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Scattered throughout the South, there are over a hundred groups of people who are classified by the U.S. Census Bureau as Indians. Some of these groups, like the Catawba and the Eastern Cherokee of North Carolina, the Seminoles of Florida, and the Choctaws of Mississippi, are of relatively pure Indian stock and are recognized as such by the government, but the majority are Indians by courtesy. They represent varying mixtures of white, African Americans, and Indian blood, but as a rule the white strain predominates, and Indian culture is either very weak or extinct. This article is based upon field work among the largest and most significant of these groups, the so-called Croatan Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina. These mixed, despised, and nameless people were classed as colored by the white people, but they cherished an intense desire to escape this stigma and be recognized as white. When the state constitution was revised in 1835, they were deprived of the suffrage, along with the free African Americans, and they were told that they could not attend the public schools for whites. Resentful, some of them built little one-room schools of their own, or kept their children out of school, rather than send them to school with African Americans.

This article analyze a teaching situation which involves the Departments of Rural Sociology and of Agricultural Education at North Carolina State College. During the past four decades, vocational agriculture (vo-ag) has become one of major rural life programs in several states as well as in the nation as a whole. Vocational agriculture is now one of the major rural life educational programs in the United States. The rural texts devote very little attention to the vo-ag program--the variation is from failure to mention the program at all to giving only a paragraph or two; and, as an aside, it might be pointed up that some of the statements made reveal only a superficial understanding of the program. The vo-ag program is almost entirely community-oriented while the Extension Service is not so orientated or at least not nearly to the same degree. The supervising teachers may have unfavorable attitudes toward adding research tools to the teacher role--they have not considered this as a part of their role.

Factors inducing a sample of farmers in North Carolina to build houses for themselves fell into four major categories, relating respectively to housing conditions, normative orientations, family structure, and economic status. Specific questioning relative to the effect of old house conditions indicated that physical deterioration and small size were most decisive. The growth of children (among past changes) and the birth of children (among expected changes) were the most influential factors relating to family structure. In general, greater association was found between inducing factors and variations in the life cycle of the family than between these factors and the quality of housing. These findings have practical implications for the placement of educational emphases in housing, and for housing design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]