Rural America is a land of contradictions: both the “heartland” and “flyover” country. It is forgotten but also over-represented in U.S. myth and politics. What is little understood is how diverse are its peoples, landscapes, livelihoods, and cultures, yet too often united by economic distress. Exploring the enduring nature of rural poverty in the U.S. sheds light on current issues and controversies facing the entire country.

Instructor: Ann R. Tickamyer, Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a professor emerita of rural sociology and demography with affiliations in sociology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State. She is the past head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education; a past president of the Rural Sociological Society; and a past editor of its flagship journal, Rural Sociology. She has published extensively, on rural poverty and inequality and gender, development, and climate change in the U.S. and Indonesia.