Transport-related social exclusion amongst older people in rural Southwest England and Wales

Rural dwelling and older age are both associated with a higher risk of social exclusion, with accessibility identified as having an important facilitating role. The interactions between transport-related exclusion and older age, particularly in a rural context, are considered though analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected from over 900 older persons living in rural areas of Southwest England and Wales. Although few respondents reported feeling excluded within their communities, more reported difficulties in accessing specific necessary and discretionary activities, including specialist hospitals and cinemas. Analysis revealed that car availability is not a strong indicator of overall inclusion, although non-availability was important in limiting access to particular types of location. It is concluded that the relatively short travel distances required to access community activities was a key factor in the high levels of community inclusion. However, the car-dependent nature of travel overall means that there is a rising risk of mobility-related exclusion in rural areas, particularly amongst the oldest old. Greater consideration needs to be given to more formalised lift-giving as a transport solution, along with greater attention to mobility needs by sector-specific service providers, such as the health sector.     

Exploring the role of network diversity and resources in relationship to generalized trust in Norway

Several studies suggest a positive relationship between social capital and generalized trust. Employing a network understanding of social capital (Lin, 2001), this study questions which aspects of social networks may be linked with generalized trust. It investigates whether the diversity of social networks and the socio-economic status of one’s contacts are linked with generalized trust in the Norwegian, egalitarian context. The analyses examine these patterns in relationship to both kin and non-kin contacts. The study employs data from the first Norwegian survey that includes the position generator (PG). The empirical analyses show that extensive social networks are indeed linked to higher levels of generalized trust, but that this relationship is limited to non-kin contacts. Concerning the link between network resources and generalized trust, there is evidence of a more general association with generalized trust that holds when considering both kin and non-kin contacts. These results are a first step in developing a more nuanced discussion of the mechanisms associated with generalized trust and highlight the importance of employing measures that account for the homophily of networks when investigating their relationship to trust.     

Measuring social capital accumulation in rural development

Using a theoretical framework, the study proposes an index that can measure the social capital of local action group (LAG) projects. The index is founded on four indicators: number of ties, bridging social capital, recognition, and diversity, which are aggregated into one social capital index. The index has been tested in LAG-Djursland, Denmark, and the study further investigates whether the organisational affiliation, project financing, and LAG co-financing can explain the degree of social capital accumulation. Furthermore, the author has tested if there are connections between motivation for pursuing development projects similar to those implemented previously and the degree of social capital. The paper concludes that there are indications that projects hosted by municipalities tend to show the most social capital, there is no connection between the amount of project financing and social capital, and a high level of motivation leads to increased social capital.     

The rural arena: The diversity of protest in rural England

In the past 15–20 years, the rural areas of England have been used by a wide diversity of groups as the stage for their protest activities. Some have argued that this is due the rise of a rural social movement; this paper contends that rural areas have become both available and advantageous as the locale of protest through a range of interlocking factors. Firstly, that the rise of the network society has repositioned the societal importance of rural areas. Secondly, that the governance of rural areas has changed, allowing the social stake of rurality to be more widely contested. Thirdly, that opportunities to protest have shifted in favour of rural spaces, in terms of technology and policing. Through a discussion of recent changes in rural England and three case studies, The Land is Ours, Farmers for Action and the Organic Food and Farming Movement, this paper examines these changes and what they mean for the future of rural England.     

Techniques of neutralising wildlife crime in rural England and Wales

Within rural studies there have been few attempts to critically analyse crimes against nature. This paper addresses this gap by providing an analysis of farmers’ reasons for illegally culling badgers in the United Kingdom. Drawing on Sykes and Matza’s (1957) concepts of neutralisation and drift, the paper shows how farmers rationalise this activity. Using in-depth interviews with 61 farmers in the England and Wales, the paper shows how they justify badger culling through discursive strategies that claim the activity is necessary, deny the necessity of the law, condemning the condemners, and appealing to community loyalties The paper also shows that neutralisation helps identify contextual factors that allow farmers to drift ambiguously between deviant values and social norms. In the case of badger culling, drift is attributable to an attack on a particular rural identity and way of living that has left farmers perceiving their selves as an effect. As much as they are attempts to rationalise criminal behaviour, neutralisation techniques can also be seen as spatial discourses demarcating the boundaries of cultural and spatial identities. In conclusion, the paper discusses the implications for resolving the problems of wildlife crime.     

