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This paper presents a partial mapping of the field of rural literacies that has emerged following the publication of Edmondson's "Prairie Town" (2003) and Donehower et al.'s "Rural Literacies" (2007). These two texts presented the idea that rural places and spaces can be used to think about literacy practices in the context of larger educational and regional/community development issues. But the question remains, what exactly is rural literacy? Our answer relates to the kinds of questions that have been taken up by literacy studies scholars working in rural contexts over the past decade. In this paper we examine a number of contemporary studies of literacy/literacies in rural contexts and offer a framework for the analysis of rural literacies scholarship.

Different association forms of agricultural producers (producer groups, cooperative societies and clusters) were considered in this paper, as well as the status of the Republic of Serbia and the town of Smederevo as a model in this field were analyzed. The authors pointed out to necessity of joining of interest in agriculture, which provides series of advantages to agricultural holdings, first of all, competitiveness in agro-food supply chain, as well as adding a new value in the value chain of agricultural products. The answer to the question what forms of association are the most adequate for agricultural producers of a certain town/region has to be given by producers perceiving numerous factors (which are the association goals, who associates oneself with who, etc.), as well as advantages and imperfections of every form of association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the case of China's National New Urbanization Plan as an example of what might be called state-neoliberalism. Specifically, it suggests the need to go beyond the state-market dichotomy in understanding China's urbanization. While land use rights in both the urban and rural areas have been subsumed increasingly under the market logic, the processes were initiated by the state's alleged concern for reversing the longstanding discrimination against the rural societies and, more covertly, its need for industrial development and local financing. From this perspective, neoliberalization took place at the same time that state domination and guidance were sustained. This paper will also analyzes the complex dynamics of central-local interaction in both the initiation and implementation of land policies in China. Not only do local governments observe and implement policies promulgated by the central government, they also took initiatives and contributed to policy change in the long-run. This apparently obvious yet oft-overlooked observation suggests the value of adopting a multi-scalar view of the national-state in China. Finally, despite the weak positions of most peasants, they give inputs to and quite often affect the outcomes of land expropriation and urban space production. The bargaining process was both made possible by and vindicated the ambiguity of land-related property rights in China. The essay will refer to the case of a small county in Eastern Sichuan and explore the extent to which hegemony and consent have been secured in the process of land expropriation and urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyze the Romanian agriculture during the time period 1990-2013. Descriptive statistics was used in order to assess: the surface of arable land, the surface of the cultivated land, the main crops, the exports and the imports. Secondly, trend line function was used to foresee the evolution of the cultivated land of Romania till the year 2020. The results underline the importance of capitalizing the agricultural potential of the country. Romania had an agricultural potential of 6,45 million hectares arable land at the level of the year 2013. The paper drew an objective analysis on the Romanian agriculture in terms of production-exports-imports macroeconomic variables analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme droughts and heat waves have stressed water supplies in Kansas, making the state increasingly reliant on its underground reserves of freshwater. As precipitation and the availability of surface water become less reliable, aquifers (reservoirs of groundwater) remain one of the only sources of water in the High Plains. Growing demands for water are tapping aquifers beyond their natural rates of replenishment, which has profound implications for sustaining communities in a region prone to drought. This paper investigates the environmental awareness of Kansas well owners, a key social group whose understanding of water supplies is pivotal to prolonging groundwater formations. Aquifers and well owners constitute an interconnected socio-ecological system, and researching well owners' attitudes and sense of environmental stewardship will be key to aquifer preservation and wider water management decisions. I address two broad questions in this study: Do well owners exhibit more awareness of water supplies than non-well owners? Does owning a well lead to a distinct form citizenship? To answer these questions, I constructed one of the only datasets of well owners used in sociology by surveying 864 well owners and non-well owners throughout Kansas. My findings reveal that well owners are more aware of the state's water supplies than the general population, and they express environmental motivations to conserve water. This suggests that well owners exhibit a type of "groundwater citizenship," and can be conceptualized as natural resource managers. Identifying the influence of water supply infrastructures on environmental awareness will help develop more effective groundwater management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the Great Recession on employment and Latino population growth in North Carolina's micropolitan areas. In the 1990s, these localities became "new Latino destinations". The impact of the most recent recession on Latino population growth in these smaller towns remains unclear. Most studies that examine the consequences of this crisis for Latino population trends offer national level generalizations or focus on metropolitan areas. These studies report a "flattening out" of the record growth rates reported in the last decade of the 20th century. Shifting the focus to micropolitan