34 pages, A growing body of research lends support to opportunity theory and its variants, but has yet to focus systematically on a number of specific offenses and contexts. Typically, the more crimes and contexts to which a theory applies, the broader its scope and range, respectively, and thus generalizability. In this paper, we focus on agricultural crime victimization— including theft of farm equipment, crops, livestock, and chemicals—an offense that opportunity theory appears well-situated to explain. Specifically, we examine whether key dimensions of the theory are empirically associated with the likelihood of victimization and also examine factors associated with farmers’ use of guardianship measures. In contrast to much previous research, we combine multiple individual-level measures of these dimensions. We conclude that the theory partially accounts for variation in agricultural crime victimization, depending on the type of crime, and that greater work is needed investigating how key dimensions of opportunity theory should be conceptualized and operationalized in rural contexts. The study’s implications for theory and practice are discussed.
37pgs, With agriculture considered key to generating jobs for Africa's growing population, several studies have explored youth aspirations toward farming. While many factors explaining aspirations have been well studied, little is known about the actors' shaping aspirations. We developed a novel framework that focuses on the factors and actors shaping the formation and actual aspirations of rural youth and applied a unique “whole-family” approach based on mixed-methods data collection from adolescents (boys and girls) and corresponding adults. We applied this approach in rural Zambia, collecting data from 348 adolescents and adults in 87 households. The study finds that parents strongly shape youth aspirations—they are much more influential than siblings, peers, church, and media. Male youth are more likely to envision farming (full or part-time) than female youth. The male preference for farming reflects their parent's aspirations and is reinforced by the patriarchal system of land inheritance. Parents' farm characteristics, such as degree of mechanization, are also associated with aspirations. We recommend a “whole- family” approach, which acknowledges the influential role of parents, for policies and programs for rural youth and a stronger focus on gender aspects.
35pgs, The idea that citizens' support for environmental policies depends on their economic interest and the community that one lives in, has been debated extensively in the environmental attitudes literature. However, this literature has not differentiated between separate policy dimensions that concern measures that affect specific groups in different ways. This paper differentiates between a nature/agriculture dimension that divides those who prioritize the agrarian interest from those who prioritize the protection of nature and a climate/energy dimension that divides those who prioritize industrial interest from those who prioritize fighting climate change, using a new survey in the Netherlands (N = 11,327). This two-dimensional model meets three criteria: scalability, validity, and utility. Scalability is shown by factor analysis and Mokken scaling. Validity is shown by regression analyses that show that whether one lives in a rural or an urban community predicts one's position on the nature/agriculture dimension and that one's financial security predicts one's position on the climate/energy dimension. The utility is shown by regression analyses where the two dimensions are used to predict voting behavior. The Green Party voters favor nature and climate protection, the Liberal Party voters have the opposite views, the Christian-Democrats favor agricultural interests and the Freedom Party favor industrial interests.
21 pages, This paper examines (1) the role of professional journals in research and (2) the perceived criteria for journal publication in the sciences utilizing national surveys of agricultural journal editors and agricultural scientists in thirteen disciplines. Results indicate that agricultural scientists view professional journals as the most important published resource in their research, the major outlet for their findings, and a key criterion in their choice of research problems. In addition, both journal editors and scientists generally agree that scientists' submitted articles are primarily judged against the normative criteria of scientific craftsmanship rather than by particularistic standards. The most important criterion for journal publication as seen by both editors and scientists is the value of the author's findings to the field. However, unlike other scientists, agricultural scientists appear to associate this universalistic criterion of value to the field with (1) the potential contribution of the article to increased agricultural productivity and (2) the value of the article's findings to clientele groups. Furthermore, these two criteria of productivity and clientele needs that stress the practical value of the research are more important for publishing decisions among journals reporting applied emphases and to scientists in applied disciplines.
31 pages, Imaginaries of empty, verdant lands have long motivated agricultural frontier expansion. Today, climate change, food insecurity, and economic promise are invigorating new agricultural frontiers across the circumpolar north. In this article, I draw on extensive archival and ethnographic evidence to analyze mid-twentieth-century and recent twenty-first-century narratives of agricultural development in the Northwest Territories, Canada. I argue that the early frontier imaginary is relatively intact in its present lifecycle. It is not simply climactic forces that are driving an emergent northern agricultural frontier, but rather the more diffuse and structural forces of capitalism, governmental power, settler colonialism, and resistance to those forces. I also show how social, political, and infrastructural limits continue to impede agricultural development in the Northwest Territories and discuss how smallholder farmers and Indigenous communities differently situate agricultural production within their local food systems. This paper contributes to critical debates in frontiers and northern agriculture literature by foregrounding the contested space between the state-driven and dominant public narratives underpinning frontier imaginaries, and the social, cultural, and material realities that constrain them on a Northwest Territories agricultural frontier.
