America's substance abuse epidemic has come to rural America. Adults in small metropolitan and rural areas are just as likely as those in urban America to use and abuse illegal drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Young teens in small metropolitan and rural areas are more likely to abuse substances than those in large metro areas. Based on a wide variety…

This report summarizes demographic, economic, and social statistics on Canada's rural and small towns through 1989. Rural and small towns include areas with populations of less than 10,000 persons or a population density of less than 400 per square kilometer. The first section examines rural-urban differences in population trends and age…

Addresses the needs of beginning special education teachers in small, rural school districts; describes strategies for recruiting special education teachers in rural areas; describes programs that small and rural school districts can use to orient new teachers to the school and community; and identifies strategies for retaining teachers in rural…

Rigorous research on alternative high schools for at-risk students is extremely limited, especially for rural areas. There are case studies and descriptive reports of successful programs for rural students whose needs are not met in traditional schools. In general, these programs share the same characteristics as those found in urban areas. Some…

The purpose of this study was to examine the college enrollment and persistence rates of rural high schools in Pennsylvania; the types of postsecondary institutions in which students from such schools enroll; and the student, school, and college characteristics associated with enrollment and persistence outcomes. The study used extant data from…

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…

Independent (single-establishment) businesses with fewer than 100 employees accounted for 31% of the net increase in private nonfarm jobs in nonmetropolitan areas between 1976 and 1980, when the nation's employment was expanding rapidly. Those independent businesses which were in operation less than 5 years in 1980 created jobs at a net rate of…

The literature of social work and rural sociology lacks conceptualization of the term "rural" and treats the term imprecisely. According to a 1960 survey, authors dealing with rural/urban differences do not agree on the attributes of "rural." However, if the rural concept is to be a useful analytical tool and guide to social work practice, its…

This study of educational provisions in Western Australia, an area of 2.5 million square kilometers with a mere 1.2 million inhabitants, provides a broad picture of the complex, difficult, and expensive undertaking of providing education to a small, widely-spread population which differs in demographic, economic, and cultural characteristics. The…

The rural school superintendency is, in many ways, as demanding and difficult as the urban superintendency. Chapter 1 of this book provides a working definition of a rural small school district, an estimation of the number of rural systems in the nation that fit the criteria, and a profile of rural small school superintendents. Chapter 2 discusses…

A systematic description and evaluation of the socioeconomic conditions of nonmetropolitan United States provides important information for policymakers and researchers in rural education. This book is one of a series aimed at converting the statistics of the 1980 census into an analytical profile of major changes in U.S. life. The volume…

The Food Stamp Program is the U.S. government's primary program to prevent the rural poor from going hungry. Food stamp allotments are set each year based on the cost of the "Thrifty Food Plan" (TFP), a minimally adequate diet defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which sets costs by examining average food prices in urban…

The United States government has no true national rural policy toward education and rural community development. The need exists for the federal government to assume a different role in these areas from what it has traditionally played. In the past the federal education enterprise has failed to relate the design, purpose, or implementation of its…

Rural public schools can be perceived as economic drains on community resources; they also can be perceived as being of inadequate quality, hence demanding more support. Educational critics, however, are questioning the notion that more is better and are recommending teaching fewer, more integrated courses, in longer time periods. In analyzing…

Producing a much-needed organized body of literature about rural juvenile justice, 14 papers (largely from the 1979 National Symposium on Rural Justice) are organized to identify current issues, identify forces causing changes in current systems, review programs responding to rural juvenile justice problems, and provide planning models to aid…