Interest in the effects of neighborhood context on individual wellbeing has increased in recent years. We now know that neighborhood conditions, such as poverty and deprivation, negatively impact residents. However, most of the extant work has taken an urban focus. Less is known about these processes in rural settings. Neighborhood…

Rural communities have experienced dramatic demographic, social, and economic transformations over the past 30 years. Historically characterized by close links between natural resources and social, cultural, and economic structures, few of today's rural communities remain heavily dependent upon traditional extractive industries like ranching,…

Purpose: To examine substance use differences among African-American adolescents living in rural and more urban areas in Iowa and Georgia and factors thought to be related to those differences. Specifically, negative affect and perceived availability were examined as mediators of the relation between community size and alcohol, tobacco, and drug…

Rural America is undergoing rapid and confusing change which impacts on the role of rural health educators and practitioners. Although rural life has been romanticized, rural areas have emergencies and accidents remote from professional assistance, occupational diseases, high infant and maternal mortality rates, and the same high incidence of…

Regional suburbanization processes are transforming rural America socially and physically, threatening the uniqueness of small towns whose diversity is a national resource. This article reviews existing holistic descriptions of American rural communities since post-World War II by rural sociologists and anthropologists. Three new community case…

Surveys of 267 newcomers to 6 rural parishes in Lancaster and Mid Devon (England) and interviews with 113 survey respondents revealed definitions of "the rural" as abstract social representations. Respondents' representations of the rural focused on the physical environment, contained many aspects of the "rural idyll," but also…

Identifies psychotherapeutic and professional skills and personal characteristics important for private practice of marriage/family therapy in rural areas. Discusses implications for professional training. Describes private practice in geographically isolated Wyoming community, citing importance of skills in adjunct professional activities, i.e.,…

Using factor analysis (both principal factor solutions and rotated factor solutions) to search for underlying statistical commonality among 12 indicators of community satisfaction in 6 Colorado communities, the research explores various dimensions of community satisfaction that may be important across different communities. The communities under…

Discusses semantic complexities rampant in attempts to define rurality. Examines environmental and economic aspects of rurality and impacts on education. Proposes a definition of rurality based on five human considerations: approximate geographic divisions, level of access to community services, industry type, population makeup, and the…

The rural special education context is unique because of the distinct environment and the variety of rural school subcultures. However, little information about rural special education is available prior to the late 1970's, partially because federal agencies lacked a working definition of "rural." Although rural and urban special…

Discusses common themes in five papers on rural community psychology: myth that rural life is naturally supportive, importance of community needs in designing prevention programs, risks of labeling diseases, rural psychologists as developers/advocates, using advice/direct suggestion, thinking in systems/ecological terms, role/boundary conflicts,…

Discusses contextual factors (geography, community idiosyncrasies, personal relationships, formal resource scarcity, community resource accessibility, external force influence, visibility, "Jack-of-All-Trades") affecting practices of rural child welfare workers. Points out similarities/differences in child welfare work in urban and rural…

The use of multiple indicators of educational achievement is called for to replace a single measure of student achievement in order to identify the school context in which education occurs. School-level indicators have been identified, such as access to knowledge, press for achievement, and professional teaching conditions. These indicators are…

Suggests that rural cummunity psychology focus on preventive interventions instead of traditional service delivery. Discusses special nature of intervention in rural communities, types of preventive interventions, understanding/utilizing community social ecology, and training issues. Advocates greater preparation for rural psychology and greater…

Participants in a symposium concerned with issues affecting rural New York State identified strengths and weaknesses and suggested policy in relation to three broad goals in the area of human services and community life: (1) increase community awareness of problems affecting rural localities, including the causes and effects of crime, violence,…