areas, this analysis uncovers two key findings. First, using data drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and County Business Patterns, we find that micropolitan areas were hit harder by the recession than was the state or nation. These localities suffered extraordinary job losses in the two key sectors in which Latinos are typically concentrated: manufacturing in localities that depended heavily on that sector and construction in other localities. Despite these job losses, the Latino population more than doubled in these micropolitan areas from 2000 to 2010. These growth rates were lower than in the previous decade but outpaced the growth rate reported statewide as well as nationwide. This growth was particularly significant in those localities in which either or both the non-Hispanic white population or non-Hispanic black population declined. Taken together, these population trends further transformed the racial/ethnic landscape of micropolitan areas and solidified the significance of the Latino population in these localities, despite the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies claimed that the low levels of family economic and cultural capital in rural families discourage rural students' college expectations (the "rural disadvantage logic"), while the high levels of social capital or closer relationships in rural areas encourage the college expectations of rural students (the "rural advantage logic"). With data from the High School Longitudinal Study (2009 and 2011), this paper responds to the debate between the "rural disadvantage logic" and the "rural advantage logic" through explaining how family factors influence the ruralnonrural difference in college expectations. The results challenge prior studies by showing that the rural students are not less likely to expect college or higher education compared with nonrural students. Rural students don't have evident disadvantages in terms of family economic and cultural capital, but they have both disadvantages and advantages in terms of family social capital. Family SES, which represents family economic and cultural capital, and parental educational expectation, which represents family social capital, are both more influential for rural students, suggesting that the closer relationships in rural places magnify the effects of family factors on college expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public education in Russia in the final stage of the Civil War in 1920-1921 was an effective instrument of Bolsheviks power; which was successfully used for social stratification, political propaganda and inoculating Soviet political values into social mind. Educational Institutions, established by the Bolsheviks in the Altai province in December 1919 - the half of 1920, significantly contributed to asserting of Soviet Power. Abolition of rebel authorities, formation of the Altai Provincial Revolutionary Committee and the Board of Education are investigated on the basis of archival documents, as well as changes in the Department of Education, functional features of its Divisions, formation of Soviet cultural, enlightening and educational institutions. At the beginning of 1920, school teachers and cultural workers were mobilized for illiteracy abolition among Red Army soldiers and adult population. Teachers of nobility, clergy and merchant social categories were fired from educational institutions. The rest were ordered to join the union under Bolsheviks control and were "attached" to certain schools without the right to resign or change job under threat of reprisals. Teachers were forced to campaign for Soviet Power, to explain the Bolsheviks food policy; school teachers were paid at the lowest category (minimum food and cloths). Rural societies in Siberia were forced to save the teachers' families from starvation; villagers collected food and clothing for teachers and fed them in turn. Despite attempts of the authorities to transform school teachers in politicized agents, in peasant minds the teacher remained the bearer of vital knowledge and ethics, a stronghold of the rural intelligentsia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first European study that offers systematic, large-scale comparative rural-urban analyses of the relationships between violence, alcohol and religion. Building upon the Southern Culture of Violence tradition of US research, the article applies the Conservative Protestant thesis to inquire whether the association between rural violence and this type of religion also appears in the Dutch context. Based on data of 8,106 individuals, the analyses indicate that young rural Conservative Protestants living in villages were more likely to report that they had committed violence, notably as compared to their fellow believers living elsewhere in the country. Hence, this study shows that the relationship between Conservative Protestantism and violence depends on the place where youths live. Furthermore, it turned out that the association between alcohol consumption during the weekend and violence is stronger among this category of religious rural youth in particular. More generally, this study provides further evidence of distinct rural alcohol consumption patterns, which are related to additional rural violence. Finally, this study demonstrates that, contrary to the prevailing notion of the idyllic rural but in line with prior US studies, the violence rates between young Dutch rural dwellers and their peers living in the rest of the country are virtually similar. The article concludes that the relationships between rural violence, religion and alcohol culture provide an interesting and important research domain that deserves more criminological attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of life became a priority for researchers from many study areas. Researches realized in the last few years regarding the quality of life focused mainly on urban reality. The article purposes to offer a short review of the literature concerning quality of life and urban development, to study the connection between this terms and also important statistics from Romania. A survey based on five main themes was conducted with the aim to create an image of quality of life in each quarter of Bucharest. Implications of the emerged issues in Bucharest quarters are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]