Lesson 1: An Introduction to Sociology and
Rural Sociology
Purpose
This lesson is a general introduction to the discipline of sociology—what it is, its origins, and how it may contribute to a better understanding of social reality. We will pay particular attention to what it means to have a sociological imagination, how we may begin to think in a sociological perspective about what is considered “rural,” and how sociology might advance our understanding of society.
Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to
- define the term sociology and discuss how the discipline differs from other perspectives.
- discuss major concepts regarding the sociological imagination.
- describe the main theoretical perspectives that have guided the discipline.
- discuss the historical context in which sociology and rural sociology emerged.
- discuss some of the issues facing rural communities.
Reading Assignment
Newman textbook
- Chapter 1, “Taking a New Look at a Familiar World,” pages 2–15
- Chapter 2, “Seeing and Thinking Sociologically,” pages 16–37
- “The Old Ball Game,” pages 38–46
Johnson, Chris. 1998. “Ridin’, Ropin’, Researchin’.” UNLV Magazine, 6, 2.
Commentary
Sociology is the study of human society and social behavior. Although the history of social sciences can be traced back further, the discipline of sociology began in the nineteenth century in Western Europe, in response to massive changes and social ills brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Religion, once the major institution that defined and led society, could not explain the rampant unemployment, the breakdown of rural communities, the mass exodus to cities, or the tremendous social problems being faced in the cities. During this period, the French philosopher Auguste Comte argued that the methods of the natural sciences should be used to study society. Comte coined the term sociology. Other important figures in the history of sociology include Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim. (For more on the ideas of these individuals and their personal histories, see the Dead Sociologists’ Index.)
Sociology is the most recent of the social sciences, which also include economics, anthropology, political science, geography, history, and psychology. Because academic disciplines are artificial ways of categorizing the world, the boundaries between them are not distinct, and their areas of interest may overlap. However, each discipline has a slightly different emphasis or point of view. As Newman notes in your textbook, psychology has a more individualistic focus than sociology. Economics and political science are concerned with particular aspects of society (i.e., the economy or political processes). History, of course, is focused on the past. Anthropology places more emphasis on the diverse forms of social organization that preceded the industrial revolution, while geography places more emphasis on the spatial aspects of society. Anthropology and geography also tend to overlap with natural sciences to a greater extent than most other social sciences.
Sociologists study aspects of human behavior that are shaped by the groups that people belong to and through social interactions. Sociologists are interested in “why” questions. For example, why do poverty and homelessness exist? Why does one out of every two marriages in the United States fail? Why is the family farm disappearing? Why are more rural families in developing countries migrating to urban centers? Why has technology improved the lives of some, yet diminished the economic well-being of others?
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| Sociologists study the influence of social interactions on behavior, such as the role of family members, friends, and other spectators in motivating participants in the Chicago Marathon. Source: Philip H. Howard |
To answer questions such as these, we need to develop what C. Wright Mills called “the sociological imagination.” The sociological imagination is an outlook that focuses on the connections between an individual's situation and the larger social structure. It can be described as the process of viewing personal problems as societal rather than individual. For example, it could be argued that the divorce of two people is a personal matter. When half the marriages in the United States end in divorce, however, sociologists might argue that the problem can no longer be considered simply personal. It becomes a societal problem instead, grounded in issues facing society as a whole.
Can you think of an example or two from your own life in which your personal troubles are linked to broader societal arrangements? This may be difficult for you right now, because people in the United States don’t typically think about how societal arrangements affect them, but you should be able to do this by the end of the course.
Mills criticized many sociologists for failing to develop their sociological imagination. He believed that the failure to connect micro-level issues to the macro-level of society resulted in a sociology that was neither useful nor interesting. Mills rejected the notion that sociologists should be unbiased observers and instead felt that they should be activists. Indeed, he thought that sociologists and other researchers who tried to remain unbiased served to reinforce existing societal relations. The “power elite” was a major area of interest for Mills. He used this term to describe the concentration and centralization of power among a small minority in society. During the mid-twentieth century, he identified as one major trend a decline in the number of independent entrepreneurs and an increase in the number of white-collar workers. He saw this as a worrisome trend because he viewed white-collar workers as less powerful and more passive in challenging the elites.
