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This article comments on the position papers in the June 1967 issue of Rural Sociology. The author asserts that the papers are a mark of growing maturity of the rural sociology profession. It took years before the state universities and colleges assumed the dominant role of that they have achieved in the development of rural sociology. Contributions of the early sociologists to the applied field are presented to emphasize their historical value.

This paper explores some aspects of the editorial decision process and its outcomes as they are involved in the production of scientific knowledge. Based on 337 manuscripts reviewed for Rural Sociology from the Spring of 1978 to the Spring of 1981, ten characteristics associated with successful and unsuccessful manuscripts were examined. Five of these constituted a discriminant function model: number of rounds of review, author membership in the Rural Sociological Society, referee agreement regarding recommendations to the editor, referees who are authors, and difference in referee degree dates. The other five variables did not contribute significantly to the model: referee membership in the RSS, gender of the authors, number of authors, referee agreement regarding the contribution of the manuscript, and referee agreement regarding the presentation of the manuscript. The model achieved 85 percent accuracy in classifying the total set of manuscripts, but it was much more successful in classifying the rejected papers (95 percent) than the published papers (63 percent). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource dependency and its impact upon community stability has long been of interest to rural sociologists. This paper critically evaluates the literature on timber-dependent communities to assess what is known, assumed, ignored, and avoided about the topic. We argue that timber-dependent communities may represent a somewhat special case of resource dependency and that the study of forest-based communities can contribute to sociological knowledge of rural life. The paper also discusses theoretical and methodological concerns to be addressed and presents an agenda for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological society. This is not a new experience, but some of the changes that are taking place in rural sociology programs and in society indicate that the need for discussion is not yet satisfied. This is also one way of reaching the many members, subscribers, and readers who axe unable to attend the Society meetings, and of including them in the circle of discourse. Accordingly, few persons from various sections of the country and one to represent a view of rural sociology as it exists outside the U. S. to offer some of their views on important issues in the future of rural sociology were invited. They were asked to respond briefly and quickly enough for the papers to be presented in the June issue before the 1969 meeting.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Highlights of the 1971 annual meeting of the Rural Sociology Section of Association of Southern Agricultural Workers; Call for papers for the 1971 annual meeting of the society to be held in Denver, Colorado on August 27 to 29, 1971; Programs and projects of the society.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Call for papers for the 1969 annual meeting of the society; Tentative session topics; Best dissertations in rural sociology for the years 1967 and 1968.

This paper addresses spatial inequality as an emerging specialty area in sociology. Rural sociologists have long attended to spatial inequalities. The authors tend to view their work as uniquely centered on the rural experience, as opposed to occupying the forefront of spatializing stratification theory and of sociology as a whole. First the development of sociological interest in spatial inequality is discussed, providing an overview of factors that have contributed to a spatial trend in the study of stratification. Then, the implications for rural sociology are discussed, describing how rural sociologists contribute to research on spatial inequality, and distinguishes the approach of rural sociology from those of other subfields and disciplines. Finally, some examples of research in this emerging specialty area are highlighted by drawing from papers included in this issue. The authors call for the development of research based on qualitative approaches to provide deeper insights into the processes linking space with stratification, both from the perspective of people who are disadvantaged and from the standpoint of those who enjoy an advantage because of such a connection. They encourage the development of international and cross-national research on spatial inequality to broaden the understanding of the links between space and inequality.

Previous research on adopter categories has found several relationships between time of adoption and various social, economic, and demographic characteristics of the adopters of innovations. This paper extends the focus to include the spatial dimension in the context of two approaches to explaining innovation diffusion. The communications approach emphasizes information flows, whereas the market and infrastructure approach stresses the availability of the innovation to potential adopters. The study produces two major findings: (1) that locational characteristics are an important aspect of both explanations and therefore should be considered along with the traditional set of variables in describing adopter categories; (2) that the conceptual model associated with adopter categories should be broadened to reflect marketing strategy characteristics as well as innovativeness characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an index of various literature on rural sociology.