Are rural development programmes socially inclusive? Social inclusion,civic engagement,participation, and social capital: Exploring the differences

Considerable importance is attached to social exclusion/inclusion in recent EU rural development programmes. At the national/regional operation of these programmes groups of people who are not participating are often identified as ‘socially excluded groups’. This article contends that rural development programmes are misinterpreting the social processes of participation and consequently labelling some groups as socially excluded when they are not. This is partly because of the interchangeable and confused use of the concepts social inclusion, social capital and civic engagement, and partly because of the presumption that to participate is the default position. Three groups identified as socially excluded groups in Northern Ireland are considered. It is argued that a more careful analysis of what social inclusion means, what civic engagement means, and why participation is presumed to be the norm, leads to a different conclusion about who is excluded. This has both theoretical and policy relevance for the much used concept of social inclusion.     

Translation sociology and social capital in rural development initiatives. A case study from the Italian Alps

This article analyses the results of a European ‘research and demonstration’ project promoting multifunctional and sustainable agriculture in Alpine regions through a participatory approach. It focuses in particular on initiatives undertaken by a local farmers group in the Italian Alpine area of Val di Sole, the purpose being to draw attention to the role of social dynamics in fostering sustainable rural development in a participatory context. In order to accomplish this objective, two key sociological approaches to the study of rural development, namely social capital and the sociology of translation, are considered. The former focuses on the relational capital available to a group of actors and which can be mobilised in a development initiative. The latter views change in social practices as resulting from a cycle of phases where the problem, its solution, and the identity of the actors are constantly transformed and negotiated. By contrasting the two theoretical approaches in relation to the outcomes of two specific actions implemented in the valley we suggest that the sociology of translation offers a more effective tool with which to capture the complexity of social dynamics involved in a rural development initiative.     

Rurality discourses and the role of the social enterprise in regenerating rural Scotland

Social enterprises are businesses with primarily social objectives that reinvest their surplus in the community rather than seeking to maximise profit for shareholders. However, there is a debate regarding the drivers and the role of the social enterprise, the outcome of which is expected to have serious implications for the future of the institution [Brady, C., 2003. Social Enterprise development and the Role of the Social Economy in Scotland. CBS Network, Edinburgh]. A ‘reformist’ view supports the position that social enterprises are simple extensions of existing economic systems, whereas a ‘radical’ stance sees them as the embodiment of an alternative vision of running local economies. Development Trusts (DTs) are social enterprises that focus on community regeneration. Our research explored DT stakeholder views regarding the role of DTs in regenerating rural Scotland. Using Q methodology [Barry, J., Proops, J., 1999. Seeking sustainability discourses with Q methodology. Ecological Economics, 28, 337–345], we drew on ‘rurality’ discourses [Frouws, J., 1998. The contested redefinition of the countryside. An analysis of rural discourses in The Netherlands. Sociologia Ruralis 38(1), 54–68] expressed by DT stakeholders in order to investigate how these discourses informed their views. Radical positions were mostly associated with a hedonist rurality discourse and were split into three sub-discourses, whereas reformist positions mostly reflected a utilitarian rurality discourse. There was consensus between discourses in rejecting a primary DT contribution to rural regeneration by substituting state and local authority functions in rural Scotland. Results suggest that stakeholders prefer that DTs develop their own agendas and activity rather than try to substitute unsuccessful state or local authority provision of rural services. Social enterprise strategies and support policies promoting a service-providing role for DTs in rural Scotland should consider this issue if they are to avoid stakeholder objection and contribute to the success of DTs in becoming active vehicles of rural regeneration.     

Rescuing a small village school in the context of rural change in Hungary

The paper discusses local responses to schooling policy in the context of the uneven differentiation and sharp social polarisation of the Hungarian countryside. Counter-urbanisation, on the one hand, has brought affluent urban middle classes to suburban spaces, on the other hand, peripheral areas are becoming impoverished with high unemployment, while there are rural areas where a process of ghettoisation is taking place. Parallel with these processes, rural education has had to face demographic decline and the shrinking ability of municipalities to maintain schools. The case study presented in this article illustrates the cultural and spatial barriers impeding the creation of co-operation in the field of education. Given that the community of the village concerned is remarkably vibrant, with strong intra-community horizontal ties, the concept of social capital is used to explain how bonding and bridging networks as well as “missing links” influence community actions, in this case a school-rescue operation.     

