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Did rural America bring Donald Trump to the presidency? As a phenomenon related to the rise of Trump, the authors try, in this paper, to explain the conservatism that surrounds them personally, as rural residents and rural education scholars. Their neighbors are (mostly) conservative; in part it defines them; it is part of their culture. They have suffered loss across generations, so they are interested to hold on to familiar ways of living. The schools play a contradictory role in this, as rural scholars (worldwide) know well. The authors present four explanations of Trump-related conservatism, all of which, they believe, are apt to some degree. They may not add up convincingly, but they might be a start. First, they explain voting for Trump as a "weapon of the weak" (see, e.g., Scott, 1985). Second, they deal with the Republican allegiances of many rural voters as a variant of "false consciousness." Third, they examine the "rural resonance with fundamentalism"--a religious revival cultivated since about 1970 and marketed nationwide even earlier than that (see, e.g., Grem, 2016; Miller, 2014). Finally, they address "racism as endemic and ubiquitous" in White America, with more polite manifestations in polite society and more blatant ones down home (see, e.g., Inwood, 2015).

Purpose: Agricultural extension services in poor countries often identify opinion leaders based on criteria such as wealth and social status. We explore the effectiveness of this top-down approach by analysing the role of so-called model and nodal farmers in the diffusion of malt barley in a highland community in Ethiopia. Research approach: We use a retrospective case study design where we combine quantitative network analysis with qualitative data. Findings: Nodal farmers played a more central role in knowledge diffusion of the technology than model farmers. While model farmers were wealthier and better connected to the local authorities, nodal farmers were socio-economically more similar to their fellow farmers. Nodal and model farmers, as well as farmers closely connected to them, had a significantly higher adoption index than the rest. Practical implications: The diffusion of knowledge is an important condition for the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, but it is not enough, particularly when access to external inputs is limited. Moreover, relying on assumed opinion leaders has its limitations and may even reinforce existing inequalities. Theoretical implications: This paper has shown the complementarity of network approaches. We propose network approaches such as social network analysis to identify community brokers who emerge from bottom-up or clan-based, political, knowledge networks that mediate access to agricultural technologies. Originality: Our combined research approach differs from the mainstream of studies in this field that employ either ethnographic fieldwork or (spatial-)econometric methods. We aim to create a bridge between the often separated worlds of (technical) agronomic research, (qualitative) rural sociology, and (quantitative) econometric analysis.

A comprehensive understanding of the impact of land fragmentation on collective action is essential for rural governance in developing countries. Prior publications have argued that land fragmentation impedes the sustainable development of agricultural economies and rural societies, while the connection between humans and nature has not been considered comprehensively. Therefore, the conclusion that the impact of land fragmentation on collective action is purely negative may be one-sided. To examine this conclusion, this paper re-evaluates the relationship between land fragmentation and rural collective action from a multidisciplinary perspective. Based on a rural field survey using stratified random sampling, Oprobit regression was employed to conduct an econometric analysis on data from 798 rural households across 14 cities in the border region of Guangxi, China. The following research findings were obtained: (1) When the human–nature connection is considered, the relationship between land fragmentation and collective action follows an inverted U-shaped curve. Specifically, moderate initial increases in land fragmentation can lead to improvements in collective action; however, when the degree of land fragmentation exceeds a certain threshold, further increases in land fragmentation will decrease the collective action capacity. (2) This nonlinear relationship between land fragmentation and collective action may be realized through three pathways: agricultural production, land use patterns, and the ecological environment. Under the context of collective action, this study shows that a moderate level of land fragmentation objectively exists in reality. This insight provides a new impetus for developing countries to shift policy perspectives to increase their land use efficiency. Additionally, this paper integrates relevant findings from both social sciences and natural sciences. Thereby, it not only expands the existing understanding of key factors influencing rural household collective action but also emphasizes the potential for cross-disciplinary integration between social sciences and natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that rural communities in the United States and Europe broadly have been mainly studied as a dichotomy to their urban counterparts. The focus on cities and urban centers and an inculcation of myths and assumptions regarding ruralness have led to knowledge gaps, misperceptions, and missed opportunities in public administration and policy studies. This paper interrogates misconceptions about ruralness and refutes them. It identifies a gap in research agendas, knowledge, and scholarship about ruralness; explores issues with the design of policies and, therefore, policy implications concerning rural communities; and describes how the misconceptions, the lack of scholarly knowledge, and policy implications coalesce to drive a feeling of marginalization and exclusion in rural communities, fuelling a "culture war" dynamic. The conclusion offers potential directions for establishing a research agenda that prioritizes studying rural society as a subgroup with unique needs and belief systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural house is a fundamental component of rural settlements, and understanding its construction and development characteristics is crucial for rural land use and development planning. This paper focuses on the spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of Rural Houses Construction Development (RHCD) from 1980 to 2019 with a case study of Qingyuan Town in China. Based on the literature review and filed research, a set of evaluation indicators for RHCD was established. The article calculates RHCD indicators from temporal and spatial dimensions, uses the location entropy method to demonstrate the spatial distribution of indicators, and classifies the RHCD type of 14 villages in Qingyuan Town using clustering algorithms. It also analyzes the influencing factors of spatiotemporal distribution. The results show that the RHCD in Qingyuan Town exhibits typical characteristics of mountainous areas and aligns with the development trends of rural society in China. Population growth, geographical location, and economic development are the primary driving factors for the quantity indicator (Qi), while economic growth, construction technology, industrial development, and policy adjustments are the key factors influencing the form indicator (Fi). In future policy-making, greater emphasis should be placed on optimizing development strategies, improving data and monitoring systems, and integrating