فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال یازدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 41، بهار 1387)

More than anything else the tradition of sociology in Iran has started with rural studies. Despite the plurality and diversity in rural development sociological studies in recent years, the level of cohesion has declined and most of them are individualized studies, that is, the researcher do not relate his subject of research to others and do not use other studies as a conceptual and theoretical source. Most of the researchers do not commit themselves to review and assess earlier researches critically; therefore, their findings are generally very dispersed, isolated and unconnected to other research findings which necessarily do not lead to the formulation and advancement of rural sociology in Iran. The lack of coherence among the research programs and the tendency towards the short term statistical studies raise this concern that rural development sociology will lose its status as an academic and theoretical subject among rural researchers. They devote most of their time either on writing project proposals and implementing them or testing imported techniques. This new methodological discourse among young rural researchers will entice and separate them from the latent reality of rural areas, which will reduce rural studies to a set of rural statistics. In addition to a description of rural community in Iran two important issues will be considered: lack of inter research connection and extreme orientation towards questionnaires.

The strategy of introducing industries to rural areas is a mechanism for social and economic development in developing countries. Ten village (five villages with industry and five without) were selected around the Boumehen town as the sample site, which is situated at a distance of approximately 40 km from Tehran, to evaluate the impact of industrial zones on social and economic development of rural areas. The findings showed that there were significant differences between villages with and without industry concerning the following indicators: food, clothing, quality of housing, job satisfaction and security, non migration and the incentive to stay in the village.

This study is a descriptive-correlational study that aims to examine the attitudes of the rural youth towards choosing agriculture as their occupation in future. The size of sample was 291 and we used multi-stage sampling methodology. The results show rural youths do not consider agriculture as a desirable future career. According to factor analysis the dimensions that form youth attitude towards agriculture as an occupation include: value of agricultural occupation, agriculture entails hard work, the feeling of being effective, not feeling pressed when carrying agricultural activities, being interested in agriculture and find it beneficial. Physical capital is the only variable that has a positive and significant relationship with attitudes towards agricultural occupation. It includes land, livestock, and agricultural equipments. The youths who belong to households with a wider endowment of physical capital have positive attitudes towards agricultural occupation.

Sustainable development can only be realized and maintained by looking at socio-economic and ecological parameters together with a systematic, coordinated and multi dimensional approach. The sustainability of such a development can be possible in this surroundings. Sustainable rural development in Iran faces serious challenges from mobilization, and the social, economic, and physical resource management. Present planning process is carried out without due consideration of the regional relative advantages, it is sectoral, top down and destructive. This paper is an attempt to analyze the present situation of rural society in Iran. Other countries experiences will also be reviewed with the aim to remove deficiencies and to propose a strategy for sustainable rural development. This study will use systems analysis methodology in research and proposes a new process in which sustainable rural development planning in Iran is based on the results from different environmental assessment for each region.

The aim of this research is to study the problems and potentials, and to identify the situation and strategies for qualitative and quantitative promotion of production, consumption and service cooperatives in Sistan-and-Baluchestan province during 2006-2007. The statistical population under study includes all of the production, consumption and service cooperatives in the province. The study used questionnaire, interview and document analysis. The most important problems of cooperatives are weak management, high interest rate, lack of access to information and advanced technology, inadequacy and inappropriateness of government support of innovation and entrepreneurship, and lack of participatory spirit. Some strategies were proposed to eliminate these problems.

The aim of the present study is to provide a cohesive theoretical framework to reflect upon the nature and explanation of the concept of sustainable design and its fundamental components in relation to specific rural areas. Also, it considers the type of physical changes in rural areas that improves the village performance. They are more popular and less harmful to local environment. If they are executed they will contribute to the achievement of a more sustainable structure of rural areas and natural environments.To achieve this aim, sustainable development and ecotourism issues will be examined. The next step is to get help from the results and to go through the related literature in order to propose a model. It is titled “sustainable place” which provides a theoretical framework that explains the constructing components of a sustainable design for rural areas. In the final step the underlying assumptions and strategies that are related to the subject of research are proposed and the findings are summed up qualitatively on the basis of three constructing components: functional, environmental and experimental-aesthetic. In this direction the paper is benefited from the theories and approaches of eminent scholars in the field of architecture and landscape architecture and urban design.

One of the approaches emphasized by participation paradigm is women participation in activities and their active presence in development process. But implementation of such programmes, that is, targeting women without convincing the men and consideration of their situation and their consensus, may not lead to successful results necessarily. Men’s opinion and attitude towards women responsibilities and roles are very important criteria for women's social presence. Therefore, achieving an overall development calls for a change in attitudes, policies related to gender relations and structural reorganization. A field study about the influential factors that affected the success of facilitators in the formation of women independent groups was carried out through a questionnaire and direct interview to investigate the impact of men’s attitudes towards the formation of such groups. The validity and reliability of questionnaire were estimated by Cronbach's alpha which was equal to 0.88. The results of research showed that among the factors under study these have direct impacts on the formation and continuity of independent rural women groups: men’s attitudes towards women's role in life, men's consensus with women participation in meetings, and men’s opinion about appropriate grounds for women activities.

One of the development projects implemented in Lorestan province of Iran was Rimmelleh project. The goal of this paper is to investigate the impacts of this project on the improvement of literacy status, employment, income, reducing villager's migration and the use of forest wood for fuel. To achieve this, quasi experimental methodology has been applied. The required data were collected by a questionnaire (village and household) and available documents. The statistical population consists of Rimmelleh region as the experiment group, and neighboring area called Pirhyati as the control group. All the members of the community were surveyed since the population under study was limited. The results indicated that the Rimmelleh development project has a positive impact on the improvement of literacy status, income, quality of employment, reducing the use of fuel wood and out-migration. However, it has no impact on the quantity of employment.