Amenity, community, and ranching: Ranchers' beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes regarding ranching in the West

Rural sociology has a rich history of studying issues pertinent to farming, but ranching is typically not studied. When ranching is included, it has historically been subsumed under discussions of the farm as though the two were interchangeable. Real differences, however, exist between ranching and farming, most notably, issues of natural amenity growth (e.g., population increases in areas high in natural amenities such as warm winters, sun, mountain peaks, lush valleys, lakes, and rivers) and the large percentage of public lands in the West.; This research explores differences in ranchers' beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes regarding environmental issues and feelings about community. The study area encompasses two, contiguous Colorado counties: Moffat and Routt counties. Ranchers were surveyed regarding attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors for a variety of questions pertaining to ranching. This phase of the research explores beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes of ranchers regarding environmental and community questions.; Theoretically, amenity development is utilized as a bridge to combine aspects from environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources through the use of the theory of reasoned action and behavior, and through the literature of community studies. Survey responses are compared to determine differences in how individuals in Routt County, an amenity growth county, experienced ranching as compared to those in Moffat County, a non-amenity growth county. In addition, the analyses compare responses to see if differences existed between those relatively new to ranching versus those who had been in ranching for a longer period.; Survey responses were coded and analyzed through permutation methods, first articulated by R. A. Fisher. Permutation tests are on the cutting edge of statistical analyses, but are relatively unknown among sociologists. The methodological approach utilized for this dissertation is unique in that it fully relies on permutations for the analysis of the data and further introduces a permutation method for analyzing the differences in consensus between two independent samples.