Kenneth Bessant

Ph.D.

Department of Rural Development

Phone:  204-571-8516

Email: bessant@brandonu.ca

I have been a resident of and student of varying rural environments for the better part of my life, most notably as a long-term member of two Manitoba communities, a “part-time” farmer, and a rural social scientist for over 25 years. My research interests include:

social and community capital

rural community health, vitality, resilience?

academic versus lay definitions of “community”

the diverse functions, activities, and linkages among community (economic) development organizations multiple job-holding within the farm family household (division of labour)

the role of women in agriculture

the farm “crisis” and farm stress

the changing structure of agriculture

In addition to the above rural-community-development issues, I maintain a keen interest in the dynamic interchange among theory, research, practice, and instruction in the field of rural community development and rural studies. My desire to become a more effective researcher and methods instructor is reflected in several publications of late in the fields of mathematics education, statistics, and measurement. Although my research activities may appear, on the surface, somewhat diverse, they emanate from an unwavering concern for “rural” people and places.