Counteracting Deference to the City: Exploring Rural Persistent Poverty
Primary Faculty Mentor’s Name
Dr. Trina Smith
Proposal Track
Student
Session Format
Poster
Abstract
This research project uses a community assessment framework to evaluate persistent poverty in a county in the Southern United States that has an active college community. This community assessment strategy evolves from an ecological framework that considers the local resources, the power structures, the strengths, and the barriers to growth in this locality. This research stays true to the ecological perspective by interviewing local community leaders to gain an understanding of their perspectives on this county’s specific experiences with persistent poverty. With an understanding of the community as a whole, this research has the goal of making holistic recommendations to alleviate this county’s poverty.
This research is justified by the overwhelming tendency of state and federal governments to focus almost explicitly on urban policy. Unfortunately, researchers have also fallen into this trap of exploring urban poverty at much greater rates than rural poverty. As such, this research addresses not only a gap in state and federal politics, but also a gap in the academic literature. This gap is further exacerbated by the many faces of rural poverty, as rurality is most frequently defined as any area that is not urban or metropolitan. The vagueness of the definition of rurality encourages an ecological framework that addresses this community’s unique issues with poverty.
This project is an on-going endeavor, but significant information has already been gathered regarding the community’s resources, policies, leaders, and areas for improvement. Currently, the research team is conducting interviews and analyzing the data that has already been gathered. We have identified several areas for improvement, including workforce development initiatives and the creation of a comprehensive transportation plan. Although we have identified room for growth, our approach is a strength-based approach, which reaffirms using the community’s current strengths in order to work on the initiatives that require more attention. Ultimately, our findings are part of a larger project carried on by the Southern Sociological Society entitled Persistent Poverty in the South. Our findings, however, will be used on a local level to generate public discourse and public initiatives with the hope of addressing the concerns raised by this study.
Keywords
Persistent poverty, Rural poverty, Community assessment, Ecological theory, Strength-based approach
Location
Concourse and Atrium
Presentation Year
2015
Start Date
11-7-2015 10:10 AM
End Date
11-7-2015 11:20 AM
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Neuhauser, Rachel L.; Shafer, Joel D.; and Tennant, Harrison F., "Counteracting Deference to the City: Exploring Rural Persistent Poverty" (2015). Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (2014-2015). 7.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gurc/2015/2015/7
Counteracting Deference to the City: Exploring Rural Persistent Poverty
Concourse and Atrium
This research project uses a community assessment framework to evaluate persistent poverty in a county in the Southern United States that has an active college community. This community assessment strategy evolves from an ecological framework that considers the local resources, the power structures, the strengths, and the barriers to growth in this locality. This research stays true to the ecological perspective by interviewing local community leaders to gain an understanding of their perspectives on this county’s specific experiences with persistent poverty. With an understanding of the community as a whole, this research has the goal of making holistic recommendations to alleviate this county’s poverty.
This research is justified by the overwhelming tendency of state and federal governments to focus almost explicitly on urban policy. Unfortunately, researchers have also fallen into this trap of exploring urban poverty at much greater rates than rural poverty. As such, this research addresses not only a gap in state and federal politics, but also a gap in the academic literature. This gap is further exacerbated by the many faces of rural poverty, as rurality is most frequently defined as any area that is not urban or metropolitan. The vagueness of the definition of rurality encourages an ecological framework that addresses this community’s unique issues with poverty.
This project is an on-going endeavor, but significant information has already been gathered regarding the community’s resources, policies, leaders, and areas for improvement. Currently, the research team is conducting interviews and analyzing the data that has already been gathered. We have identified several areas for improvement, including workforce development initiatives and the creation of a comprehensive transportation plan. Although we have identified room for growth, our approach is a strength-based approach, which reaffirms using the community’s current strengths in order to work on the initiatives that require more attention. Ultimately, our findings are part of a larger project carried on by the Southern Sociological Society entitled Persistent Poverty in the South. Our findings, however, will be used on a local level to generate public discourse and public initiatives with the hope of addressing the concerns raised by this study.
