Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties to the national Department of Agriculture and land-grant university colleges of agriculture.
Robert King Merton was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as the 47th president of the American Sociological Association. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor. In 1994 he was awarded the National Medal of Science for his contributions to the field and for having founded the sociology of science.
Randall Collins is an American sociologist who has been influential in both his teaching and writing. He has taught in many notable universities around the world and his academic works have been translated into various languages. Collins is currently the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a leading contemporary social theorist whose areas of expertise include the macro-historical sociology of political and economic change; micro-sociology, including face-to-face interaction; and the sociology of intellectuals and social conflict. Collins's publications include The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (1998), which analyzes the network of philosophers and mathematicians for over two thousand years in both Asian and Western societies. His current research involves macro patterns of violence including contemporary war, as well as solutions to police violence. He is considered to be one of the leading non-Marxist conflict theorists in the United States, and served as the president of the American Sociological Association from 2010 to 2011.
Dorothy Wolfers Nelkin was an American sociologist of science most noted for her work researching and chronicling interplay between science, technology and the general public. Her work often highlighted the ramifications of unchecked scientific advances and potential threats to privacy and civil liberties. She was the author or co-author of 26 books, including Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology, The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age, and Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age.
Elijah Anderson is an American sociologist. He is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University, where he teaches and directs the Urban Ethnography Project. Anderson is one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists. Anderson is known most notably for his book, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999).
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. In simple words sociology is the scientific study of society. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society to macro-level analyses.
In the People's Republic of China, the study of sociology has been developing steadily since its reestablishment in 1979. Chinese sociology has a strong focus on applied sociology, and has become an important source of information for Chinese policymakers.
The Rural Sociological Society (RSS) is a professional social science association that promotes the generation, application, and dissemination of sociological knowledge. The RSS seeks to enhance the quality of rural life, communities, and the environment. It was officially established on December 29, 1937, in order to promote the development of rural sociology through teaching, research and extension. Membership in the RSS includes persons professionally employed in the field of rural sociology, or those interested in the objectives of the Society. The RSS holds meetings in different locations every year.
Barbara Risman is Professor and Head of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Tharailath Koshy Oommen is an Indian sociologist, author, teacher, and Professor Emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was awarded Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award in 2008 for his services to the fields of education and literature by the President of India.
Margaret Loyd Jarman "Marney" Hagood was an American sociologist and demographer who "helped steer sociology away from the armchair and toward the calculator". She wrote the books Mothers of the South (1939) and Statistics for Sociologists (1941), and later became president of the Population Association of America and of the Rural Sociological Society.
Aldon Douglas Morris is a professor of sociology and an award-winning scholar, with interests including social movements, civil rights, and social inequality. He is the 2021 president of the American Sociological Association.
Joan Huber is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at Ohio State University. Huber served as the 79th president of the American Sociological Association in 1989. Huber taught at the University of Notre Dame from 1967 to 1971, eventually moving to Illinois, where she taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. While instructing numerous sociology courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Huber served as the director of Women's Studies Program for two years (1978–1980), and then became the head of the Department of Sociology in 1979 until 1983. In 1984, Huber left Illinois for an opportunity at the Ohio State University, where she became the dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, coordinating dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences, and senior vice president for academic affairs and university provost. During her time, Huber was president of Sociologists for Women in Society from 1972 to 1974, the Midwest Sociological Society from 1979 to 1980, and the American Sociological Association from 1988 to 1989. Being highly recognized for her excellence, in 1985 Huber was given the Jessie Bernard Award by the American Sociological Association. Not only was Huber an instructor of sociology at multiple institutions or president of different organization, she also served different editorial review boards, research committees, and counseled and directed many institutions on their sociology departments.
Sociology is the methodological and scientific study of human society. It studies the social interactions between a person and society as well as the social patterns between societies, groups, nations, institutions, etc. Sociologists research the relationships between social structures and human lives. They also aim to solve the corresponding social issues revealed from the researches.
Mary L. Gray is an American anthropologist and author. She is a Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, as well as a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. Along with her research, Gray teaches at Indiana University, maintaining an appointment as an Associate Professor of the Media School, with affiliations in American Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies. In 2020, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in recognition of her work "investigating the ways in which labor, identity, and human rights are transformed by the digital economy."
Corey Lee Wrenn is an American sociologist specializing in human-animal studies, the sociology of the animal rights movement, ecofeminism, and vegan studies. She is presently a lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent.
Amie Kathleen Boal is an American chemist. She is an associate professor of chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University. In 2020, Boal was the recipient of the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.
Charles Elson Lively was an American sociologist and among the early pioneers in rural sociology. He conducted research into rural habits and ways of life in rural communities throughout the midwest, though most of his work focused on Ohio and Missouri. As Brunner notes in The Growth of a Science: A Half Century of Rural Sociological Research in the United States, Lively's work was instrumental in demonstrating the regionality of social conditions. Lively was among the first sociologists to empirically demonstrate variability in social factors as a useful metric in defining regions, rather than using biophysical characteristics alone. During his tenure at the University of Missouri, he became increasingly interested in rural healthcare and demographics. Lively was president of the Rural Sociological Society from 1942 to 1943. Later in life, the State of Missouri awarded him the W. Scott Johnson Award for his work in rural areas of the state.
Mildred Bertha Thurow Tate was an American rural sociologist, educator, and advocate for women's education. She was one of the first females to obtain a PhD in rural sociology from Cornell University and was appointed the first Dean of Women at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Cornelia Butler Flora is an American rural sociologist. She is mostly known for her work on community capitals framework (CCF), feminism in Latin America, social justice, social policy, women in development, rural development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable community, community development, and farmer welfare. She has worked globally across the United States, Latin America, and Africa. There are more than 247 publications to her name over the last five decades of her work. Her widely famous book Rural Communities: Legacy + Change has seen 43 editions published between 1992 and 2019 in three languages. She was appointed to the reputed National Agricultural Research, Education and Economics Advisory Board by the then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in 2004. She was also the president of the Rural Sociological Society in 1988–1989.