What exactly is rural sociology? The discipline arose at the beginning of the twentieth century, in part as a reaction to the predominantly urban focus of most sociologists. In 1900, 55 percent of the population was rural (although by 2000, only 20 percent people in the United States lived in rural areas). Therefore, a significant percentage of the nation was not well studied at the time. Even today, 6 out of 10 people worldwide live in rural areas. Rural sociology departments in the United States are located primarily in land grant universities and often within a college of agriculture. See the Rural Sociological Society's Web site for a list of rural sociology departments in the United States and Canada.
Land grant colleges were created by the Morrill Act in 1862. Most colleges at the time emphasized education for the elite. This legislation granted land to states so that it could be sold to finance a college. The Morrill Act required land grant colleges to focus on the agricultural and mechanical arts and on the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes. There are now 105 land grant colleges, including the University of Missouri, and most are affiliated with an extension service. Extension services were created by later legislation, the Smith-Lever Act, to help disseminate research to the public. Typically, there is an office for each county in a statewide system.
In keeping with the mission of land grant colleges, rural sociologists have focused their research on topics related to improving the quality of life in rural areas. Some of their major areas of interest include:
- rural communities
- agriculture, natural resources, and environment
- demography (the study of populations)
- international development
Most rural sociologists are members of the Rural Sociological Society, founded in 1937. You can look at their Web site to learn more about the research that rural sociologists conduct and share with colleagues at their annual meeting.
The supplemental reading for this lesson is an article about a sociologist who studies rural issues. When reading it, pay particular attention to the types of questions he attempts to answer and how he conducts his research. Think about other ways you might try to answer these questions. You will learn more about the methods used in sociological research in Lesson 2.
What exactly is rural? There are many different definitions, but most use as criteria both population size (or density) and distance from urban areas. Compare the first two definitions of “rural” found at the Web site of the Rural Policy Research Institute.
What is different about these definitions? What is similar? Notice that rural is a residual term, defined less in terms of what it is than in terms of what it is not—urban. Because the rural/urban distinction can be overly simplistic and is increasingly difficult to make, many researchers are moving away from this dichotomy. Instead, they use nine or ten categories to classify rural and urban along a continuum. The third and fourth definitions of rural on the Web site above are examples of this approach. For this course, I will use the more familiar dichotomous distinction from urban areas for simplicity.
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| Rural areas are defined by their relationship to urban areas. Source: U.S. Bureau of Land Management, California |
What’s left once we have excluded urban or metropolitan areas can be quite diverse. Rural populations can be very heterogeneous, as with counties in New Mexico that have large numbers of people from European American, Native American, and Latino cultures. In other cases, their ethnic composition may be very homogeneous, such as the counties in Iowa and Nebraska that are populated almost entirely by people of northern European heritage. Even in these states, ethnic diversity is increasing, however, primarily as a result of immigration by Latinos.
While the word community may refer to any group of people with a shared interest or identity, we often think of communities as based in a specific place. Early research on rural communities identified characteristics that distinguished them from urban communities. Ferdinand Tönnies, a German sociologist writing in the late 1800s, described these place-based communities in terms of two extremes. At one end of the continuum was a type likely to be found in an isolated rural community, called gemeinschaft. In a gemeinschaft community, interactions were very personal and social interaction was valued for its own sake. At the other end of the spectrum, the type likely to be found in a large urban community, was the gesellschaft. In a gesellschaft community, interactions were likely to be very impersonal and often just a means to an end.
Even at the time he was writing, Tönnies’s two concepts of community could have been characterized as ideal types rather than as accurate depictions of the differences between rural and urban areas. Ideal types, as defined by another early sociologist, Max Weber, refer to a model or conceptual tool used with the comparative method (see Newman, page 11). It is an exaggerated description of phenomena observed by a sociologist. As a result, there were always many exceptions to the gemeinschaft and gesellschaft typology, and rural and urban areas today are even less likely to adequately represent these two concepts.
Rural areas usually have some similarities, however, such as an economy based on the extraction of natural resources; depending upon the region, these resources may include agriculture, mining, fisheries, or timber extraction. This feature is changing though, as rural economies in the United States become more economically diverse and more reliant on manufacturing, tourism, and service industries (particularly services for elders). Rural areas are also becoming less isolated, due to technological changes such as television, the Internet, and transportation networks.