"The argument advanced here is that actor-network theory is useful in analyzing conservation agriculture as a radically different agriculture: a new paradigm with new beliefs about soils, plants, and environment, and farmers themselves as well as new crop production systems."
Parents shape children's social choices through their social and economic actions. Parental social participation connects children to a civic culture and encourages involvement in civic groups. Parents' ties to farming in farm-dependent communities furuther enhance children's civic orientations by providing added opportunities and incentives for social participation. Data from Iowa Youth and Families Project confirm these hypotheses, showing that the children of farmers and of rural leaders are more likely to participate in civic groups. These results establish parental social involvement as a source of social capital and demonstrate the importance of farm incluences for understanding the social involvement of youth in rural society.
We argue that attempts to superimpose park regulatory regimes on existing land uses in the tropics represent conflicts between alternative cultural models of natural resource management. The results of such conflcits are unique regulatory regimes emerging from distinctive processes that redefine the terms and limits of natural resource use. In creating scarcity of available resource, parks encourage social diffrentiation and greater awareness of societal patterns of inequality, establishing a potential for the articulation of demands for social and environmental equity. We evaluate these claims with a case study of the Cerro Azul Meambar National Park in Honduras. We base our analysis on 54 in-depth interviews of Park residents and five Park communities.
Findings reveal few differences between rural and urban Ohioans. Greater trust of farmers was found to be related to lower levels of livestock concern. Environmental concern was strongly related to overall concern about large-scale livestock development.
Examines the social dynamics between landlords, tenants and agricultural agency professionals to better understand how those dynamics affect the adoption of sustainable agricultural methods on rented land. Author offers a strategy of change.
Miller, Michael K. (author / Center for Health Policy Research and Department of Community Health and Family Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL) and Center for Health Policy Research and Department of Community Health and Family Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1986
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 80 Document Number: C04660
Beus, Curtis E. (author), Dunlop, Riley E. (author), and Department of Rural Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA; Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1990
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 80 Document Number: C04704
Coughenour, C. Milton (author), Swanson, Louis (author), and Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1983
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 83 Document Number: C05018
AGRICOLA AGE 85926146, Extract: The study examines evaluations of recent life experience in farming and expectations for life quality in the future as a function of farm structural characteristics and selected individual attributes. Based on a random sample of farm operators, the two sets of variables are used to predict subjective well-being within farm size categories. The results show that individual characteristics tended to be more important determinants of well- being than were farm structure dimensions. farm size and income measures had minor effects on self-ratings of well-being. Under controls, off-farm work status was not related to well-being. The determinants of well-being were particularly difficult to specify among large-farm operators.
Goreham, Gary A. (author), Leistritz, F. Larry (author), Rathge, Richard W. (author), and Departments of Sociology and Agricultural Economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND; Departments of Sociology and Agricultural Economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND; Departments of Sociology and Agricultural Economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1988
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 83 Document Number: C05135
AGRICOLA IND 89001627, We compared the socioeconomic characteristics of a generalizable sample of displaced farm households in North Dakota with a random sample of producers who were currently operating their farming enterprises. We hypothesized that the displaced farmers would differ significantly from their currently operating counterparts in (1) the structural conditions of their operations and (2) their personal characteristics. Our hypotheses were guided by the changing structure of the agriculture literature and the adoption-diffusion literature. We obtained our data from lists of farmers who were displaced between 1981 and 1985 for financial reasons (N = 169) and from a panel of active farmers (N = 759) initially surveyed in 1985. We found that farmers displaced between 1981 and 1985 did not operate enterprises significantly different from those currently in business. Our analysis of the personal characteristics of operators revealed statistically significant differences, but these differences had limited explanatory power. We concluded that researchers should shift their attention to macrolevel variables to characterize displaced farmers.
AGRICOLA IND 89035615, We explore the relationship between adoption of farm technology and labor availability in Africa. We use a case study of the introduction of a high-yielding variety of maize in an area of Zambia to examine the different aspects of the relationship between adoption and labor availability/mobilization. The research is based on an intensive 15-month study of 23 maize farmers, survey data from 240 of their farm workers, and data collected from an ongoing integrated rural development project. The data illustrate that the shift to hybrid maize requires additional labor. farmers' inability to mobilize additional labor results in partial adoption and various compromises in the performance of recommended practices. The labor survey reveals that despite farmers' preferences for hiring older workers and female labor, children are extensively employed because of their availability. We conclude by illustrating the need for adoption research that takes the broader farming environment into account.