administrative strength with actual development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues the investigation of my previous paper 'Wan Ming Qing chu dongnan yanhai gangkou Fosi de biqiuni shenying' 晚明清初東南沿海港口佛寺的比丘尼身影 ('The Historic Image of the Bhikkhuni Who Lived at Buddhist Monasteries of Seaport Cities of Southeast China during the Late Ming and Early Qing Period'). While discussing the space of port city Buddhist monasteries and their urban environment, and how they aided or hindered the bhikkhuni monastic community, or individual bhikkhuni in their practice, life, and personal achievements, I also realized that a bhikkhuni's family background and her connections with local gentry and eminent persons indeed contributed to the rise of her prestige. The publication and distribution of the recorded sayings of several women Chan monastics residing in the Buddhist monasteries of port cities during the late Ming and early Qing periods can be regarded as a commendable breakthrough in the Buddhist history of this period. To further clarify the resource structure that helped support these Chan bhikkhuni, including the multifaceted interplay between their blood ties, dharma connections, and regional connections, I aim here to particularly examine the backgrounds, dharma lineages, activity regions, and ultimate achievements of these women Chan monastics. I will consider how it is that these Chan bhikkhuni were able to use such resources to achieve the distinction of having their deeds recorded, while so many more of their fellow bhikkhuni have been forgotten. While in real life, there were a rather large number of bhikkhuni, only a few have been able to have their names passed down to posterity. Women have always faced greater challenges than men in having their voices known and receiving social recognition, and even for men, this has never been easy without a relevant support system—one's own personal cultivation, the prestige of one's family, the power of one's dharma lineage, the strength of one's personal connection, the disparity in the resources that one has access to in their urban or rural society, etc.; all these various factors affect one's achievements and performance. Especially in Chan Buddhist texts, where women are greatly underrepresented, I aim to explore in this paper how a women Chan monastic could be included in the Chan historical record, have her recorded sayings published, and have a place in Buddhism or the dharma lineages of Chan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of emotional labor, originating from the institutional background of the Western social and cultural system, is committed to criticizing the emotional management and emotional alienation of service workers under capital discipline. This paper introduces the construction of social relations with acquaintances typical in Chinese rural society into the analytical framework. It presents a Chinese model of automatized emotional labor, different from the model of commercialized emotional labor, by analyzing the emotional model acquisition in the professional development process of domestic workers and the mechanisms of formation, maintenance, and reproduction of the model in the labor process. In the new model, consumers (customers) and workers are equal and mutually beneficial interactive subjects, and emotional labor is no longer the spear of capital but instead becomes a shield for workers against challenges in the labor process. Therefore, this paper puts forward a theoretical reflection on consumers–workers under the model of commercialized emotional labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of gender equality is increasingly being raised today and is present at all levels of society. The topicality of the issue on farms is particularly evident, due to the particular inheritance processes on farms, the clear division of labour, and intergenerational cooperation that characterise the agricultural sector. In this research, a multi-criteria model (DEX-SOCIAL) was developed to understand the broader aspect of rural sociology and the issue of women's status on the farm. The paper discusses the status of women on a farm and assesses their social and economic situation. The methodology includes an online questionnaire in which women in the Eastern and Western Cohesion Regions participated, as well as other farm members and owners. Subsequently, the questions were transformed for the requirements of the assessment model, which assessed the life prospects of women on farms in both the Eastern and Western Cohesion Regions who were aged both over and under 40 years (criteria for "young successor"). The results of the study show that there is a clear difference in the qualitative assessment of women's socio-economic position in relation to the East–West cohesion region. The social position of women does not differ according to age structure. The conclusions of the study also present broader applications of the results in the field of rural development and rural sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theme section editorial introduction presents a collection of papers brought together under the heading Rural transformations, rural futures. The papers are elaborations of work presented at a European Society for Rural Sociology 'satellite event' entitled Transitioning Rural Futures. Contributions to the theme section add to the emerging corpus of work that examines potentially transformative immediate and medium-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural areas, and also speak to other 'grand challenges' likely to transform rural places and shape rural futures: specifically, resilience, digitalisation, wellbeing, socio-economic inequalities, shifting rural policy landscapes and impacts of transnational economic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rural landscape of the Malay Peninsula has been symbolically represented as a site of Malay traditions. As such, it has been marked by the dominant image of a homogenous Malay community and the hidden presence of 'other Malays'. This paper discusses the rural representation and village-making practices of the Bugis Malays who work to create a place-identity in the rural landscape. It argues that despite the racialization of the rural landscape, the creation of Bugis place in the rural Malay Peninsula affirms and advances the cultural dimension of Malay rurality. Drawing from sixty in-depth interviews and participant observation, this paper sheds light on the culturally distinctive imaginations of Malay rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I respond to the call to articulate experiences of the messy realities of participatory research. I reflect on my engagement and struggle with the realities and ethics of a piece of case study research, which set out with a participatory approach. The project involved a group of young people from an isolated rural community who appeared to be disconnecting from their secondary school. The research set out to develop understanding of the ways in which young people make connections (or not) in and with school, in order to further understanding of how schools might become more inclusive. A series of reflections on moments during the early stages of the research led to a significant shift in the methodological approach. The approach of this project eventually moved away from participatory research to an approach informed by Foucault's "ethical project". Here, the focus is on the subjection and practices of the researcher. I argue that, on reflection, the "ethical project" framework was more appropriate for this kind of research, where the complexities of participatory research were reducing the transparency of complex power structures.

