Rural sociology

The Rural Sociology (by extension, meaning land and agrarian sociology) is a sub-discipline of sociology and agricultural science. She was originally concerned with the investigation of the special importance of agrarian production, peasant family and village life in industrial society, which was implicitly assumed that a rural society persists also in the industrial age. With the reduction of family farms and the socio-structural convergence of living standards between urban and rural agricultural sociology lost their original research. Meanwhile, the re- increasing regional disparities between cities and rural areas are subject of research in sociology country. The scientific interest is focused on the one hand to prosperous regions on the other, to be divorced from social development to remote regions that are at risk within agglomerations and.

History of agricultural and rural sociology

The Russian- American sociologist Pitrim A. Sorokin regarded as the founder of the academic discipline, he put together in 1929 with Carle Clark Zimmerman basic font Principles of rural-urban sociology before. In the United States were established at colleges and universities Department of Sociology country ( rural sociology ). Although there had been in Germany some research on the subject, such as a seminal work of Max Weber to 1892, there was until the end of World War II no institutionalized rural sociology. During the period of National Socialism, many presented with rural sociology dealt scientists " bereitwilig in the service of blood and soil ideology." Only after the war single chairs were set up for rural sociology in Germany, exclusively to agricultural science faculties. Always the discipline theory and policy remotely close was accused, it was mainly driven contract research. Only in the 1970s opened the German agrarian sociology of international debate and turned to more general and alternative topics such as sustainability, ecology, human- livestock relationship. Main research area are still rural areas.