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Concerning themselves with the effects of community power structures on educational decision making, the authors derive and test twelve directional hypotheses from their model containing four descriptions of community power, four descriptions of school boards, and four descriptions of the role of the superintendent.

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Summary THE ROLE AND FUNCTION OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY Rural sociology as an applied field results from the interaction between academic and research organizations on the one hand, and policy making and action agencies on the other. The growth and relative importance of the field in the United States should be seen within the context of the land grant college movement whereas in Europe rural sociology has not had the extensive support of an institution combining both science and practice. An applied field, as rural sociology, may be seen as a bridge between science and society. When conceptualized in this way the field has three necessary dimensions, namely, the scientific, the practical, and the normative. The scientific dimension includes the conceptual and methodological tools and gives the field its academic identity. The practical aspect deals with the problem solving process as carried on with publics and clients, and the normative points up the value systems of both the sociologist and his publics. An important task in sociological practice is to define carefully the actual and potential publics and to analyze skills and roles which rural sociologists need in serving these groups. The continuing conversation or interaction between the scientist and practitioner may be analyzed as a process having different phases of activity through time. This is named the research and interpretation process and three phases are noted. They are (1) defining the practical problem which the given public has, (2) utilizing the findings of sociology and (3) interpreting the research so that the practitioners concerned can utilize it. The future of rural sociology will rest to no small extent on its contributions in three major problem areas or types of situations of growing significance in the modern world. These areas deal with (1) the maladjustments of an urban world, (2) the needs of the developing countries and (3) the concerns in building a professional practice and organization. The rural sociologist in beginning his work in a new nation or region has to focus his program on the most pressing problems of rural life, and fashion his work in terms of the needs and orientations of the academic groups and practitioner publics. The “timing of institutionalization‘ is a problem in creating organization for the practice of rural sociology as well as for the development of other interests. Résumé ROLE ET FONCTIONNEMENT DE LA SOCIOLOGIE RURALE La sociologie rurale en tant que domaine appliqué est le résultat d'interaction entre les institutions universitaires et de recherches d'une part et des organisations chargées d'établir les programmes politiques et d'action d'autre part. L'accroissement et l'importance relative de ce domaine aux Etats‐Unis doit être envisagés dans le cadre du mouvement universitaire des »;Land Grant College«;. En Europe, la sociologie rurale n'a pas joui du support important destitution combinant à la fois l'aspect scientifique et pratique. Un domaine appliqué tel que la sociologie rurale, peut être considéré com...

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