The Degree Corrected Stochastic Block Model (DCSBM) is a probabilistic model for random networks with community structure in which vertices of the same community are allowed to have distinct degree distributions. On the modeling side, this property makes the DCSBM more suitable for real-life complex networks. On the statistical side, it is more challenging due to a large number of parameters. In this paper, we prove that the penalized marginal likelihood estimator, when assuming prior distributions for the parameters, is strongly consistent for estimating the number of communities. We consider dense or semi-sparse random networks, and our estimator is unbounded, in the sense that the number of communities k considered can be as big as n, the number of nodes in the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of land was central to livelihoods in the villages of the Horthy era. The majority of Hungary's agricultural land is under the cultivation of large estates and manors, while the majority of the village population owns small, fragmented estates. Thus, they are dependent on large estates and the natural environment for their supplementary livelihoods, to varying degrees and in different forms. In this paper, after a national overview, I present examples from two settlements to illustrate the rural livelihoods of the period, along which options and strategies are outlined - without claiming completeness. My sources include local historical works, official statistics, periodical press publications, and studies on the social history of the era. The first settlement is Tiszaigar from Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county, which is basically an agrarian proletarian settlement, most of its land is owned by large estates, the population is highly vulnerable to the surrounding large estates. The other settlement, Dudar's location in Veszprém County offers several opportunities for additional livelihoods: the mountainous environment and the proximity of forests provide the population with the possibility of multiple livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preserving the rural identity by establishing communities that develop through intelligent use of local resources and technology, represent new challenges regarding the increase of the living standard in the rural environment. The development of smart villages supposes, first, economic and social development with a direct impact on the quality of life of the members of the rural community as well as on their expectations in relationship to the actions of the public authorities. In this sense, the ability to meet social, educational, economic and environmental challenges, using the strengths and opportunities of a community, but also the involvement of local authorities, are an integral part of the new concept of Smart Villages. Current paper concentrates on defining this novel concept for the Romanian rural area and highlights the implications of its implementation and oversees the structural availability of resources required for optimal fit. The applicability of the concept results from the fund absorption analysis and its implementation is structured in a multi-stage action proposal. Using the financial performance of past projects through various measures to observe the historical trends and indicate future opportunities and introducing the applicable plan as the main research methods, the smart village emergence in rural Romania could directly impact socio-economic development. As the main results present, the ICT infrastructure is tuned in and ready to support various encouraging projects therefore, the Romanian digital rural society is becoming closer to reality. For the Romanian rural communities to be compliant with the international standards, the smart village approach represents a viable action plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age is a factor that has been analyzed in the workforce for quite some time now. The aging process is universal and found in daily lives throughout the work force or labor market, but some factors of age are different in the agriculture industry. This paper aims to acknowledge and explore the aging process specifically found in the agriculture industry. The key concepts of this paper have been broken into four different topics. These topics include youth roles on the farm, mid-adult roles on the farm, older adult roles on the farm, and public policy implications dealing with the agriculture industry. The research question that will be addressed is as follows: How does age impact the roles of those working on family farms? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archeologia Postmedievale is the property of Edizioni all'Insegna del Giglio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

China's rural land transfer market has been plagued by issues including poor information transmission, limited scale, and an incoherent structure. In this context, this study collected the data of 337 farmers in Qufu City, Shandong Province, and incorporated into the analysis the acquaintance-based nature of rural society that includes strong geographic ties. Taking the herd effect as the starting point, this paper it considers how farmers in the same geo-network affect the land transfer behavior of individual farmers, and adopts the Probit model to analyze the impact of geo-networks to verify the function of the herd effect in farmers' land transfer behavior. Then, the IV-Probit model is applied to solve the endogenous problem of the herd effect. The results show that: (1) Farmers imitate the land transfer behavior of other farmers in the same geo-network. Geo-networks positively impact the land transfer behavior of farmers, and the herd effect is apparent in farmers' land transfer behavior. (2) Farmers' family background, resource endowment, and cognitive features are key factors that influencing farmers' land transfer behavior. (3) Farmers' land transfer behavior is more significantly influenced in groups with low and middle agricultural income than in groups with high agricultural income. This study aims to assist the government in giving full play to the positive role of the herd effect, promoting the leading role of village cadres as leader sheep, and smoothing the transmission of land transfer information. Governments should place more emphasis on developing land transfer platforms and invest more in the construction of farmland infrastructure. This paper may serve as a reference to achieve large-scale agriculture operation via land transfer and promote the prosperity of the land transfer market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural restructuring became a frame