This article presents the author's reply to comments by Robert C. Bealer and Thomas R. Ford on his article "The Rural-Urban Variable: An Urbanite's Perspective." The author says that Bealer contrasts his position with that of Richard Dewey, as expressed in the latter's paper "The Rural-Urban Continuum: Real But Relatively Unimportant." Dewey's views stem from a consideration of the subject by eighteen authors of textbooks in urban sociology. The author is puzzled by Bealer's insistence upon the logical necessity of a focus on social-psychological variables. Certainly one can spend much effort analyzing the characteristics of communities without taking on the added burden of accounting for individual behavior. The author is content, at least for the moment, to leave such questions as the explanation of those persistent traits that rural-dwellers may carry with them when they move to the city to his colleagues in social psychology. All in all, the author takes Bealer's passionate remarks on the necessity for seeking global generalizations to be merely symptomatic of the present time.

This article presents the research papers published in this issue of the journal "Rural Sociology." The first paper by James H. Copp represents a stage in the maturation of research on farm practice acceptance. It is one of the first attempts to compare the results of studies conducted in different agricultural regions. Using data from Wilkening's study in Wisconsin and from his own study in Kansas, he developed comparable measures of certain personal, social, and economic variables. Another paper by Copp and colleagues deals with the informational aspect of the acceptance of new farm practices. They attempt essentially to specify the function of information sources in the adoption process. By asking a series of questions about the sources of information at various times, from the awareness of a new practice until its adoption, they find that institutionalized sources tend to perform a function separate from that of noninstitutionalized sources. The study by Charles R. Hoffer and Dale Stangland is a worthy attempt to take into account the farmer's value orientations as they affect his adoption of practices.

The tendency for neighborhood patterns of association to localize the exchange of farm information on a person-to-person basis is demonstrated in this paper by the analysis of two types of interpersonal relationships. Conditions which help to explain this relationship are examined and evaluated, and the relationship of neighborhood residence to the evaluation of sources of farm information is considered. Although consideration of the relative influence of neighborhood and clique patterns of association is beyond the scope of this study, the data show that clique members are more likely to live outside neighborhoods than inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that farm tenancy is an attempted adaptation of land and other resources to human needs through definite socially sanctioned institutional channels. Thus far, however, sociological research, in farm tenancy has been incidental for the most part. Hence there is a need for more specific research on tenancy as a purely sociological phenomenon or as a pattern of social adjustment. The principal task of the paper is, therefore, to set up definite general propositions or hypotheses to be tested by research. In all, fifteen propositions are positioned which purport to cover, if not the entire sociology of farm tenancy, at least its major aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all commodities are things, nor are all things available in society commodities. Then, what are commodities? Using the case of rapeseed and its products in China, this paper examines the role of grades and standards (G&S) in simultaneously determining the life of things as commodities and the position of humans as market participants. In the first section, we summarize our conceptual understandings of commodities. Next, the paper examines tests and trials to which rapeseed in China were subjected by the mid 1990s. We then discuss how G&S represent political processes among commodity chain actors for creating, legitimizing and maintaining the social relations between things and people. Lastly, we discuss our conclusion that the analysis of tests and trials helps us understand the process of commodification as simultaneous transformations of humans and things in a commodity chain while reorganizing linkages among these actors. A commodity is … an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. —Karl Marx (in McLellan 1977:421) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents patterns of racial change in the non- metropolitan South during 1950-1980. Based on population counts from the 1950-1980 decennial censuses, our results reveal considerable racial change in southern nonmetropolitan counties, although the magnitude of change pales in comparison to recent shifts in racial composition in northern central cities and suburbs. Moreover, there is little evidence of widely fluctuating differences between nonmetropolitan counties in changes in racial composition. Finally, racial change in the nonmetropolitan South, unlike that in northern cities, has occurred largely in the context of overall growth rather than population decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three theoretical perspectives and their ability to explain a community's adoption of land use controls: population growth, community affluence, and organizational size. Comparisons are made between 79 communities ranging in population size from 1,000 to 100,000. The population-growth and community-affluence perspectives are both supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural Sociology began and continues as a medium of intellectual exchange for scholars concerned with rural issues. For fifty years editors have tried to publish articles that make social science useful, that bring the most relevant theory and methods of a particular time to bear on rural problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidential addresses to the Rural Sociological Society fall into two basic types. Some persons have chosen to deliver a paper which continues the kind of substantive interests at the core of their particular careers. In this way the article is not too different than any other of the person's efforts. Perhaps the more characteristic mode is to step outside "the usual" and appraise where new challenges may be arising for rural sociology, where old problems remain and, in general, to focus on issues pertinent largely to the profession as such. This is so for the simple reason that the central concern of the author long has been with metatheory or metasociology. The nature of the beast, brings "professional" matters under scrutiny. Through the rubric of metatheory his goal is to examine and hopefully clarify some of the assumptions which underlines substantive propositions. The assumptions that are perhaps most inviting for inquiry are those involving methodology. This is because of rural sociology in the United States has a methodological centrality.

