Agriculture and Human Values

, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp 42–65 | Cite as

The rural social sciences: An overview of research institutions, tools, and knowledge for addressing problems and issues

  • Frederick H. Buttel
Article
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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.

Keywords

Social Science Science Research Experiment Station Veterinary Medicine Station Research 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 1987

Authors and Affiliations

  • Frederick H. Buttel

There are no affiliations available

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