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Starting from a theoretical discussion on the relations between women and nature, the overall aim of the paper is to discuss how the ongoing structural changes in organic agriculture affect the everyday life, roles and positions of professional women in the sector and relate to the construction of gender and identity in organic farming. When organic farming was implemented in Denmark, both women and men were active participants in defining its principles and practises. Hence organic farming has the potential for creating alternative relations and for reviving female values and interests in agriculture. To day however, organic farming has become more commercialised leading to the gradual penetration and dominance of the values and practises of conventional farming. So how sustainable will future organic farming be with respect to gender relations? The paper focuses on the recent development of organic farming and explores some of the dilemmas and prospects related to different discourses of organic farming. The dominating institutionalised discourse primarily aims at reducing or eliminating environmental problems or dilemmas characteristic of conventional farming. This is notably distinct from a more holistic discourse emphasising broader and more emancipatory organic principles and practises. Our view is that most professional women in the organic sector relate to the latter category and hence are in danger of becoming a‘threatened species’ within the sector. Empirically we have challenged this view by interviewing women on their values, interests and practises within organic farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article discusses the paper presented by Dr. Pahl zu on social conditions in the Netherlands. With admirable clarity, displaying an extensive knowledge of the relevant literature, he has demonstrated that the traditional concept of the rural-urban continuum is more an obstacle than a help in the work. Of course, this conclusion as such is not new, as Dr. Pahl himself has shown in his review of recent literature. Any sociologist who has used the concept in his work, has come sooner or later to the finding that one or more elements did not fit in the construct. Whatever the criteria chosen for characterization may be, there is always the case to be found of an urban group behaving 'rural' and of a rural group being 'urban', or, worst of all, one finds rural and urban characteristics within one group or individual. With the description of the situation in 'urban villages' and with the examples taken from studies made in the developing countries, in which all sorts of discontinuities between the urban and the rural come into the view, Dr. Pahl has found strong support for his statements. It is clear that a typology of settlements, from the small to the large, can never form the basis for a continuum which classifies social structures.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a number of critical reflections on some ideological distortions which have adversely biased research on the peasantry as a class, as a cultural universe and as a political force. The authors look at the two main traditions in the theory of modernization -- the "liberal" and the "Marxist" -- to prove that both assume the disappearance of the peasantry as a necessary event and that therefore the peasantry as such has inevitably become scientifically uninteresting for their representatives. They explore each tradition in some detail and establish the existence of a certain amount of open hostility towards the peasantry among certain sociologists, economists, planners, and policy makers. Significant countertrends in current rural sociology are, however, detected and a conclusion calls for greater attention to the values and possibilities of peasant culture and life, without falling into a romanticised vision of the peasantry, is reached in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents information on various conferences, meetings and papers published in several periodicals related to the rural sociology. In 1962 a Committee for International Co-operation in Rural Sociology was established jointly by the American Rural Sociological Society and the European Society for Rural Sociology. The founders of this rather informal organization were aware right from the beginning of their work that the Committee should be broadened to a world-wide scale as soon as possible. Among the first activities of the Committee was the preparation of the First World Congress for Rural Sociology which was held in August 1964 in Dijon, France. A seminar on peasantry in Birmingham will be held on April 26-27, 1965. This was the second meeting of this type under the chairmanship of R.E.F. Smith, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham. There were some 10 to 12 participants, mainly historians but also economists and sociologists, among whom two from continental Europe

