Offers theses to encourage search for community in the changing countryside: because of its influence on social well-being, the community is alive; rural areas present special community development advantages/problems; strategies must address sources of rural problems in larger society; rural sociology can specify/measure parameters of rural…

Asserts that, although research can be a powerful resource in guiding and fueling grass-roots social change, the community-based research enterprise often is contentious. Recommends collaborative research studies in which the researchers and practitioners work together from the project's inception. (CFR)