Commodification of rural places: A narrative of social fields,rural development,and football

One of the most significant recent elements of restructuring in rural areas is the transition from an economy based on agricultural production to an economy based on the countryside as a form of commodity. In this transition process, different narratives or images of an area are produced to promote villages and other places in the countryside as commodities. Much of the literature takes it for granted that outsiders control the processes of branding rural areas, but our case study demonstrates that the producers (as well as potential consumers) of the countryside as a commodity can be insiders within a community. In this paper, we demonstrate how a local football club can take a leading role in the process of commodification of rural places in the post-modern era. Football clubs are presented as commodities to attract investors, sponsors, and expertise from private businesses. In both commodification of rural places and football, the challenge is to construct narratives or images that correspond to the pre-existing expectations of consumers, whoever they might be. Our theory-informed empirical analyses illustrate the way in which the Norwegian football club Sogndal Football has been instrumental in the restructuring of the Sogndal community.     

Exploring the social benefits of agri-environment schemes in England

Recent decades have seen sustainable development emerging as a core concern of European Union (EU) policy. In order to consider how policies can contribute more positively to the goals of sustainable development, major EU policies must undergo an assessment of their potential economic, environmental and social impacts. Within the agri-environment sector, this is reflected in the increasing requirement for EU Members States to monitor and evaluate the socio-economic as well as the environmental and agricultural impacts of their agri-environment programmes. Whilst some research has looked at the more easily quantifiable economic impacts of agri-environment schemes (AES), there is a paucity of research exploring the social dimensions. In this paper, four areas where social impacts of AES can be assessed are suggested: namely impact on on-farm employment; income security; human capital through skills and training development; and social capital development through extension of knowledge networks and flows. These areas are explored in detail using the results of a survey of Environmental Stewardship schemes in England. The results show that the level of social benefit is differentiated by scheme and farm type. The more demanding Higher Level Stewardship schemes help to develop human capital and increase networks, and dairy farmers in particularly have extended their advisory networks in order to participate in AES. The paper concludes that through the exploration of the social impact of AES it may be possible to identify ways to more closely link social and environmental stewardship objectives and thereby contribute to sustainable agriculture.     

The contextual effect of trust on perceived support: Evidence from Roma and non-Roma in East-Central Europe

In recent years, trust has been conceptualized as an important source of social capital, setting off cross-disciplinary research on both the benefits and predictors of trust at the individual and contextual level. In this paper, we turn to the individual outcomes of living in a trustful context, and explore the relationship between trust, itself one of the main components of social capital, and social support, seen as one of the most important effects of social capital. In particular, we ask how social capital—and the relationship between trust and social support—functions in the context of unequal societies. We model perceived support as an outcome across three levels, from no support to proximate to distal support, and using a cross-national study of Roma and non-Roma across 12 European countries, we track the relationship between trust and support across both mainstream and marginalized populations. Our findings suggest that living in contexts with more trust has protective effects particularly for members of marginalized groups: the Roma are more likely to have distal support in contexts with higher trust. We conclude that contextual trust helps to broaden the circle of support beyond family and friends; thus, trust can indeed be a synthetic force that binds individuals together in broadened structures of support.     

The effects of rent restructuring on social housing in English rural areas

This paper discusses the impact of central government's rent restructuring policy on social housing in rural areas in England. It examines the effect that restructuring will have on the rents set by social landlords in a set of case study areas then considers some of the likely impacts on affordability and on new investment in rural social housing. One of the primary aims of rent restructuring policy is to reduce unjustifiable differences between the rents of similar dwellings in the local authority and Registered Social Landlord sectors locally. This aim seems likely to be achieved. In doing so, it is likely that affordability will be reduced in the local authority sector but enhanced for tenants of some RSLs. However, the reduction in real RSL rents that improve affordability may further constrain RSLs’ ability to invest in new social housing in rural areas. The paper concludes that rent restructuring by itself will not materially improve the housing prospects of the less well off in rural areas.     

转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性因素

学校教育制度应该促进农村学生的向上社会流动,然而在我国社会转型过程中的教育制度以城市教育为中心,优先发展城市教育,以"市场能力"和学业成绩作为学校选拔规则,以及重点学校制度对农村学生获得高一级教育机会的制约,导致了对农村学生的"教育排斥"。教育制度的城市化、市场化、精英化取向是转型期农村教育社会分层功能弱化的制度性原因。将现阶段农村教育主要功能定位于促进农村学生城市化和社会地位升迁,确立教育制度的正义原则,实现对农村学生的"差异补偿"是解决这一问题的主要思路。     

The role of natural heritage in rural development: An analysis of economic linkages in Scotland

