Roundup: February 8, 2022
Recent Publications
Stephanie Sowl, Rachel A. Smith, and Michael G. Brown (all of Iowa State) conducted a study to understand what factors from a rural youth’s adolescence, as well as which postsecondary characteristics, influence a person’s pull to return home to their rural communities. Find out which children are homeward bound in Rural College Graduates: Who Comes Home?.
Ann M. Eisenberg (South Carolina Law) and Elizabeth Kronk Warner (Utah Law) assess the relevance of multiple frameworks—including energy justice, environmental justice, and climate justice—in the context of two case studies: Indian country and coal-reliant rural communities. Read the article here.
J. Tom Mueller (University of Oklahoma) and Alexis R. Santos-Lozada (Penn State) have published a discussion on the recently finalized changes to the disclosure avoidance policies of the US Census Bureau for the 2020 census, grounded in differential privacy, and how it introduces disproportionate discrepancies for rural and non-white populations.
Alexandra T. Middlewood (Wichita State) has published A Silver Bullet: Gun Ownership and Political Participation in Rural America in the Fall 2021 issue of Great Plains Research.
Alexandra T. Middlewood (Wichita State University) and Mark R. Joslyn (Kansas University) have published Staying Home on the Range: Social Capital and Social Distancing in the Great Plains during COVID-19 in the Fall 2021 issue of Great Plains Research to explore their hypothesis that citizens who exhibit higher levels of social capital are more likely to socially distance.
News & Commentary
Scott Simon of NPR hosted a discussion on how rural residents are struggling to receive their prescription medications or Covid-19 help due to their local pharmacies closing their doors.
The Housing Assistance Council took a look at what rural communities need to succeed over the next 50 years. They asked 8 housing and community development leaders to share their vision for their communities. See what their vision for 2071 in rural America is here.
As a part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s investment in infrastructure improvements, the USDA invests $1 billion to improve community infrastructure for people living in rural towns across the country.
Jonathan Ahl of NPR sheds light on “what it means to be rural?” and how warring definitions of rurality mean some towns lose out on badly needed federal and state funding. Listen to the piece here.
Tim Marema of the Daily Yonder reports on the rate of new Covid-19 infections in rural America, which continue to break case number records.
Events & Recordings
The 84th Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society will be held August 4th – 7th, 2022, in Westminster, Colorado. The Society has issued a Call for Papers for this event. The theme is “The Global Reach of Rural Activism: The Community Voice for Imagined Possibilities.” With this theme, the meeting will explore how rural sociologists can include and engage with more voices in resolving the diverse problems in our communities, across our nation, and as a global society. Abstracts that outline the paper’s purpose, theoretical framing, methods, and main findings can be submitted through this link.
The News Literacy Project hosted a series of four webinars called “Understanding Misinformation and How to Talk to People Who Believe It,” aimed at fostering more productive, fast-paced conversations among friends and family members. Recordings of the webinars are available on this website. The four webinars are titled – The Misinformation Landscape, Essential Fact-Checking Skills, Productive Conversations Without Confrontation, and Understanding News Media Bias.