The Census of Agriculture is an important source of data for persons interested in studying the structure of agriculture. The census has been used to study agriculture and quality of life in Kansas recently and aggregated state level data was used to describe the relationship between farm size, agriculture and energy consumption. As sociological interest in agriculture, grows, it is likely that the Census of Agriculture will become the source of many more studies. Unfortunately, the units of analysis reported in the Census of Agriculture like-aggregate national, state and county statistics-create problems for those who use them for sociological purposes. This short article will illustrate some of the problems inherent in the use of census materials by reexamining some of the data used on recent papers on energy and agriculture. A serious difficulty posed by the use of census material for sociological research stems from the fact that census data are aggregated on the bases of political units like states and counties.

Recent criticism of rural sociology has suggested that it is characterized by theoretical closure, methodological monism, and a tendency to ignore the actor's view of the world. This paper attempts to come to grips with those issues (1) by presenting a new set of questions for rural sociological research and (2) by showing how interpretive and structural concerns may be employed in a complementary manner so as to illuminate an area of substantive interest--the role and nature of the agricultural sciences. First, the contemporary structure of the American agricultural sciences is described. Then, certain negotiations carried on within that structure are elaborated. Third, several examples are used to illustrate how contemporary structure can be traced back to earlier negotiations. Fourth, some variations among agricultural disciplines are noted. It is concluded that an applied sociology of the agricultural sciences could contribute much to the resolution of both disciplinary and social problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an index of various literature on rural sociology.

This paper seeks to improve the conceptualization and measure-merit of interorganizational fields and organization-environment relations. Cohesiveness of interorganizational fields and centrality of organizations vis-à-vis other units in their task environments are examined. Matrix algebra and sociograms are used to analyze data collected through interviews with the top administrator in 159 community development organizations. Cohesion of 16 interorganizational fields (counties) and centrality of 15 different types of organizations were determined using both high and low intensity of interaction measures. Three organizational coalitions were located and found to group around concerns about agriculture, social services, and natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents minutes of the Council Meeting on August 26, 1973. Attendees; Speakers; Balance sheet for the 1973-1974 proposed budget.

Presents news notes and announcements involving the Rural Sociological Society. Professional opportunities abroad; Announcements of events; Career developments of sociology professionals; Theses and dissertations.

This paper makes a distinction between ‘opinion leadership’ and traditional leadership in the process of directed change in underdeveloped areas. Using the case study method, an attempt is made to demonstrate that each of the two types of leadership is suited to a specific situation. Using support from Max Weber's argument that the traditional leader is free to confer grace quite arbitrarily, the potentiality of this type of leadership as an instrument for social change is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research reported in this paper attempts to investigate the relationship between certain sociocultural variables which have classically been related to the adoption of recommended farm practices and "rationality" in decision making. "Rationality" is conceptualized as a variable intervening between the operation of the sociocultural variables and the act of adoption. The data lend support to this framework. The observed relationships between rationality and the selected variables are those which have been found to obtain with respect to adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and describes patterns of migration, changes in birth rates, and the relationship of these two factors for the rural and urban population in state economic areas of 13 North Central States, 1940–1950. Analysis of the data clearly shows the concentration of population through net in-migration in the rural parts of metropolitan areas, and especially in the older and larger metropolitan areas. The 64 state economic areas of net in-migration had gains of 19, 36, and 14 per cent in total, rural, and urban population, respectively. The 109 areas of net out-migration maintained a stationary total population, lost 5 per cent in rural population, and gained 10 per cent in urban population. Areas of net in-migration showed a numerical increase of 7.2 births per 1,000 population, 1940–1950, and those of net out-migration an increase of only 4.6. Areas showing the rural-in, urban-out migration pattern had the largest increase, 7.5, while the rural-out, urban-out areas had the least increase, 3.8. The data point up the need for expanded study of the various demographic, social, and economic factors affecting migration and fertility and their relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to what might be regarded as a basic postulate in sociology, when a number of persons are in interaction over a period of time, mutual expectations and norms develop concerning the behavior of the persons involved, and the individual's actions are not independent of these norms and expectations. the postulate is the basis of the hypothesis that relationships among neighbors affect many of the individual operator's decisions concerning the farm business. The author of this paper seeks to test the hypothesis that the extent to which farm operators adopt recommended farm practices is, in part, a function of the operator's neighborhood of residence.

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Lists books related to sociology published in the March 1997 issue of "Rural Sociology."

A complex array of socio-historical, demographic, and organizational factors have combined in recent years to threaten both the current status of and future prospects for the discipline of rural sociology, and for the Rural Sociological Society (RSS). This paper examines the somewhat problematic recent trajectories of the RSS as a professional organization and of rural sociology more generally and notes a degree of disciplinary and organizational inertia that have limited the pursuit of new directions. It also presents a discussion of selected factors that have contributed to these concerns, including both "external" factors that are largely beyond the organizational reach of RSS and "internal" factors that are more directly linked to organizational characteristics and actions. Drawing upon the distinctions between "red ocean" and "blue ocean" strategies outlined by market strategists Kim and Mauborgne, the discussion then shifts to a focus on action alternatives that, if pursued, could help to create an expanded set of opportunities and a brighter future for rural sociology, and for the Rural Sociological Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sociologists and the public at large are increasingly interested in the life conditions of animals, conceptual and empirical development of the topic is limited. This paper seeks to further develop the sociological research on attitudes toward animal well-being. We build on insights from contemporary stratification theory to explain the nature of animal attitudes and their determinants. We also extend past work by examining a broader range of factors related to attitudes about animal well being, focusing on place, other social structural factors, and individuals' unique animal-related experiences. Data are from a survey of over 4,000 Ohio residents conducted in 2002. We find that childhood experience has the greatest place-based effect on attitudes. Other findings highlight the importance of social structural factors, suggesting support for the "underdog hypothesis." Women, people experiencing economic hardship, those with less education, younger and middle aged people, and blacks tend to be more concerned with animal well-being. Individualized, experiential variables are also important. Our results reflect the complexity of attitudes about animals and point to the need for greater sociological attention to factors left largely unexplored in previous studies, including childhood place-based factors, economic hardship, and individuals' unique animal-related experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of big-city newspaper coverage of violent crimes in small towns during a recent five-year period reveals a remarkable degree of uniformity in the language reporters use to characterize life in these places. The clichés signal an underlying set of stereotypes of small-town life: They are safe, close-knit communities where bad things are “not supposed to happen.” Yet the point of the stories is that bad things do happen. Drawing upon culturological and sociological approaches to the study of news production, this paper argues that the small towns described in the news are symbolic landscapes that reflect a pastoral orientation among journalists and in the culture at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of poverty generally fall into either "individualist" or "structuralist" camps. Often these are seen as irreconcilable and incompatible competing perspectives. This paper integrates individualist and structuralist accounts of poverty by examining the relationship between "person poverty" and "place poverty" in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan labor markets, using a multilevel framework. I fashion a general model of poverty production and allocation, drawing on the labor market ecology perspective. After a discussion of this perspective, I develop a multilevel framework for analyzing data from the 1990 Census PUMS-L sample, STF-3c, and other sources to show how compositional and contextual factors affect households' likelihoods of being in poverty. These multilevel models also allow us to estimate the degree to which labor market conditions influence the magnitude of household labor supply characteristics. Results suggest that both compositional and contextual factors contribute to the metro-nonmetro difference in poverty rates, and that the effects of employment vary in accordance with labor market characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial differences in homeownership have long been a topic of sociological study. Previous studies, however, neglected to consider differences in levels of homeownership between nonmarried black and white women in the context of place. Accordingly this paper focuses on the interaction between place, race, and gender and its impact on homeownership for nonmarried persons. The study employs the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) and logistic regression analysis to address the following questions: Has the racial differential in homeownership for nonmarried women changed from 1970 to 1990? How do place, race, and gender interact to determine the levels of homeownership for nonmarried women? The findings reveal that, although black women were less likely than white women to own homes, the racial differential declined dramatically in rural areas over the two-decade period. The overall trend of decline was opposite to that for urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The aims of this paper are twofold: first, to gain a fuller understanding of factors that foster community cohesion and contribute to the residents' social and economic well-being; and, second, to move beyond previous research that used larger spatial units such as states, counties, or aggregates of counties and to focus instead on American small towns (population 2,500–20,000). The data on small towns are drawn from public-use files and from confidential microdata from various economic censuses. From these sources we construct measures of locally oriented firms, self-employment, business establishments that serve as gathering places, and associations. The local capitalism and civic engagement variables generally perform as hypothesized; in some cases they are related quite strongly to civic welfare outcomes such as income levels, poverty rates, and nonmigration rates. