Alert Opening and Closing: Mennonite Rural-Urban Changes
Author(s)
Driedger, Leo
Abstract
Minorities adjust to society by shifting strategies. Survey samples in the United States and Canada indicate that Mennonites are becoming more urban, professional, and mobile. Good closing, such as support of religious values, norms, beliefs, morals, and practice, is stronger in rural areas than in the city. As urbanization increases, good opening, such as political participation and equal treatment of women and races, also rises between 1972 and 1989. Mennonites demonstrate effective reinforcement in continuous oscillation between relative openness and closedness in their resilient adjustments to intake of information.