definition to describe the changing circumstances of rurality within modernization and post-modernization processes. When it comes to modernization, differentiation mostly denotes an increasing urban lifestyle, higher level of mobility and flexibility and dynamic society of the rural. However, a brief overview on rural spaces proved, that in many cases the new challenges of modernization or post-modern values indicate a fragmentation in societies. The approach to reach a higher level of mobility due to the centralized spatial structure of workplaces results in a distinction between social groups; what is more, demographic decline intensifies because of the relatively high mobility of certain rural groups. This paper focuses on those social groups, which have a relatively low level of mobility, therefore they get isolated in a rural locality. The settlements, where most of the local society lacks mobility, could cause the perforation of the settlement system, thus the isolation of some rural social groups leads to a dysfunctional settlement structure. In these terms, perforation means a process, in which a settlement loses connections with local centres or other communities due to the low mobility of residents. Therefore, perforation refers to the lack of local networks, an immobile society, and a set of problems, like unemployment, deprivation, or deviant behaviour. According to the author’s presumptions, the mobility of residents could express the volume of perforation as the more isolated the residents are, the less network functions in a rural settlement system can be found. For this reason, this research measures the mobility level of residents in a Hungarian rural locality named Baranyai-Hegyhát, located in the Southern-Transdanubia Region. According to survey data, a mathematical model can describe mobility patterns in this area, which is used as a method to find isolating settlements in a disabled space. The theoretical concept of perforation is supposed to be an experimental approach to interpret complex isolation processes in rural spaces, as such, in this paper, we are to test our theory with the method of the Corrected Mobility Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article we have substantiated and conducted statistically assess the impact of the final results of economic activity on the current socio-demographic situation of rural areas in Ukraine. Based on the results of determining the influence of conditioned factors on the level of labour migration of the rural population in Ukraine, we have developed a regression equation. Also, based on the results of the study, we built two cartograms, comparison of which provides an opportunity to assess the dynamics of the formation of the total fertility rate in rural areas (per 1 woman) for 2016 - 2020. We built a cartogram that visualizes the results of grouping regions of Ukraine by natural increase, decrease population in rural areas of Ukraine. The results of our study provide an opportunity to confirm that in the context of Ukraine's official accession to the European Union and the serious challenges of today, the Ukrainian state should perform the functions of regulating the most important spheres of society in general and rural areas in particular. The task of increasing the employment of the rural population should be raised to the level of state priorities, which would provide an opportunity to create new jobs for the rural population in industries that can provide the maximum competitive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To clarify the influence mechanism and action path of social networks on farmland abandonment, taking the hilly and mountainous areas of Ganzhou, China as the study area, this paper first explores the influence of farmers' social networks on abandonment; furthermore, a mediation effect model is introduced to test the inhibiting effect of farmland transfer on abandonment under the scenario of expanding farmers' social networks. The results show that the expansion of farmers' social networks directly aggravates farmland abandonment, but with the development of land transfer market, farmers' social networks help to reduce the transaction cost of farmland transfer, thus promoting land circulation and restraining abandonment. Considering the double‐edged effect of farmers' social networks on abandonment, this paper recommends that policies aimed at curbing abandonment should be channeled through local farmers‐based social networks, and encourage land transfer among farmers' relatives, friends, or neighbors, and so forth to reduce transaction cost in rural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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With the rapid development of urbanization and the widening gap between urban and rural areas, how to effectively enhance the balanced development of urban and rural areas as well as promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas have become heated topics. Based on the basic theory of urban–rural integration and spatial balance, this paper establishes a comprehensive evaluation system. Using a coupling coordination model and an obstacle degree model, this paper selects 32 indicators from aspects of economy, society and ecology to measure the development level of urban–rural integration in 34 prefecture-level cities in Northeast China from 2000 to 2019. We also analyze the spatial pattern, evolution type characteristics and obstacle factors of urban–rural relations. The results show that: (1) The growth rate of urban development in Northeast China is higher than that of rural development. Except for rural ecology, all dimensions of urban and rural areas have increased year by year, but there are large spatial differences within the region. (2) The urban–rural integration development level of Northeast China is growing constantly and the types of urban and rural coordination are all rising to a higher level. Areas with high urban–rural coordination levels are concentrated in the Harbin–Changchun urban agglomeration and the central and southern Liaoning urban agglomeration, with obvious agglomeration effects. (3) In the coordinated development of urban and rural areas, the restrictive degree of the rural social subsystem was higher than that of the urban subsystem. The restrictive factors in the coordinated development of urban and rural areas are relatively stable, and include per capita consumption expenditure, per capita public budget expenditure, books in public libraries per thousand people, etc. (4) The functions of rural social elements should be enhanced, and the social urban–rural integrated development mechanism should be established to promote