Who Is Rural? A Typological Approach to the Examination of Rurality

Research attempted to establish the existence or lack of existence of an identifiable "rural culture" and to establish the presence or absence of an equivalence relationship between geographic residence and rural culture. A factor analysis of a wide range of attitudinal questions from the 1977 National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Survey and a subsequent constructed typology indicated that a rural culture does exist in American society, at least with regard to three dimensions of social conservatism (attitudes toward civil liberty, abortion and racial segregation). To establish whether geographic residence is a valid indicator of rurality, individuals were classified by these attitudes into two extreme monothetic cells (rural-conservatives, urban-liberals) of the constructed typology, to see whether current residence correlated with placement in the typology. Because of the relative lack of correlation between rurality and geographic residence, the model was expanded to include occupation, personal demographic characteristics, religion, and family structure. Results of a multiple discriminant analysis suggested that, although current residence and occupation are correlated with a rural culture, place of residence at age 16 along with several personal demographic features such as religion, income, and age, are perhaps more central to understanding the broader concept. (Author/CM)