I conducted this study to determine if rural scholars faced unique challenges as applicants to medical schools. I created a 34-question, novel survey, "Challenges of Medical School Applicants," and broadly distributed it to medical schools across the country. I collected and analyzed a total of 178 responses. Rural and urban cohorts were…

Education is closely linked with economic outcomes. This report highlights key trends in educational attainment among rural Americans and the relationship between educational attainment and economic prosperity for rural people and places. Rural Americans are increasingly educated, but gains in educational attainment vary across demographic groups.…

Younger (13 years) and older (17 years) adolescents (N = 160) from urban and rural China responded to written scenarios in which children's rights to self-determination and nurturance conflicted with the desires of authorities. They also evaluated scenarios in which children's desire to exercise self-determination was in conflict with their own…

Conducted statewide poll (N=743) in Kentucky to examine rural mental health. Results indicated that while physical health tended to be poorer among rural populations, when health was held constant there was inverse relationship between age and depression. Findings suggest that rural elderly are no more likely to be depressed than urban…

Using data from the 1980 Census Public Use Microdata Sample, this paper examines characteristics of women who live alone and incidence of poverty in this group. Results show there are two distinct subgroups among women who live alone: the elderly, most of whom are widowed; and the young, many of whom are single or divorced. For both groups, about…

Trained, indigenous, bilingual people conducted interviews with 172 Mexican American families from the Southmost area of Brownsville and rural communities in Brooks County, Texas, to ascertain metro-nonmetro community satisfaction, as determined by place of residence and age status differentiations among family members. Complete family study units…

A total enumeration of elected and appointed officials, a 30% sample of business firms in each of 3 counties, and a 2% sample of the household residents (N=a total of 800 respondents living in a 3-county rural area of Alabama) were surveyed for purposes of comparing the attitudes of leaders and citizens toward public services and economic…

Two empirical studies were conducted in Indiana to ascertain the types of contributions residents of small towns and rural areas feel their community can perform for their subjective well being and to determine the degree to which these contributions are comparable among elderly and younger rural and urban residents. An "individual level…

Utilizing 1970 census data on a 45-county area in the northern Upper Great Lakes Region, the following questions were addressed: (1) In what ways do recent migrants to this nonmetropolitan region differ from those "nonmigrants" who resided in the region in both 1965 and 1970? (2) To what extent do the recent migrants from metropolitan…

Utilizing 1970 U.S. census data, North Carolina's (N.C.) age and sex distributions were examined to determine: rural-urban differences; national differences; influential factors; and social significance (health, education, employment, youth, and the aged). Major findings were: (1) the rural-farm fertility level had dropped below that of urban…

Results of a multiple discriminant analysis suggest that, although current residence and occupation are correlated with a rural culture, place of residence at age 16 along with several personal demographic features such as religion, income, and age, are more central to understanding the broader concept of rurality. (Author)

In an effort to present a descriptive verbal picture of white nonmetropolitan poverty in the Mid-South and to identify those factors contributing to white rural poverty, 1970 census figures were analyzed in conjunction with survey results derived from responses to an 83-item questionnaire made by a random sample of 106 poverty families living in…

The timing of three key family formation events--first sexual intercourse, first conception, and first marriage--was compared for different levels of urbanization. The levels of urbanization considered were central cities, suburbs, nonmetropolitan urban places, and rural area. Data were taken from the National Survey of Family Growth, for which…

Data derived from the 1970 National Fertility Study (NFS II included post-married women, information on all compositional factors for each respondent, and an 18-item section on sex-role ideology) were used to test the following hypotheses: farm women are more traditional in sex-role ideology than nonfarm women; the higher the sex-role…

Data from the 1980, 1970, and 1960 censuses were used to describe Pennsylvania's rural women and to compare them with urban women and, in some instances, men. In Pennsylvania in 1980, just 1 rural woman in 25 lived on a farm. These women were more educated, more active in the labor force, and somewhat better paid than their counterparts in 1960…