DEPRESSION LEVELS AMONG FEMALE ADOLESCENYS

Introduction and Rationale for the Study

Debertin and Goetz (1994) define rural schools as those located in or near towns with populations of 5,000 residents or less. In their comparison of rural to urban schools, the authors note that enrollment in rural schools is far smaller, as is their funding. Moreover, rural schools are far more likely to draw funds from their states rather than from the federal government. In addition, the authors report that the programs and resources for which the federal government does provide funds are far more likely to be appropriate for large urban schools rather than rural schools. Another difference between rural and urban schools mentioned by Debertin and Goetz (1994) is that teachers in rural schools receive far lower salaries than teachers in urban schools.

There are also health differences associated with rural and urban schools. In this regard, Ricketts, Johnson-Webb and Randolph (1999) point out that health access and service delivery in rural America generally is far more difficult than in urban America. Associated with this is the fact that urban schools tend to offer students far more school-based health and mental health services than rural schools. What this means is that rural schools may find it more difficult to meet not only the academic needs of their students but also their counseling needs for behavioral and/or emotional prob

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tend to think more highly of themselves than those in rural communities. Specifically, Peterson noted that adolescent rural girls of all ages had a poorer self-image than their urban and suburban counterparts. Further, rural adolescent females generally thought more poorly of themselves than did urban girls. Peterson (1978) felt that this poor self-image held by rural females could be due to the fact that very often the rural family atmosphere is devoid of hope, accomplishment, and pride which could easily cause low self-esteem and depression to exist at greater levels for the rural group. Clearly, if it is depression that contributes to the findings of Carter (1997) and Peterson's (1978) studies, then it may be reasonable to conclude that depression is higher among adolescent females attending rural schools than among those attending urban schools. Still another indirect finding that may bear on the question of differences in the depression levels of adolescent girls attending rural and urban schools comes from research conducted by Munoz and Portes (2001). In this study, the authors were attempting to determine demographic and psychological factors that contributed to students academic achievement levels at both urban and ru
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Approximate Word count = 2508
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)