ABSTRACT
THE TERM RURAL AMERICA evokes an image of stability, a repository of unchanging structures and institutions, a buffer against rapid social and economic change. Although rural norms and values are more resistant to change than those in urban areas (Beale 1995), rural institutions and economic structures have been transformed along with those elsewhere in society. Accordingly, structural change, not structural stability, is the typical situation in rural America. As Fuguitt and his colleagues concluded in their comprehensive analysis of rural and small town demography,“These changes have been pervasive, affecting people in rural and small town settings as well as those who live in more highly urbanized and densely settled locales” (1989, 425).
