Urban-Rural Differences: Implications for Education and Training

Abstract

The social work profession has shown increased concern for urban and rural differences in practice, but there has been little effort to document them. This paper provides some differentiation by using frequency distributions and correlation techniques to compare rural and urban states. A set of hypotheses regarding the relationship among state population rank, social work manpower variables, and social indicators was tested based on assumptions in the literature regarding rural and urban differences. Findings indicated that many theoretical assumptions about these differences were not supported by empirical data. The implications of the findings for social work education and practice in rural areas are discussed.