The rural educational socium represents the foundation of individual and social educational resources. Among the key provisions of the strategy for modernizing the rural educational socium, the authors list the following: the creation of an integral system of continuous education in the immediate vicinity of the place where youngsters and adults…

The purpose of this monograph is to examine changing perspectives of rural development in an effort to better understand change in rural social systems via analyzation of interactions between social systems in general and between the U.S. and Asian countries in particular. Initially, an analytic framework is presented which describes intersystem…

Governments and change agents have assumed that people spontaneously would come forward and take part in development activities. But people have not come forward. It is now time that they be asked. Therefore, any project, program, or proposal involving a behavioral change should build in a mobilization strategy and resources for monitoring…

Efforts related to rural development, observed in central Africa, focus on the physical with little concern for social and psychological change. Highly funded programs, including those sponsored by the United States, are providing roads, markets, schools, public buildings, etc., and the lifestyles of the native population reflect these…

This sourcebook offers training and technical assistance materials for use in planning rural economic development strategies. It is intended that this book be used by public officials, community leaders, and rural development practitioners who are concerned with strengthening the economics of small towns and rural areas throughout the United…

Discusses implications of population turnaround, reverse migration for societal polarization, human resources based economy, and rural/urban segmentation on the new socioeconomic role of rural areas. Identifies an interrelated public policy model composed of local community, human resources, technical inputs, and integrating institutions to…

The erosion of the credibility of the classical diffusion paradigm by recent challenges to its fundamental assumptions has resulted in a "paradigmatic crisis" as related to research on the diffusion of agricultural innovations. Such basic assumptions as that of a harmonious and cooperative society and of agricultural research guided by endogenous…

Dunlap, Kansas, identified as a stereotypical dying small town in a 1962 study, was restudied in 1974-75 in an effort to test the dying small town hypothesis (supported only by aggregate census data and casual observation rather than by specific studies). Researchers using unobtrusive observation of Dunlap and seven nearby unincorporated villages,…

Drawing upon and synthesizing social and demographic data (1940-70) from 14 counties in the Rocky Mountain West which are currently facing extensive population growth as the result of large scale energy resource development, a preliminary model of potential sociocultural impact was developed. Including national energy needs and traditional…

This case study of Wakayama Prefecture focuses on the postwar Japanese government's efforts to facilitate administration of rural areas via "town-making." School consolidation is among the means used to fabricate a new sense of social cohesion from a patchwork of depopulated and aging villages. The goal is to promote a national modern…

One hundred years of rural development in India is surveyed, tracing the impact of colonial administration up to and including the decades of independence--an administration built on elitism, centralism, and paternalism. Four major rural problems of famine, abuses of land tenure, peasant indebtedness, and rural disaffection and how political…

This paper analyzes principles of knowledge diffusion and provides a framework for applying new ideas or innovations, particularly in relation to rural community development. As new knowledge is created or old knowledge is found to have new applications, the art of spreading knowledge and managing innovation has become more crucial in both urban…

Offering a contribution to additional clarity in the debate about the viability of "rural development" as an explanatory concept and program of action, the paper presents details of a causal model which underlies the approach to rural development taken by a W. K. Kellogg Foundation supported program in eastern Washington called "The…

The issue of rural development has been surrounded by a number of debates regarding its nature, types, and scale. Included among the sources of controversy relating to rural development are the following areas: (1) the relation between rural development and rural industrialization, (2) the distribution of benefits and costs associated with…

Pressures on rural Appalachian families to function as an integral part of the larger American society have led to internal discord and a "Culture of Poverty"; consequently, a new vehicle for rural community reorganization is needed, particularly for low-income rural Appalachian communities. An alternative for non-conventional…