The Sociologist in Agricultural Development.

Sociologists can learn as much as they may teach through involvement in agricultural development. Agricultural development is a top priority today among people in many cultures. Except as a particular academic interest is pursued in a variety of cultural settings, it is virtually impossible to distinguish between truly universal principles, on the one hand, and generalizations that owe their relevance only to certain aspects of the particular social setting in which they are observed to hold true, on the other. Sociology, however defined, needs involvement in human group activities in a variety of cultural settings in order to winnow what is universal and intrinsic from that which is parochial and derivative. The author is not at all sure that social organization and interaction are any more intricate or complex for a dynamic society than for one that is relatively static, but certainly they are different. Development involves the breaking of old social patterns as well as the emergence of new ones. The problems change as development proceeds. The author know that for economics this requires differences in research emphasis and content.