As a result, some rural areas are experiencing rapid population growth. Increasing numbers of people are moving to previously isolated rural areas for their lower costs of living and perceived higher quality of life, even if they continue to commute to distant urban areas for their jobs. In addition to this “exurban” growth pattern, most rural communities located near metropolitan areas are being affected by urban sprawl. Sprawl occurs when there is unplanned, low-density development into surrounding areas. Some of the problems associated with sprawl include increased vehicle traffic, increased pollution, greater risk of floods, and the loss of farms, parks, and open spaces. Sprawl is not always associated with population growth; some cities continue to take up more land area even as their populations decline, particularly those in the eastern United States.
Other rural areas, such as the Great Plains states and communities in northern Missouri, are experiencing a different set of problems raised by population decline. Traditionally important economic sectors such as farming provide fewer opportunities to make a living, and jobs that are available offer primarily low wages. Many young people migrate to urban areas after pursuing postsecondary education to seek greater economic opportunities. They leave behind a smaller and increasingly older population. This leads to problems such as the closing of local businesses (which leads to a spiral of even fewer employment opportunities), decreased availability of specialized services such as health care, and even the collapse of communities.
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| Technological change has influenced population patterns. Many rural communities that have traditionally been dependent on farming are facing declining populations. Source: Philip H. Howard |
Persistent poverty is another problem that faces some rural areas; it is concentrated in the Southeastern states and the Missouri Ozarks, for example. Poverty is associated with a wide range of social problems including hunger, crime, low educational attainment, and poor health. You will read extensively about the problem of persistent rural poverty in Worlds Apart, by Cynthia Duncan, later in the course.
In an interview with New Scientist magazine, sociologist Teodor Shanin describes studying people who live outside of formal economies. He states that researchers in the late 1970s noticed that the majority of the population in Africa had no land and no economic assets. Economists had no explanation for how these people were able to survive, so instead of looking at economic models, researchers looked at how people actually lived. They found people working odd jobs, farming, selling in the market, or making handicrafts, but with a goal of survival, not maximization of profit. This pattern has been found in other regions, including countries like Italy. Shanin conducted research in Russia, where he found that about 50 percent of economic activity was unofficial. After the Soviet Union broke apart, people continued to go to work even when they had not been paid for six months. He explained that the “jobs” helped maintain social networks that allowed them to survive—by trading goods and services with fellow workers, for example. Shanin says that although sociologists understand this, economists do not. He states that the modern formal economy employs just one-quarter of the global workforce, and the rest is employed in the informal economy. He says that peasant farming is just a small part of it and that it is found in both rural and urban areas.
In studying the informal economy, Shanin has concluded that giving food aid is not a good idea when people are experiencing an economic crisis. If food is available in the market, such aid will end up undermining local economies. Instead, he suggests that aid be directed toward improving local infrastructure (such as roads) or toward food-processing technology. He also suggests that the main danger to developing economies, including Russia’s, is dependency, which is exactly the opposite of the advice given by mainstream economists and institutions like the World Bank (which we will discuss further in Lesson 10).
Banks, A. 2001. C. Wright Mills. http://www.socialscience.eku.edu/Ant/BANKS/CWMILLS_HT2.htm.
Flora, C. B., et al. 1992. Rural communities: Legacy and change. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.
Pearce, Fred. 2002. “How the Other Half Live.” New Scientist, 175, 44–48.
Study Questions
These questions are for your benefit only; do not submit your answers to the Center for Distance and Independent Study. Answers can be found here.
- How does sociology differ from other academic disciplines?
- Define the sociological imagination.
- Who coined the term sociology?
Progress Evaluation
You should now complete the Lesson 1 Progress Evaluation. This progress evaluation consists of 20 multiple-choice questions worth 1 point each for a total possible of 20 points. Remember to mark your answers on a printed copy of the progress evaluation preview so you will have a record of them. (Select "1" to preview this progress evaluation.) When you have finished filling in and checking your answers on a copy of the progress evaluation preview, click on Submit a Lesson for an actual lesson submission page.
Note: Progress evaluations must be submitted in sequence, and you may submit no more than three progress evaluations in a seven-day period. You should keep the printed copy of each progress evaluation preview with your answers marked so you will have a record of them.
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