Coming of Age in Appalachia, Emerging or Expedited Adulthood?

Abstract

a period of "demographic density," a stage during which individuals experience transitions and embrace new roles in rapid succession (Rindfuss 1991;Manning 2020).Scholars have delineated the Big 5 markers of adulthood that historically signaled adult status: leaving home, finishing school, finding work, getting married, and having children Coming of Age in Appalachia, Emerging or Expedited Adulthood?emily e. n. miller a nd k athry n edinWe examine the transition to adulthood in a poor, white, rural community in Appalachia. Young adults come of age in a context of persistent poverty, economic decline, an ongoing opioid and addiction crisis, and strong community norms about family and work bolstered by religious institutions. For low-income young adults in this community, this stage in the life course is both expedited and emerging. Marriage and childbearing are expedited, frequently occurring in late teens or early twenties. However, other adult markers-such as stable employment, pursuing education, and leaving the parental home-are often slow to emerge and are usually only tentatively achieved. This pattern is in contrast to middle-class young adults in this community.

“Turning Their Back on Kids”: Inclusions, Exclusions, and the Contradictions of Schooling in Gentrifying Rural Communities

“…While these processes might be expected in communities with limited resources and op-portunities and longstanding social class divides (Miller and Edin 2022;Corbett 2020;Sherman and Sage 2011;Duncan 1999), sociologists have argued that amenity-driven in-migration of educated young adults should result in improved school resources and outcomes (Carr and Kefalas 2009;Hamilton et al 2008). To the contrary, in Paradise Valley the in-movement of wealthier outsiders reinforced preexisting informal processes of sorting and exclusion, and created opportunities for new ones, such as sports-related fees that are nominal to the economically well-off but prohibitive to the economically marginal.…”

“…In regard to local educational systems, gentrification can contribute to the process by which schools as local institutions provide numerous forms of social, cultural, and educational privilege to some students while systematically withholding it from others. As shown by Emily Miller and Kathryn Edin (2022), because of the ways in which social ties are historically embedded within rural communities, negative school interactions and experiences can be passed down across generations and within families and social networks, reinforcing privilege and deepening disadvantage (see also Butler and Muir 2017;Shucksmith 2012). Further, findings by Jessica Drescher and her colleagues (2022) in this issue suggest that community socioeconomic status is less likely to predict school achievement in rural than urban areas, G r o W i n G u p r u r a l r s f : t h e r u s s e l l s a g e f o u n d a t i o n j o u r n a l o f t h e s o c i a l s c i e n c e s 1.…”

“…However, other research has challenged these representations, pointing to a variety of ways in which rural schools may create or reproduce existing inequalities and exclusions (Miller and Edin 2022;McHenry-Sorber and Schafft 2015;Corbett 2010Corbett , 2014Sherman and Sage 2011;Groenke and Nespoor 2010;Budge 2006). Furthermore, idealized imaginaries of rural communities mask significant variability in their socioeconomic, demographic, historical, and cultural characteristics (Hamilton et al 2008), rural development pathways, and indeed patterns of social inclusion and exclusion more generally (Miller, Votruba-Drzal, and Coley 2019).…”

When Mamaw Becomes Mom: Social Capital and Kinship Family Formation amid the Rural Opioid Crisis

“…A robust literature demonstrates the importance of social capital and social support networks in rural communities (Clark, Harper, and Weber 2022, this issue), specifically in rural Appalachia (Miller and Edin 2022). For example, social networks can act as a buffer for poor rural families navigating food insecurity (Bowen, Elliot, and Hardison-Moody 2022, this issue), they can bolster educational achievement for rural children (Drescher et al 2022, this issue), and they can facilitate wealth accumulation for rural young people entering adulthood (Keister, Moody, and Wolff 2022).…”

Growing Up in Rural America

“…Rural social norms and civic and religious institutions can also amplify some of the harmful effects associated with family instability. For example, strong religious beliefs valorizing nuclear families can induce feelings of shame among unmarried parents and greater stigmatization of their children (Miller and Edin 2022). Social connections may also matter more in rural areas creating sizable inequalities in how drug charges are handled in the legal system and poor children are perceived in their schools (Brant 2022;Miller and Edin 2022;Sherman and Schafft 2022).…”