Volume 8, Number 1 (2016) Special Issue

Rural communities around the world face common challenges requiring their own unique focus of social work inquiry and competencies. Some of these interrelated challenges include lack of access to education and services, histories of colonization and exploitation, high levels of disease, poverty, isolation, hopelessness, and civic inertia. Local responses to these challenges offer an array of approaches and interventions which colleagues in other locales may find useful. This Special Issue of Contemporary Rural Social Work will feature practice, policy, theory, and research articles focused on global rural issues and local responses to these issues. International social workers, both scholars and practitioners, are encouraged to contribute.