Bell, Michael M. (author / Department of Sociology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT) and Department of Sociology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06477
James F. Evans Collection, Today sociologists tend to doubt the rural-urban continuum, the idea that community is more characteristic of country places than cities. Based on an ethnographic study of an English exurban village, I argue that the continuum remains an important source of identity for country residents, one from which they derive social-psychological and material benefits. They root this conception of themselves as country people in nature, making this identity a particularly secure one. These real social consequences suggest that sociology should no longer doubt the reality of the rural-urban continuum, at least at the level of the definition of the situation. It, therefore, should remain an important topic of sociological study. (original)
Brown, Raplh B. (author), Hassinger, Edward W. (author), O'Brien, David J. (author), Pinkerton, James R. (author), and Department of Rural Sociology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1991
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06475
James F. Evans Collection, The relationship between the social networks of leaders and community viability is examined in a comparative study of leaders (N=75) in five rural communities (population range 1,000 to 2,500). The analysis looks at leaders' connections to organizations outside of their communities and at different kinds of linkages between leaders within their respective communities. Leaders in more and less viable communities do not differ much in characteristics such as age, education, and occupations, but the presence of women in leadership position is associated with community viability. In addition, there is some support for the expectation that leaders in more viable communities are more likely to have formal linkages to statewide and national networks. The most important finding, however, is that the way in which leaders relate to each other in instrumental tasks within their respective communities is associated with community viability. (original)
Gartrell, C. David (author), Gartrell, J.W. (author), Lewis, Scott C. (author), and Lewis: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Gartrell, C.: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Gartrell, J.: Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1989
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 83 Document Number: C05148
AGRICOLA IND 89062953, We test two hypotheses based on Cancian's theory of the status-innovation relationship which predicts upper-middle-class conservatism in agricultural communities (1967, 1972, 1979, 1981). Quantitative meta-analysis of 34 rural development surveys yields a cumulated difference-of-proportions that (1) actually runs counter to the direction predicted by Cancian's "upper-middle- class conservatism" hypothesis, and (2) supports Morrison et al.'s (1976) conjecture that upper-middle-class conservatism effects should be weaker in pyramidal representations of rural stratification systems. Future research should focus on community-level contextual factors that may influence the nature of the status-innovation relationship:
