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Poor Rural Children Attract Close Study

Growing up poor in isolated rural areas and small towns is qualitatively different from growing up poor in the city. Yet most of what experts know about the effects of poverty on children’s development comes from studies conducted in big cities.

Now, an ambitious project run by universities in Pennsylvania and North Carolina is putting what some scholars feel is a long-overdue research focus on disadvantaged children in less-populated stretches of the country.

Known as the Family Life Project, the study began in 2002 and set out a year later to track the lives of 1,292 children born between September 2003...