As a student in rural sociology or rural and community development, you'll study the social structures, issues and challenges of rural communities, including agricultural practices, food systems, environmental and healthcare policies and more.
Graduate programs
The Master of Science in rural sociology will equip you with the scientific and technical skills necessary to assess and evaluate both the challenges and the opportunities found within and among rural communities. It is an interdepartmental program, with courses taught by faculty from the College of Agriculture's Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology as well as the College of Liberal Arts' Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work.
Research areas from our students and faculty include environmental justice, natural resource dependency, climate studies, international developments, governance and legal studies of agrifood systems, local food studies and more.
Our graduate have gone on to Ph.D. programs in sociology or related fields, such as environmental studies and social forestry, and to professional programs in law and medicine. Others have chosen careers in state and local government as well as positions in associated agencies and non-governmental organizations. We also have graduate who pursued work in the private sector, including corporate and consulting positions as well as entrepreneurship.
Learning outcomes
Graduates with an M.S. in rural sociology will be able to:
- Understand demographic, cultural and spatial definitions of rurality.
- Apprehend agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and other forms of resource extraction as material bases for the rural economy.
- Articulate framing and discourse processes in relation to food, agriculture and natural resource issues.
- Identify structures of injustice and inequality associated with rurality in the U.S. and the world.
- Understand rural community adaptation and resilience.
- Collect, analyze and interpret scientific data from human subjects.
- Effectively synthesize and communicate social science.
Curriculum and requirements
We offer both a thesis and non-thesis M.S. in rural sociology. Both degree options share a common core of three courses at the graduate level: social theory, research methods and statistics.
The thesis option requires a minimum of 24 hours of graduate-level coursework and six hours of graduate credit for the thesis. The non-thesis option requires a total of 36 hours of graduate coursework and a capstone paper. Additional information can be found in the program handbook linked below.
Alumni with a graduate certificate in rural studies have succeeded in a variety of positions, including executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda, territory manager for John Deere, research project coordinator for Northwestern University, cultural resource specialist for the Alabama Bicentennial Commission and more.
Curriculum and requirements
The graduate certificate in rural studies extends students’ skills and competencies to better understand rural people and rural places. This program can benefit those who hope to work in small communities or who seek a position in an organization that works to make a difference in the quality of rural lives.
This certificate can augment a student’s current program of study, provide an opportunity to explore a new area, or allow the student to refocus his or her career by specializing in a substantive area of rural studies such as community, environment or food.