the integrated development of urban and rural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Magazine General Union of Arab Archaeologists is the property of General Union of Arab Archaeologists and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The classical village studies in India have focused on ideas of caste, kinship, village as a social reality, with an emphasis on the sociological conditions of life, specifically the socio-cultural and economic aspects of a rural society. The sociological condition of people living in rural areas which have witnessed sustained periods of violence in settings like Jammu and Kashmir, Naxal affected parts of India, and the insurgency affected North-East has not been explored fully and calls for attention of scholars. This paper discusses the experiences of people with an emphasis on displacement from such rural areas-where protracted violence and conflict define everyday life. Some of the questions that need to be addressed include: How can we understand the social life of rural inhabitants whose physical and social setting is profoundly affected by the violence? What about the impacts of displacement, dislocation, exodus from one's native areas affected by violence and conflict within or outside? What about the narratives of resilience, of coping, living together, holding each other's hand, and of facing the violence collectively in a rural setting? These are pertinent questions in contemporary times when many rural areas are affected by violence and conflict. There is a need to re-examine the rural areas through a social anthropological lens to understand the disturbed social milieu. The questions this research poses are: do we need to alter the homeostatic model of Indian villages? Do we need a new search for the perspectives that will help us understand this social aspect of everyday rural life? The understanding of the village has to include the accounts of villages affected by violence and conflict and look beyond the perspectives and approaches of understanding caste and kinship. Drawing mainly from the first author's notes of fieldwork conducted during 2001-2003 in few villages of the then State of Jammu and Kashmir, an attempt is made here in this paper to map the changes in both the physical landscape and social life of the village due to 'living under threat', migration and displacement of its inhabitants triggered by violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common prosperity in rural areas is integral to achieving common prosperity. This paper makes an in-depth analysis of Jiangsu and Zhejiang rural demonstration projects from a state-society interaction perspective. Pathway analysis is based on the framework of "high-level promotion-endogenous development" linked by the advancement of the building of the Communist Party of China and the Party's leading role: high-level promotion, through multi-level responsibilization, ensures policy implementation, while endogenous development, driven by endogenous breakthroughs and economies of scale brought about by industrial integration, generates explosive dynamics through common interest bonding. By linking high-level promotion with endogenous development, the advancement of Party building and the Party's leading role ensure benign interaction between state and society. The combined efforts of state and society creates a "common prosperity effect," effectively solving the thorny problem of "weak society" in the welfare system of developing countries and that of the "welfare trap" in the welfare system of welfare states. This, in a sense, enables China to embark on the road to rural common prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that rural children’s prospects of achieving civic equality within the wider society are limited by the fact that the education they receive is not inclusive, that this is in some respects unjust, and that some partial remedies are available. The non-inclusiveness of rural education is characterized as a form of rural isolation, defined by physical and cultural distance from pathways of opportunity that are significant for civic equality, and by failures of mutually recognized mutual goodwill. Physical and cultural distance are identified as aspects of an evolving geography of opportunity, in which college graduates are highly favored and highstatus opportunities are concentrated in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term deagrarianization refers to the dwindling importance of agrarian activity as the economic and social basis of a rural area. Deagrarianization is reflected in the declining number of people engaged in agricultural production and a reduction in the relative importance of agricultural incomes. In addition to the economic consequences, deagrarianization also erodes the importance of the rural population in territorial organization and management and social functioning in rural areas. However, it is also true that the simultaneous shift towards the service economy in present-day rural economies and societies has not led to the disappearance of the rural space but, instead, given rise to new and multiple forms of rurality. The priority objective of the research on which this paper is based is to gain insight into the rural deagrarianization processes in Spain through the specific case of Cantabria. In order to analyze these dynamics, a series of basic indicators have been used. In order of importance, the main indicators employed were those related to the recent dynamics of agriculture, livestock, and forestry activity and the occupational structure of the population as regards its sectoral distribution, with particular attention being paid to the relative importance of livestock and forestry activities in relation to the direct exploitation of territorial resources. In the past, primary sector activities were very important in Cantabria, but their importance has steadily declined in both absolute and relative terms until reaching the current situation. In 2023, only 4579 people have been employed in agriculture out of a total of 214,574 active people (2.13%). It is very significant that between 2012 and 2021, the total number of employed people increased by 9.08% in Cantabria while the proportion of people employed in agricultural activities decreased by −12.90%. Farming is no longer the rural occupation par excellence; however, it continues to be important in most Cantabrian rural municipalities. The territorial distribution is even more revealing. Southern mountain municipalities can be considered the last stronghold of agricultural activity since, in most cases, more than a quarter of their active population is employed in this sector. These