Rural Sociology Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Rural sociology grew out of the same historical era and ferment as sociology more broadly, but whereas the discipline from whence it sprang was rooted heavily in liberal arts colleges, rural sociology — in the USA — was heavily indebted institutionally to the rise of the land grant university. This was a uniquely US initiative, deeding land to states specifically for establishing universities that consciously sought to link teaching, research, and service — in this latter case, in the form of another institution, the Cooperative Extension Service.

Rural sociology’s foci historically and contemporarily have followed closely what is generally meant by ”rural”. In general, the term was thought to have three meanings. First, ”rural” often was a short-hand for areas with relatively low population density. The population emphasis was also true in US census categories, where people were sorted by such residential distinctions as farming, open land, small town, less than 2,500 total population, population 2,500—25,000 (or sometimes 50,000), and so on up to and including large cities. In time, this kind of categorization changed to be called non-metropolitan and metropolitan (among other schemes). A second way of characterizing rural areas was by occupation, giving great emphasis to farming both as activity and as industry. A third way of thinking about rural areas was one based on values. Where urban areas were heterogeneous (in all ways) and modern, rural areas were homogeneous and traditional. Early sociologists, including Redfield and Tonnies, among others, captured this difference with terms such as ”folk” and ”urban” or Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.

The first department of rural sociology was established in 1915 at Cornell University and in 1936 the Rural Sociological Society was established. Despite its size (in 2008, while the American Sociological Association had about 14,000 members, the Rural Sociological Society had about 700), rural sociology has had considerable impact, partly because it was fairly narrowly focused on issues such as population, community, family, economic development, and in recent years environment and agriculture/food systems. Some of the early rural sociologists (e.g., Dwight Sanderson, Charles Loomis, and William Sewell) were elected as president of both the Rural Sociological Society and the American Sociological Association

Coming out of World War II, rural sociology entered a period of both institutional and organizational growth. Virtually all states had either a department of rural sociology ensconced in their land grant universities or a strong rural sociology unit nested in their departments of sociology. Many universities awarded PhDs in rural sociology and jobs were plentiful in the land grant system, in government, and in an expanding network of non-governmental organizations States and federal funding for rural sociological research, along with funding for the social sciences in general, grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1970s the organizational fabric of rural sociology came under scrutiny as states began to withdraw support from higher education in general and agricultural programs in particular. In the 1980s the field of rural sociology experienced a resurgence of sorts, in part to accommodate scholarship in the area of the environment. As the twentieth century ended and the twenty-first began, the sociology of agriculture and food systems emerged as a burgeoning area of scholarship and outreach in many rural sociology programs around the country. In the contemporary era, rural sociology has struggled to keep its competitive advantage — both broadly (in sociology) and narrowly (in ”ag” schools).

Bibliography:

Falk, W. W. and Zhao, S. (1989) Paradigms, theories and methods in contemporary rural sociology: a partial replication and extension. Rural Sociology 54: 587—600.
Lyson, T. A. (2004) Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food and Family. Tufts University Press, Medford, MA.