Rural women and leadership have, in recent years, come to be the focus of development initiatives in many countries. To date, however, much of the writing on this topic has focused heavily on obstacles rather than facilitative factors in women?s attainment of leadership positions. Citing examples from a case study in Northern Ireland, this book gives voice to the many vital, positive elements in rural women?s leadership development.

What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? In this book, Gail Hershatter explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these women’s life histories with insightful analysis, Hershatter shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected women’s agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parenting—even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, Hershatter powerfully examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.

Rural poverty encompasses a distinctive deprivation in quality of life related to a lack of educational support and resources as well as unique issues related to geographical, cultural, community, and social isolation. While there have been many studies and accommodations made for the impoverished in urban environments, those impoverished in rural settings have been largely overlooked and passed over by current policy. The Handbook of Research on Leadership and Advocacy for Children and Families in Rural Poverty is an essential scholarly publication that creates awareness and promotes action for the advocacy of children and families in rural poverty and recommends interdisciplinary approaches to support the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of children and families in poverty. Featuring a wide range of topics such as mental health, foster care, and public policy, this book is ideal for academicians, counselors, social workers, mental health professionals, early childhood specialists, school psychologists, administrators, policymakers, researchers, and students.

This book explores the link between the everyday relations of gender and the reform of the rural political economy in the 1980's, and argues that the reconstitution of the Chinese state in the reform era draws force and authority from the inherent politics and power of gender.

"This edited book project will include key academic concepts as transformative learning, community resilience, cultural transformation, and transformational leadership with the objective being to identify the vision and associated values being applied during a challenge or a cultural change process particularly in women"--

This book spotlights how women leaders behave in chaotic environments and features examples of women who have been key figures in determining complex socio-economic outcomes throughout history. Women leaders can be seen on many high- levels in the political arena, be they a prime minister, empress or opinion leader. From Kösem Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to Benazir Bhutto, women leaders have had an undeniable effect on modern history. Is it possible to understand the current role of women in politics in Turkey without the First Lady Emine Erdoğan? Can we analyze Europe’s future without Angela Merkel? There are many different books about women leaders' biography or memoirs of persons who worked closely with them. However, until now, no in-depth scientific analysis of such women leaders with respect to chaos and complexity theory has been available. This work represents a unique and important step towards filling this gap in research, and includes an epilogue presenting women’s leadership model visualized by an eight-pointed star.

Most people are aware of the large and persistent gender imbalance in elected office at all levels of government in Canada, but few appreciate the far greater imbalance that occurs outside of large cities. This deficit arises not from rural voter bias, but from low numbers of female candidates running for winnable seats. The question of why there are so few female candidates has been difficult to answer, largely because we know so little about the pool of potential candidates. Rural Women's Leadership in Atlantic Canada presents results from a regional field-based study, which confronted this challenge directly for the first time. Louise Carbert gathered together small groups of rural community leaders (126 women in all) throughout the four Atlantic provinces, and interviewed them about their experiences and perceptions of leadership, public life, and running for elected office. Their answers paint a vivid picture of politics in rural communities, illustrating how it intersects with family life, work, and the overall local economy. Through discussion of their own reasoned aversion to holding elected office, and of resistance encountered by those who have put their names forward, the interviewees shed much-needed light on the pervasive barriers to the election of women. Carbert not only contextualizes the results in terms of economic and demographic structures of rural Atlantic Canada, but also considers points of comparison and contrast with other parts of the country.

This book explores and analyzes gender mainstreaming in South Asia. Gender mainstreaming as a concept is about removing disparities between men and women – about equal access to resources, inclusion and participation in the public sphere, representation in government, and empowerment, all with the aim of achieving equal opportunities for men and women in family life, society, administration, politics, and the economy. The challenges of gender mainstreaming in South Asia are huge, especially in the contexts of patriarchal, religious, and caste-based social norms and values. Men’s dominance in politics, administration, and economic activities is distinctly visible. Women have been subservient to the policy preferences of their male counterparts. However, in recent years, more women are participating in politics at the local and national levels, in administration, and in formal economic activities. Have gender equality and equity been ensured in South Asia? This book focuses on how gender-related issues are incorporated into policy formulation and governance, how they have fared, what challenges they have encountered when these policies were put into practice, and their implications and fate in the context of five South Asian countries. The authors have used varied frameworks to analyze gender mainstreaming at the micro and macro levels. Written from public administration and political science perspectives, the book provides an overview of the possibilities and constraints of gender mainstreaming in a region, which is not only diverse in ethnicity and religion, but also in economic progress, political culture, and the state of governance.