Submission Deadline: Friday, May 4th, 2018

The Community, Family, and Health Research Interest Group (RIG) is proud to announce the third annual Ralph B. Brown scholar paper competition designed to encourage and support research in rural communities. The call for papers is open to a wide range of topics in keeping with the spirit of the award’s namesake, Ralph Brown. Emphasis should be placed on such topics as community satisfaction and attachment, social change and development, family and community, and community leadership. International research is highly encouraged in accordance with his dedication to international development studies. Preference will be given to those papers that make a strong contribution to our understanding of rural community life and health. How are rural communities adapting to challenges.

Scholar Paper Competition Guidelines:
Who is eligible: The Ralph B. Brown Scholar Paper Competition is open to faculty and nonacademic researchers who have an advanced degree. Undergraduate and graduate students are not eligible but are encouraged to submit a paper to the Ronald Wimberley student paper competitions. Papers submitted for the scholar paper competition will be held to a high standard with respect to the level of scholarship. The length of the paper should range from 25-35 pages and should include a relevant review of the literature, original analysis or effort to advance community theory, a clear discussion and set of conclusions, and complete references.

Instructions for Submission: To have a paper considered for review, first, submit an abstract to present the paper at the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society. Second, submit your manuscript as an attached Word (.doc or .docx) file to Amanda McMillan Lequieu at [email protected] by May 4th, 2018. Please do not submit your paper in .pdf format, as we will need to edit them to make judging anonymous. In the subject line of the email enter “submission for Ralph Brown scholar paper competition.” When the submissions are received, they will be sent to a panel of judges who will not be made aware of the author’s identity. The winner of the paper competition will be honored at the RIG reception during the RSS annual meeting, where they will receive a certificate and their award honoraria (see below). Winners will be notified via email by July 1st, 2018.

Honoraria: Scholar Paper ($400): to be used to defray part of the cost of registering for and attending the 2018 RSS Annual Meeting