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Rural Sociology

The Rural Sociology Program at The Ohio State University Random images

There is no better "laboratory" for the development of scholarship in Rural Sociology than The Ohio State University. Our students come from all over the world and we provide them with rigorous scholarly training in Rural Sociology and the flexibility to develop a program of study that meets their career needs as a professor, a consultant, a policy maker, or a practitioner.

Our programs provide close interaction with faculty mentors and an interdisciplinary environment in which Rural Sociology graduate students interact with scholars from Sociology, Geography, City and Regional Planning, Woman's Studies, and many others, plus a number of disciplines in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Rural Sociology offers both the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, with specializations in social change, community development, and environmental and natural resources development. We also offer a specialization at the Masers level in Community Development that is attractive to practitioners. A minor field in Rural Sociology is also available for students at the undergraduate level.

Rural Sociology graduates from OSU have gone on to work for universities and research and agencies around the world. Here is what just a few of our recent graduates are doing today.

Azza El-Bendary (Ph.D., 1996) is an assistant professor at the University of Cairo, Egypt. Dr. El-Bendary's dissertation focused on the response of rural Egyptian families to economic change. Her present research has added an environmental component: how rural families are adapting to both economic and environmental (e.g. desertification) changes in Egypt.

Coumba Mar Gadio (Ph.D., 1998) works with the United Nations Development Programme in Dakar, Senegal. Her work focuses on issues related to female farmers and rural development.

Lora Friedrich (Ph.D., 2001) is Chair of Social Sciences at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. Her dissertation focused on baptism decisions of young Amish men and women, and she continues to study this unique rural subculture in Iowa.

For more information about graduate programs in Rural Sociology, contact:

Dr. Linda Lobao
Chair, Graduate Studies
in Rural Sociology
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio 43210
614-292-6394
lobao.1@osu.edu
OR

Greta Wyrick
Graduate Program Coordinator
Dept. of Human & Community Resource Development
2120 Fyffe Road
The Ohio State University
614-688-3178
wyrick.1@osu.edu

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