Entrepreneurship has become a dynamic field of research in the last two decades. However, 'rural entrepreneurship' has been largely overlooked. It seems therefore timely to present a quantitative survey of the literature in this particular area. Based on 181 articles on rural entrepreneurship published in journals indexed in Scopus, we found that rural entrepreneurship is an essentially European concern, whose most prolific authors are affiliated with institutions in the UK and Spain. Organisational characteristics, policy measures and institutional frameworks and governance have attracted considerable attention in recent years, being considered emergent topics of research. In contrast, theory building has not attracted much research over the period in analysis, which suggests that the theoretical body of rural entrepreneurship is still incipient, hindering the establishment of its boundaries and of a suitable research agenda. Empirical literature on rural entrepreneurship has focused mainly on developed countries, most notably, the UK, the USA, Spain, Finland and Greece. Given the potential rural entrepreneurship represents for less developed and underdeveloped countries, more research on the topic targeting these countries is an imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author examines empowerment as a strategy for change for farm women in western industrialized countries. Considerable gender inequalities remain in farming. Farm women are underrepresented in farming organizations and participate less than men in shaping agricultural policy. Farming is considered a masculine occupation, and the contributions of farm women are still undervalued. The dominant farming principles are based on masculine rationality, and women are to some extent marginalized in farming. Empowerment is a concept used by a variety of actors in an increasing number of contexts. The concept has become a fashionable term in both research and development strategies. Empowerment seems to be everybody's aim, although its precise meaning and its attainment elude us. In part, it acquires a legitimating function in many development projects, particularly in the Third World. Research on empowerment has developed from participation research, and has a particularly strong position in the Third World. The aim of this article is to empower groups which in various ways have been denied confidence in their own frameworks for understanding, their own strategies and institutions, and their rights to local resources.

This article focuses on the issue of gender segregation at vocational schools. The author remarks that the transformation of agriculture in western industrial societies during the last decades has forced farm women into new spheres of labour and responsibility in order to secure the farms' existence. They have had to develop alternatives such as direct marketing or offering other services to earn an additional income and, especially on part-time farms, to take over more and more jobs that are conventionally done by men. From the very beginning of an apprenticeship in agriculture, women are confronted by general role expectations which require them to reproduce the official gender norms of agricultural institutions. This article focuses on women's experiences as women farm apprentices, and the influence of agricultural institutions on women's self-confidence in Germany. It outlines the institutional influence on doing gender and the reproduction of genders differences in agriculture. Since the nineteenth century, the agricultural sector has been included in the developing capitalist system of German industry. One consequence of this has been the rationalization of agriculture and the adjustment of agricultural apprenticeship to the established knowledge and the professional system.

This article presents information on women pioneers in farming in the history of agricultural development. In recent years, an awareness of the innovative achievements women have contributed to agriculture has not only grown in the field of development co-operation, but in the industrial countries as well. The present commitment women bring to agricultural progress appears at first glance to be unprecedented in history. The everyday life of women has been the primary object of research in the agriculturally oriented literature on women to date. Since the beginning of the century, many remarkable studies have been made throughout Europe on female small farmers and professional women farmers, on maids working on farms and female farmhands, on women in highland and ecological agriculture. The author states that this article focuses on the access women had to agricultural progress and the contributions they made to it against the background of their specific social situation and historical circumstances, and the historical form, structure and organization of agricultural knowledge.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents information on rural population. For demographers the subject of rural population has never been an overriding concern. This may well be a reason for the imprecise definitions used in most countries, and the virtual impossibility of compiling world statistics due to the lack of international standards. The rural world has become an important political and technical issue in the industrialized countries. Due to migration the weight of rural populations is growing, while at the same time the town dweller increases his sway in the countryside. Many observers have remarked that the drift towards rural areas cannot be separated from a corresponding increase in the distances covered by the ebb and flow of traffic between town and country, thus reducing the genuinely rural aspect of the migration. The growing influence of urban society through the flows of people to the rural areas will unquestionably raise serious problems regarding the exercise of power in rural area administration. Despite the political and social importance of the reversed trend, analysis and understanding of the phenomenon are still far from complete and the factors governing future developments are a long way from being identified.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article focuses on workshop related to migrant labor, position of migrant laborers in industrialized countries, effects of migration on the regions of origin, possibilities of return migration. The Mediterranean countries of Europe are on the verge of major changes in their demographic profiles and political organizations in the wake of unstable economic conditions in the more industrialized areas of Western Europe. Unemployment in the nine member countries of the common market is consistently very high as these industrialized nations seek to become less dependent upon fossil fuels and develop a more diversified energy base. This development, however, is taking place within the context of new economic and social forces. As these changes sweep through the countries, they are giving rise to countless experimental adaptations on the part of millions of people. In the workshop useful comparisons among different experiences in migrations are bound to arise. The discussion of attitudes and behavior of migrants and local population at the points of origin and destination simultaneously may be of particular use.