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:
Boersma, Larry (author), Faulkenberry, G. David (author), Mason, Robert (author), and Mason: Survey Research Center, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR; Boersma: Department of Soil Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR; Faulkenberry: Department of Statistics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1988
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 84 Document Number: C05169
Agrarian values traditionally have been linked with farm families. Using data from a survey of Wisconsin farm spouses, this article explores the relationship between the identification of farm husbands and farm wives with agrarian values and related sex role orientations and position in the social structure of agriculture. As in previous studies, a commercial/refugist dimension of variation in agrarian identities was found. Depending on the structure of farm household organization, there also was substantial support for a much wider range of agrarian and non-agrarian identities than previously supposed. This was particularly so for farm wives. The change from lifestyles dependent on farming activities to those not dependent on agriculture has been central to the growing diversity in farm spouse roles and self-perceptions. Future studies need to consider three distinctive sets of value-orientations associated with traditional business, and property-holding lifestyles. (author)
Godwin, Deborah D. (author), Marlowe, Julia (author), and Department of Housing and Consumer Economics and Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Georgia, Athens, GA; Department of Housing and Consumer Economics and Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1990
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 85 Document Number: C05437
AGE 84925163, The study evaluates 145 health care programs that were implemented in the 1970s to serve nonmetropolitan populations in the United States. The evaluation employs multiple indicator unobserved variable models to disaggregate the effects of the socio-environmental milieu; i.e., education, income, racial composition, poverty, housing conditions, crowding, occupation structure, and rural health care programs on physician availability and two health status indicators--neonatal mortality and post-neonatal mortality. The results show that rural health care programs did not increase the availability of physicians in the targeted areas. However, implementation of the programs contributed significantly to lowering the neonatal mortality rate.
AGE 84925159, Previous research leaves many questions to be answered about the effects of rurality on rates of serious social disruptions. The premise of this study is that rurality affects opportunities for disruption in social interaction. Further, it is argued that structural cleavages provoke disruptions where opportunities are conducive. The combinations of rurality with particular structural cleavages, therefore, predict specific patterns of disruption. Findings of a canonical analysis, with data for counties of the northeastern United States, show that rurality, in combination with other population characteristics, affects the rates of nonlethal violence, homicide, suicide, and divorce. The most generalized pattern includes a low rate of nonlethal violence and high rates of homicide, suicide, and divorce. An understanding of patterns of disruption in modern society can be enhanced by focusing on the effects of rurality.
AGE 85925422, Data from 358 households in 12 sites representative of climatic, geographical, and agricultural variations in the eastern communal areas of Botswana show that differences in the agricultural practices and extension contact of male- and female-headed households largely disappear when economic stratum is controlled. Female-headed households are shown not to be a homogeneous group. There appear to be greater similarities between farmers within the same economic stratum regardless of gender than between farmers of the same gender in different strata.
Bokemeier, Janet L. (author), Garkovich, Lorraine (author), and Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1987
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 88 Document Number: C06050
Kloppenburg, Jack, Jr. (author / Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI) and Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1991
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06474
James F. Evans Collection, As a result of environmental and agrarian activism and of academic critique, a substantial amount of space is available now for moving agricultural technoscience onto new trajectories. A critical rural sociology has played a key role in pushing forward the deconstructive project that has been instrumental in creating this space. And rural sociologists can be active agents in the reconstruction of the alternative science that must emerge from "actually existing" science and that must be developed if there is to be a truly alternative agriculture. But to be effective in this effort we need to enlarge not only the canon of our colleagues in the natural sciences, but our own canon as well. This article suggests that the theoretical resources for such reconstruction are available in contemporary sociological and feminist interpretations of science. Material resources for the reconstruction of a "successor science" are to be found in the "local knowledge" that is continually produced and reproduced by farmers and agricultural workers. Articulations and complementarities between theoretical resources are suggested and potentially productive research areas are outlined. (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)
James F. Evans Collection, Using data obtained from National Opinion Research Center's General Social Surveys (1973-1990), this paper tests two hypotheses concerning possible changes in the sociopolitical correlates of environmental concern. The "broadening base" hypothesis predicts that environmental concern will diffuse throughout the populace, while the "economic contingency" hypothesis predicts that the economically deprived will disproportionally withdraw support for environmental protection during poor economic conditions. analysis of the data over the 18 years, however, failed to lend any clear support for either of the hypotheses. In marked contrast, results indicate that the social bases of environmental concern-at least as measured by the NORC environmental spending item-have remained remarkably stable over nearly two decades despite fluctuating economic, political, and environmental conditions. Younger adults, the well-educated, political liberals, Democrats, those raised and currently living in urban areas, and those employed outside of primary industries were found to be consistently more supportive of environmental protection than were their respective counterparts. (original)