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working with place-level data and suggest some strategies for subsequent work on small towns and other incorporated places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysts have described conflict between the economically dominant industrial sector of society and the environmental movement as representing competition between two opposing worldviews or social paradigms. There appears to be a similar schism developing in agriculture. The conventional paradigm of large-scale, highly industrialized agriculture is being challenged by an increasingly vocal alternative agriculture movement which advocates major shifts toward a more "ecologically sustainable agriculture." Some have suggested that alternative agriculture represents a fundamentally new paradigm for agriculture. This paper seeks to clarify and synthesize the core beliefs and values underlying these two approaches to agriculture into a "conventional agriculture paradigm" and an alternative agriculture paradigm. The writings of six major proponents of alternative agriculture are compared with those of six leading proponents of conventional agriculture to document the major components of the two agricultural paradigms. The two sets of writings reveal dramatically divergent perspectives on a wide range of agricultural issues. The competing paradigms can be synthesized into six major dimensions: 1) centralization vs. decentralization, 2) dependence vs. independence, 3) competition vs. community, 4) domination of nature vs. harmony with nature, 5) specialization vs. diversity, and 6) exploitation vs. restraint. The emerging controversy over "low- input, sustainable agriculture" (LISA) illustrates the paradigmatic gulf between alternative and conventional agriculture, as well as the pitfalls facing alternative agriculturalists as they attempt to replace conventional agriculture as the dominant paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community sociology is in an awkward position between (1) the desirability and practicality of studying communities of geographic place and (2) a tendency for community relations to depart geographic places and span wide areas that effectively have no geographic boundaries. A rereading of Durkheim's theory of social solidarity offers an escape from this difficulty. This paper argues that the division of labor and social solidarity participate in a suppressing system: directly, the division of labor reduces solidarity, but indirectly, it increases solidarity through secondary groups, the state, and the cult of individuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent changes in legislation, policy, and appropriations call explicitly for program evaluation to be undertaken in extension as well as other federally funded programs to help document program results and consequences and to provide input into policy and program decisions. Consistent with this charge, the present paper develops a conceptual and analytic framework that recognizes the dynamic, nonrecursive nature of the program and policy evaluation process. The flexibility of the frame- work allows policy or program evaluation to be addressed from three interrelated perspectives: (1) structural analysis, (2) control programming, and (3) simulation. The approaches have different foci and provide different kinds of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, rural sociology has been the subject of sociological inquiries. Many of these have been highly critical, raising questions about the ontological nature of the discipline. In this paper, we extend this tradition. We provide a brief historical analysis of rural sociology's roots as both theoretical and applied and then critique current rural sociology from a "critical theory" perspective. In this way, we raise questions about rural sociology's very being and ask how it could become more policy oriented. We discuss examples from economics that suggest an option for rural sociology-a direction in which research and practice are more interwoven rather than merely discussed. We close by cautioning rural sociologists that to ignore the questions we ask is to run the risk of a "scientistic," substantively vacuous discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes data from recent urban-origin migrants to the 75 non-metropolitan countries in the North Central Region experiencing most rapid growth. Results show that researchers should not assume a universal relevance of questions asking for evaluations of community attributes since "don't know" responses are not uncommon. The data indicate that respondents are objectively assessing particular community attributes when responding to such questions. Global satisfaction measures, however, reflect more than is included in the standard lists of' community attributes and tend to reflect satisfaction with a few attributes in particular. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that community satisfaction can help to explain respondents' potential for moving again, which is over and above the explanatory power provided by the usual demographic variables used in such analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lists books on various topics related to rural sociology. "Mortality in Kentucky: 1950-75," by Lawrence Busch and Carolyn Sachs; "Recent Population Trends in North Carolina and the Southern Region: 1970-1975," by William B. Clifford; "Residential and Racial Trends for the School-Age Population and Public School Teachers in Louisiana," by William W. Falk and Allen Comfort.

