Session Two:

"The Transformation of Rural Society and the Rural Sociological Society."
Session organizers: Leland Glenna, Carla Trentelman, Linda Lobao and Curt Stofferahn. The organizers invite participants for the panel to contact curtis_stofferahn@und.nodak.edu.

This session emanates from a discussion following the two sessions in Louisville on "Death and Rebirth of Rural Sociology" and seeks to push the discussion toward some practical and realistic outcomes. It was proposed by Bo Beaulieu, Michael Bell, Bill Friedland and Steve Sapp. Our reconceptualization of their original proposal follows:

There is a long history of debates and divergent viewpoints about what the RSS is and should be. These kinds of sessions have produced two major responses: the "Panglossian" and the "Chicken Little." The former have argued the many accomplishments of the RSS whereas the latter take a more critical stance. As might be expected, there are elements of truth and exaggeration in both positions. RSS has provided a valued intellectual home for its membership and the annual meeting, while always having its ups-and-downs has, almost invariably provided satisfaction for the members, even those that went home with critical views.

The time is ripe for a search for a consensus to explore what RSS might become, and to generate a transfigured Society that will instill new enthusiasm for the work we have been doing and enjoyed doing. We note, for example, the enthusiasm in the membership for the work accomplished by the Research and Interest Groups. We also note that many scholarly societies, while meeting on a disciplinary basis, usually encompass focused research groups centered on specific areas of research. Given these circumstances, could RSS evolve into something that generates continuing enthusiasm around focused rural social science issues?

Following up on this proposal, we envision the first session as mechanism for moving forward with a more focused and effective discussion about possible RSS transfiguration:

1. Participation on the panel for this first session is open to all current and former members of the RSS who have submitted a paper to the session chair no later than June 1, 2007. Paper length will not surpass 2,500 words (total).
2. Each paper shall address at least one of the first three of the following four topics (the fourth is optional). Contributors can, if they choose, focus their paper on all or just one of the first three topics
   1. Your views or the purpose and mission of the RSS
   2. Based upon your views about the purpose and mission of the RSS, whether an organizational transformation of the RSS is needed and how a transformed RSS might be configured.
   3. A possible name for the transfigured organization with an attempt to retain the initials RSS (although the latter is not obligatory).
   4. An optional analysis regarding the continuing debate and divergent opinions about what the RSS is and should be. This analysis should address what the core areas of the RSS and how that should be used as a departure in building the organization's future.

Honoring our Roots: Reaching Back to Look Forward

Continuing efforts in recent years by the Natural Resources Research Group (NRRG) to honor people and works that have shaped our field of study, we will meet to discuss a few important, classic texts in the area of natural resources and society and their application to current and future issues. Texts to be reviewed by panelists and open for group discussion are: Walter Firey's Man, Mind, and Land; William Burch's Daydreams and Nightmares; Don Field and Burch's Rural Sociology and the Environment; and William Catton's Overshoot.

Population, Rural Poverty, and Family and Health RIGs
Co-Sponsor Special Panel Session on
Immigrant Children

At the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Society, the Population, Rural Poverty, and Family and Health RIGs will co-sponsor a special panel session on immigrant children. Although the children of immigrants represent a small proportion of the child population in non-metropolitan areas, about 7 percent, their growing presence in rural communities combined with higher rates of poverty may pose challenges to service providers. Even as a relatively small portion of all rural children, immigrant children have school enrollments that easily overwhelm those of native-born children in almost all regions of the country. As they represent the future workforce and civic population of rural areas, their presence merits attention from scholars and policy makers alike. Our panel members will discuss recent research on the socioeconomic circumstance of immigrant children, placing it in the broader context of migration and social integration in the non-metropolitan United States. Laura Hill, a Research Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), will present her work on California's immigrant children. Joining Dr. Hill on the panel will be two other researchers, Dr. William Kandel of the USDA Economic Research Service and, her schedule permitting, Dr. Margaret Gibson.