are also the rural areas with the highest levels of depopulation. In contrast, other activity sectors have also gained importance in rural areas, although not in the same way. In general, there is less service economy employment in inland rural municipalities, except in those that are county capitals offering services. Some rural, peri-urban, and coastal areas where tourism is more strongly developed also reach high values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurnal Sosial dan Sains (SOSAINS) is the property of Green Publisher and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With the development of our country s rural society and economy, long-term compensation and resettlement methods for immigrants have received attention and have gradually been applied in practice. However, due to the short implementation period, the risk mechanism is still unclear. This paper selects the SPA-ITFN model based on comprehensive weight combination method for analysis and evaluation in view of the long-term compensation and resettlement methods of reservoir immigrants. The model couples the set pair analysis method with the interval triangular fuzzy number, and uses the entropy method and the over-standard multiple method for combined weighting, which can effectively avoid the subjectivity of weights and the ambiguity of the adjacent levels of indicators in the current reservoir resettlement risk assessment and the limitations of the evaluation results. This paper takes six sample villages that implement long-term compensation and resettlement in the Hanjiang Gaobei Reservoir in Guangdong Province as an example to conduct a risk assessment. The results show that the long-term compensation and resettlement risks of the six sample villages, from small to large, are communities such as Jiulong Village, Dangxi Village, Beipu Village, Gongxia Village, and Dutou Village. It is basically consistent with the actual survey data and can be used for resettlement risk assessment of similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper assesses the food security implications of the out-migration of men for rural households headed by women. Recent transformations in the socio-economic landscape of the Global South involve an increasing number of rural households shifting towards urban-nonfarm, migration-based livelihoods. In many rural societies, social and cultural norms restricting women's mobility means migration is usually undertaken by men, leading to a phenomenon of left-behind women. The absence of men requires women to assume the role of household heads. This often triggers fundamental changes in intrahousehold gender power relations. However, little is known about the effects of these changes on household food security outcomes. Drawing on primary field research in western Bihar in India, this article attempts to highlight interconnections between migration, women left behind and household food security and, in doing so, makes two key contributions. First, with a focus on gender social roles, the paper shows that the two oft-cited impacts of migration of men—'improved autonomy' and 'increased responsibility' for left-behind women—provide conceptual pathways to understand migration-gender-food security linkages. Second, it provides evidence on how changes in women's roles under conditions of such migration intersect with household food security. The findings indicate a gender-based disadvantage in food security outcomes faced by household headed by women, offsetting even the potentially positive influence of improved female autonomy. The paper argues for the need to address socio-economic mechanisms underpinning gender-based vulnerabilities to food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development journalism has the power to bring positive changes in society and presents as an alternative to sensationalist, commercially driven journalism. However, for development journalism to be successful, it must follow the postulates that M. K. Gandhi stated for development of rural society. A village built on his ideals of swaraj and self-development will be a fit background for local newspapers, radio stations, and other media channels to spread awareness and interest in villages. This will, in turn, motivate and garner resources for the village to pursue its development plans more effectively. Exploring this symbiotic relationship between rural self-development and supportive development journalism, preferably by the villagers themselves through a simple means of communication, can be a new step in the direction of rural uplift. This is the concept that the paper has tried to explore. The paper aims to establish a theoretical link between two groups of literature available in printed form - the articles, books, and papers written about development journalism, and the selected writings of M. K. Gandhi on the topic of rural selfdevelopment. It takes a qualitative approach with an advocacy/participatory worldview. The paper presents a model depicting mutual coexistence between development journalism and elements of Gandhian rural development, and gives policy recommendations based on this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Rural China has been undergoing the “religion fever” since the Reform and Opening-up. By comparing the intergenerational lock-in effects of religious belief with that of non-religious belief, the purpose of this paper is to explain why more and more peasants convert to religion especially Christianity in China. Design/methodology/approach – Data used in this paper comes from a field survey conducted in villages, Funan county. The samples were obtained by the two-stage cluster probability proportional sampling method. Based on the collected survey data, econometric model on the intergenerational lock-in effects of belief was constructed and used for analysis. Findings – Compared with non-religious believers, religious believers can transmit their beliefs more successfully. In addition, the intergenerational lock-in effects of religious beliefs is weakened by oblique socialization in contemporary rural China. Originality/value – This is the first paper focussing on intergenerational transmission of belief in rural China; although many researchers did careful analyses on effects of parents’ belief or religiosity on children’s belief or religiosity in the West, few of them compared the success of intergenerational transmission between different beliefs. This paper fills this gap; as an interdisciplinary study, this paper tries to study religion in economics analysis approaches. This attempt extends research field in Economics and at the same time enriches analysis tools in Religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic engagement involves active participation in political and nonpolitical contexts in one's community. Research consistently demonstrates that sociodemographic factors, neighborhood context, community size, and media use are all important antecedents of robust civic engagement. This paper focuses on the intersection between these latter two factors. My paper draws on multiple streams of research in the rural sociology and communication literature to develop a theoretical framework where rural individuals' use of local media promotes greater civic engagement. Using data from the 2018 Local News Survey, results show that the use of local newspapers and online news websites for local news and information leads to a higher probability of participation in local activities and local groups in one's community. However, results also show that getting local news and information from traditional formats such as local TV stations may no longer be associated with an increased probability of being an active citizen in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the development and use of a Blueprint for Rural Mathematics (herein referred to as the Blueprint) in a study of middle-primary mathematics teaching. The study presented a counter-narrative to the deficit discourse around rural education outcomes through an emic perspective of middle-primary mathematics on the Yorke Peninsula, a rural district in southern Australia. This study defined 'rural' as a sociological and geographical phenomenon. It takes a sociological stance acknowledging the situatedness of the rural and the social and cultural uniqueness of the people and their communities. Geographically, the rural locations in this study were those distanced from, and outside the commuting zone of, large urban areas and major cities. This study claimed that rural schools of Yorke Peninsula are unresearched, undertheorised and underestimated in their teaching of mathematics. Hence, very little was known about the experiences of the Yorke Peninsula teachers or the pedagogical practices they employed in their mathematics teaching. Yorke Peninsula people have an identity of deficit imposed on them with no opportunity to negotiate it. In understanding and addressing the accuracy of this pervasive negative framing, this study investigated Yorke Peninsula teachers of mathematics. It concluded that the rural social space, the identity of its members, and teacher pedagogy are essential considerations in mathematics teaching. The Blueprint provides a framework to explore these key components of rural education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use change is a significant contributor to global environmental change. The expansion of urban areas has increasingly impacted rural ecological environments, in particular the shift from agro-ecosystems to urban ecosystems, leading to alterations in land use patterns. Rural land use has led to economic, social, and environmental problems, including poor economic efficiency, emissions of pollutants, and increased environmental crises. The research of alterations in rural land use and their consequential environmental ramifications has garnered escalating attention, evolving into an indispensable subject of inquiry within pertinent academic disciplines. This study aims to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the ecological impacts of rural land use change. We examined 1237 literature sources through the Web of Science database and conducted a bibliometric analysis utilizing the Bibliometrix tool. Secondly, based on the results of bibliometric analysis, we conducted a review study on the impact of rural land use changes on the ecological environment, clarified the current research status in this field, and looked forward to future research directions. The study's findings indicate that there has been a steady rise in publication volume from 1982 to 2023 and a significant potential for growth. The top three journals by publication volume are Sustainability, Land Use Policy, and Land. (2) A total of 4768 scholars from 95 countries or regions have contributed publications in this domain, notably led by researchers and institutions predominantly based in China. Developed nations, exemplified by the U.S., exhibit a notable citation frequency and robust research prowess within this field. (3) Land use, urbanization, China, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and remote sensing emerge as keywords of elevated frequency within the field, indicative of the scholarly emphasis on these subjects. (4) Studies in this domain are directed towards evaluating the effects on intrinsic components of the environment, including but not limited to soil quality, atmospheric conditions, water resources, and biodiversity. The implementation of sustainable rural land use strategies is essential for the realization of rural development and environmental protection. In future research efforts, the use of remote sensing technology holds immense potential as a robust technical tool for investigating both land use change and rural ecology, offering viable strategies for addressing environmental challenges in specific, localized regions. The results of this study can assist in comprehending the current state and direction of research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open educational resources (OER) are disproportionately created and/or accessed by institutions of higher education as compared to K-12 even though teachers confront the challenge of outdated teaching materials or, worse, an increasing trend by school districts to discontinue textbook adoption altogether. In this paper, we describe a sustainable and innovative example of OER-enabled pedagogy (OEP) that partners teachers and students across institutional boundaries to address these problems. The Pathways Project (PP) is a higher education and K-12 community of 350 world-language teachers, students, and staff that engage in the 5Rs (retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute) of OEP with a repository of more than 800 OER ancillary activities that support standards-based pedagogy for 10 world languages and cultures. The PP is innovative because it fosters renewable assignments for the entire disciplinary ecosystem unlike most OEP studies that discuss renewable assignments limited to a single course. Teacher education is one of the best places to engage OEP because teachers are trained to personalize and contextualize OER materials for their local classroom needs. In so doing, the PP community receives timely discipline-specific professional development that is in high demand, especially in