in southern Bolivia to explore how rural Bolivian youth negotiate structural constraints on choices of work versus secondary education, including local versus urban location, economic resources, parental attitudes, gender, family characteristics, social networks and support, and peer role models. Suggests the notion…

Using data from the Survey of State School-to-Work Opportunity Systems (1994), a study examined states' work in providing the necessary support to involve all students in school-to-work opportunity systems. The study focused on a time when the states were in the planning or very early implementation stages of school-to-work system development.…

A survey of rural secondary school students examined the formation of adolescent occupational identity by identifying predictors of students' ideal jobs. Data were collected from 612 of the approximately 750 students in grades 7-12 in a rural Pennsylvania school district. Predictors of choice of ideal job, by descending influence, were gender,…

Early onset of at-risk behaviors has been recognized as an important predictor of severity of negative outcomes during adolescence, but little is known about rural children's involvement in such behaviors and related variables. In two rural Midwest counties with high concentrations of child poverty, a survey of 162 predominantly Caucasian fifth-…

This report provides demographic, statistical, and other indicator data related to rural education in the Mid-Atlantic region of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The data are intended to aid state rural assistance councils in developing plans to improve rural schools. One obstacle to consistent policy implementation is the…

This study analyzes the components of a proposed definition of independent living, in order to derive scales to be used to differentiate between groups with specific disabilities and between those with and without disabilities. The study was designed to facilitate identification of those areas of special needs that can be best addressed within the…

A study was done to determine if certain social variables outside of the school environment would show a relationship with substance abuse. Non-school activities considered were organized athletics, clubs, and music and drama organizations. A survey was distributed to 7,426 secondary school and middle school students in a large Midwestern…

White children of the rural South are caught between two cultures--the middle class value system taught at school and the rural lower/working class values held by their parents. Differences in values and the attitudes of parents present an impediment to the children's education as well as to the successful implementation of health, education, and…

Options was a two-year research and curriculum design project conducted at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) under a grant for the Women's Educational Equity Act Program Staff. The project completed the following: assessment of career-related perceptions and self-defined needs of rural young people in five different rural regions (Northern New…

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 Counseling Helping Questionnaire, Forms A and B, was answered by 150 Indian and 50 non-Indian 11th and 12th grade students in Oklahoma to obtain information about the concerns seen as most important by Indian high school students, the concerns which they were most likely to talk about with a counselor or a significant other, who the…