There is growing recognition of the important role played by natural heritage in rural economic development, but limited empirical work as yet to inform this debate. This paper examines the nature and strength of local economic linkages associated with the natural heritage in four case study areas in Scotland, differentiated in terms of their peripherality and dependence on the natural heritage. A framework for identifying ‘natural heritage activities’ in different localities is developed and applied in each study area. The framework distinguishes between three types of natural heritage activities, ‘core’ activities, such as environmental management; ‘primary production and extraction’ activities; and ‘reliant’ activities where the natural heritage is highly important to a business's commercial viability. Analysis of first-round economic linkages and multiplier effects of local economic activity in the four case study areas indicates that natural heritage ‘reliant’ activities have the greatest potential for generating local economic benefits through their propensity to source locally. They are also found to contribute more significantly to the economic base of the study areas through sales of goods and services to visitors. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Differentiating countryside: Social representations and governance patterns in rural areas with high social density: The case of Chianti,Italy

One of the key factors for the success of development strategies in rural areas is the setting up of appropriate governance patterns, whose main outcome is a fluid communication between public and private organisations and an effective integration of objectives and policies.     

Local perspectives on rural housing affordability and implications for the localism agenda in England

Drawing on consultation meetings with eight community groups across rural England, this paper examines local perspectives on housing affordability, and the consequences of low levels of ‘within area’ housing access for rural economies and communities, contrasting the reflective understanding of residents with normative and established perspectives on the same issues. Because it now seems likely that rural planning policy in England will, in some measure, be reconstructed from the bottom-up, prioritising local control, an analysis of residents' perspectives gives some insight into the shape of future policy intervention. The research reveals a highly nuanced understanding of affordability and the development needs of villages. Sometimes local views – particularly those of commuting or retired households – are dismissed as being motivated by NIMBYism. But this is a partial truth, with rural residents displaying reflective dissatisfaction with official perspectives on rural housing problems.     

Family Structure and Quality of Life of Elders in Rural China: The Role of the New Rural Social Pension

Using data from a survey in Ankang district of Shaanxi province of China in 2011, this article examines the protective effect of the New Rural Social Pension (NRSP) on quality of life of rural elders, as well the moderating effect on association between family structure and quality of life. An instrumental variable approach is used. NRSP is shown to significantly improve the quality of life of rural elders, and a robustness check shows that this effect is consistent across different sets of subgroups. Compared with the elders who have at least one son, the quality of life of those who are childless or have only one child is significantly lower. The NRSP is more likely to significantly improve the quality of life of one-child elders. In addition, the associations between the NRSP and the different facets of quality of life of the elders are significant except for the facet of sensory abilities.     

Ageing in the bush: The role of rural places in maintaining identity for long term rural residents and retirement migrants in north-east Victoria,Australia

As a consequence of local population ageing, which is more pronounced in rural areas, the issue of maintaining a positive quality of life for rural older people is attracting significant attention. While environmental psychology theory has advocated the role of place identity in defining the self, there has been little applied research exploring how this occurs in later life. This exploratory, qualitative study (n = 16) utilises 6 and 7 identity process theory to investigate how rural older Australians (retirement migrants and long-term residents) use place to sustain and build a sense of self at a time when many are susceptible to age-related loss. The paper draws on the concepts of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to explore how place identity is supported and maintained. Findings suggest that rural places are beneficial in terms of identity maintenance, with differences between long term and more recent rural residents. Furthermore, findings also highlight that place-related change or growth can potentially threaten older people’s identification as a ‘rural’ person.     

Landowners’ perspectives on the rural future and the role of forests across Europe

Contemporary changes in rural Europe have been characterised by the contrasting terms of rural modernisation and productivism versus restructuring and post-productivism. This study investigates how different categories of owners of farm and/or forestland in 16 case study areas in eight European countries perceive future development. Landowners’ prospects for change are investigated on both the locality and enterprise level. Special attention is given to the role of forestry as a potential future development perspective. The results reveal that both restructuring and modernisation perspectives are important to many landowners. Moreover, a polarisation seems to be developing between a minority of full-time farmers with progressive farming prospects and the vast majority of landowners with declining prospects or little dependency on primary production. More importantly, the research reveals a third employment perspective, which did not have any specific content apart from the social security of having employment opportunities in the locality. Also at the enterprise level, farmers anticipate both restructuring and modernisation practices, even on the very same property. The study proves that it is not only part-time, hobby and retired farmers that are engaged in “restructuring” activities, but also full-time farmers. As regards the role of forests, the majority of landowners do not interpret forests in an economic development context, but as green infrastructure important to the local quality of life. It can be concluded that forests are closely related to restructuring thinking among landowners. Future perspectives differ from one European rural area to another, dependent on local conditions and problems. More importantly, however, this research reveals that modernisation–restructuring thoughts and practices of landowners are manifold and heterogeneous in all types of rural areas across Europe.