This article addresses the research issue of rural-urban differences in satisfaction among the elderly. In a recent paper, L. M. Hynson examined rural-urban differences on four indicators of satisfaction: satisfaction with family, satisfaction with community, and generally not afraid. His findings indicated that while there was no relationship between rural-urban residence and satisfaction with family, there was a significant relationship between rural-urban residence and the remaining indicators. It is noted, however, that the restricted empirical parameters, along with certain methodological problems in the said research, raise some questions as to Hynson's generalizations. While recognizing the theoretical implications of his research, it seems that evidence presented on the basis of zero-order correlations raises some serious questions as to whether the emergent findings may be spurious in nature. Clearly, other variables have been shown to be related to various dimensions of satisfaction.

This paper examines the impact of controlled access highways on nonmetropolitan population growth between 1940 and 1970 in the state of Pennsylvannia. Minor civil divisions corrected for boundary changes were used as areal units in the research. With a longitudinal analysis, the authors observed the demographic growth of nonmetropolitan places before and after controlled access highways were opened as well as variations in the impact of the said highways from decade to decade.

Economic development involves elemental processes of great complexity and scope and that those who would move from a traditional to a modern society must relate themselves differently to the environment, shifting from an organic to an inorganic energy base, they must alter their ontology, accepting a different cognitive base for their relief system, they must adopt new values, forsaking old ones or integrating them somehow with the new values, indeed, they must psychologically refashion traditional man and his energizing and motivational system. The encompassing task of development requires the involvement of all sectors of society and different types of social units. This paper examines the nature and position of voluntary associations in the historic process of modernization and development.

This paper re-examines the significance of the ecological approach for community study. First it briefly recounts the character of the "new" ecology fostered especially by Hawley and Duncan. Secondly, it summarizes the main similarities, differences, and convergencies between this new ecology and each of four other theoretical stances which currently seem to be the most vital to community study: the typological-shared meanings approach. the social system idea, inductive taxonomy, and an interactionist mode. While significant divergencies remain, the ability of the new ecology to comprehend many of the concerns in these other approaches suggests it may be quite helpful in the continuing effort to bring order to the diverse phenomena of the community field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present a sketch of procedures which hold promise for yielding behavioral indicators of connections among actions in the local society. The community is viewed as a behavioral and interactional phenomenon. From this perspective, which assumes but does not emphasize spatial, institutional and psychological dimensions, relevant data have to do with the behavior of actors in specific task-accomplishment processes. The tasks might be building a hospital, conducting a political campaign, evacuating a residential area which is threatened by flood, or any infinite number of other public, locality, relevant concerns. The raw data of behavioral study of community are acts by individuals. Reports of acts are amassed, sorted, classified and examined. Acts are seen as fitting together into projects and episodes, and these into fields of action concerning specific interests or goals.

The article focuses on a structural perspective towards a sociological theory of development. Perhaps no single word has been more widely and frequently used by such a large number of people in so many countries of the world today than the term "development." The term frequently refers to economic development as it has been a central concern to the majority of nations and citizens living there. The author also describes the reasons why sociology has been a latecomer in this endeavor may be found in the insistence on a value-free or ideologically neutral science of society. The author further says that his paper builds its argument on the following basic premises: 1) development is a value concept; 2) development is a social structural change; 3) the aspect of social structure that is most salient to development is that of resource allocation or the distributive system of society; and 4) the pivotal factor that can either promote or cripple the development process is political leadership. This article also presents a comprehensive study of human values which was previously not existing.

The Wisconsin model is a concise and seemingly effective system of antecedent and intervening variables in status attainment. Founded upon research in the U.S.A., it holds that occupational status is largely a function of educational status and is substantially influenced by intellectual capacity and socioeconomic status. Effects of these variables appear to be transmitted through a number of intervening social psychological and performance variables. This paper provides a test of the adequacy of the Wisconsin model in another culture. It was found that the model had to be altered to provide a parsimonious explanation of attainment for a sample of middle-class, small-town Costa Rican males. Reasons for the alteration are discussed. Suggestions are made regarding several of the more vexing research problems in studying the attainment process in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]