rural communities where teachers are isolated. Higher education-K-12 OEP partnerships are rare, and yet teacher education programs exist in most universities and can be a logical place to start. This paper provides concrete examples and practical steps that are transferable to other disciplines looking to engage in similar types of OER-OEP collaboration and community engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a quasi-standardized hypothetical interview-guide question and demonstrates its applicability in addressing participants' general life aspirations, and, in particular, the embedded migration aspirations. The proposed interview question is related to the hypothesized behavior of participants in the off chance of having won the national lottery. Based on fieldwork results, conducted in rural Hungary between 2014-2019, the paper demonstrates how this question, introduced as a closing question during interviews, may be useful in addressing cultural values and attitudes in an agency-oriented way and with a reduction of perceived structural constraints affecting them. The question was eligible in differentiating between forms of geographical mobility, reflecting some migration-related phenomena that were formerly claimed challenging to be specifically addressed, revealing that pro-migration structural constraints might mask general attitudes to stay among those seemingly opting for emigration, and conversely, structural, restraining-constraints that, in some cases, mask pro-migration attitudes among those seemingly aspiring to stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants preferring to settle in the villages abutting urban centers avoiding slums and ghettos in metropolitan cities influences and changes rural demographics as migrants outnumber the host denizens who shift to the cities to leverage urban amenities for quality life and convenience. In this context of new dynamics in the rural socioeconomic setup the focus of the paper is to highlight positive factors which entice migrants towards villages and local denizens shifting to the cities. The study elucidates contributions of migrants in making rural economy vibrant and thriving with myriad new avenues for the host communities to prosper. In spite of being the harbinger of dynamism in rural landscapes, migrants are deprived of socio economic amenities and denied roles in local governess by supremacist thinking dominant status and local hierarchy. The need is to address there denied rights for inclusive and harmonious rural societies. Keywords: Dynamics, Migration, Demographics, Prosper Friction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of progressive and inclusive laws, gender and sexual minority individuals in South Africa continue to experience high rates of violence. Drawing on a single descriptive case study, this paper explores the adverse experiences and the sources of individual and relational resilience of Dee, a transgender youth living in a resource-poor, rural community in South Africa. Through her narrative, Dee provides a rich, textured description of the resources she draws on to strengthen her resilience and the resistance she stages in addressing violence and discrimination within a traditional community. Referencing a socio-ecological framework of resilience, rooted in social justice, the article considers the ways in which personal, interpersonal and systemic factors intersect to both hinder and foster resilience. The paper emphasises the need for multi-systemic interventions that challenges adversity rather than adjusts to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging evidence has shown that a sustainable mode of farming contributes to the sustainability of societies. However, agricultural modernization and land concentration have resulted in a decreasing role of agriculture in rural societies everywhere in Europe and also in Hungary. Governmental funds and agendas increasingly focus on the regeneration of rural areas with a special interest in the new generations of farmers. This paper analyses a small wine region in Hungary to explore the perceptions and activities of young farmers regarding sustainability. The paper is based on qualitative sociological research, including 20 semi-structured interviews with wine producers and other key actors of rural development in the region. The analysis focuses on generational change both in wine producer farms and in the wine region. How do farmers approach sustainability, and how does the concept of sustainability contribute to family wine production? How can generational change affect farming approaches and activities, especially changes toward a more sustainable way of farming? Our results show that rural regeneration can be understood not only as a generational renewal; it also includes endogenous development processes and new approaches targeting a more sustainable rural milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Agricultural extension services in poor countries often identify opinion leaders based on criteria such as wealth and social status. We explore the effectiveness of this top-down approach by analysing the role of so-called model and nodal farmers in the diffusion of malt barley in a highland community in Ethiopia. We use a retrospective case study design where we combine quantitative network analysis with qualitative data. Nodal farmers played a more central role in knowledge diffusion of the technology than model farmers. While model farmers were wealthier and better connected to the local authorities, nodal farmers were socio-economically more similar to their fellow farmers. Nodal and model farmers, as well as farmers closely connected to them, had a significantly higher adoption index than the rest. The diffusion of knowledge is an important condition for the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, but it is not enough, particularly when access to external inputs is limited. Moreover, relying on assumed opinion leaders has its limitations and may even reinforce existing inequalities. This paper has shown the complementarity of network approaches. We propose network approaches such as social network analysis to identify community brokers who emerge from bottom-up or clan-based, political, knowledge networks that mediate access to agricultural technologies. Our combined research approach differs from the mainstream of studies in this field that employ either ethnographic fieldwork or (spatial-)econometric methods. We aim to create a bridge between the often separated worlds of (technical) agronomic research, (qualitative) rural sociology, and (quantitative) econometric analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]