Abstract
This paper seeks to provide a broad overview of the historical, contemporary, and future roles of the rural social sciences. This overview is preceded by a brief elaboration of a model of the social, political, and economic structure of experiment station research organizations which is helpful in identifying the particular types of agricultural and social sciences research that have tended to be conducted in land-grant institutions. Agricultural economics and rural sociology are given particular emphasis in the next section of the paper which discusses the history and current state of the rural social sciences as disciplines. The prospective roles of five “nontraditional” rural social sciences—history, anthropology, political science, geography, and philosophy—in land-grant research programs are also discussed. The final sections of the paper assess major problems in, and recommended solutions for bolstering, the role of the social sciences in the land-grant system.
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Additional information
Frederick H. Buttel is a Professor of Rural Sociology at Cornell University. He has had a longstanding research interest in the relations among agricultural science, farm structural change, and environmental quality. He recently completed a term as Vice President of the Rural Sociological Society and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences/Board of Agricultural Committee on "Managing Global Genetic Resources: Agricultural Imperatives." He is the author or editor of several books, the most recent of whichThe Sociology of Agriculture, a monograph prepared for the 50th anniversary of the Rural Sociological Society which is to be published in 1988.
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Buttel, F.H. The rural social sciences: An overview of research institutions, tools, and knowledge for addressing problems and issues. Agric Hum Values 4, 42–65 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01535215
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01535215