VILLAGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Year:2006 | Volume:8 | Issue:4|Papers Count:5

As it seems inevitable for all countries to get involved in world economy, expanded needs and necessities on one hand, and specialized production as well as emerging advanced technologies in the products on the other hand have caused no country could pace in isolation. Given the importance of industries associated with producing fruit juices and concentrates and also Iran's possible joining to World Trade Organization (WTO), it appears an inexorable fact to study the globalization impact on the efficiency of these industries. In the present paper, two criterion indexes of "Level of International Trade" (IIT) and "Integration of International Trade" (IIT) were used and the impact of globalization on technical efficiency was reviewed. As shown by the study results, the globalization impact on the technical efficiencies in these industries would not be a significant one; in addition, should Iran be a member country in the "WTO", such industries would not only keep straight their main route but also benefit from additional advantages like removal of trade constraints.

Although women as half of world human resources have to participate in development - and, particularly, rural development - plans to get benefit from their human rights and make use of the development advantages, existing facts reveal that they lack a specific social status, in spite of their endeavours in many activities, within villages, mainly caused by a lack or inadequacy of researches about roles and activities of rural women, which in turn caused neglecting them in planning and policy-making. Therefore, the present research studies the social roles of rural women to assist planners and policy-makers in the planning process. The framework of Parson's vertical role differentiation was used, and four roles including strategic, influential, auxiliary, and normal roles were considered to study the women social roles in the Kordestan province. As the research deals with certain individual and family factors and their impact on the women social roles while describing these roles, it is considered as a descriptive-correlation research, using questionnaire technique with a validity rate of 75%; also sampling was carried out by a cluster-random method. 210 questionnaires were completed in villages of five counties including Sanandaj, Saqqez, Oiwandarreh, Mariwan, and Qorveh. Statistical population consisted of the rural women of 25 years old and over. SPSS software was used to analyze data. Results indicate that family characteristics are the most effective factors in explaining the roles played by the women, and the individual characteristics are in the second place. Therefore, plans and suggestions presented must be formulated according to the family characteristics of the rural women and their men's viewpoints to ensure their implementation.

It would be of a particular importance to establish a relationship between "religion" and "labor" in Iranian society. It might be revealed that the Iranian society would definitely have lots of religious features; it would be even more interesting, however, to extract these religious features in their relations to "labor" phenomenon. German sociologist Max Weber argues that the kind of "work ethics" existing among the Protestants is absent in other religions including Islam. Through a field study, this paper tries to illustrate the features indicating a faithful person tends to be encouraged by religious learning's to earn his/her living. Indeed, an understanding of human communities involves an extraction of cultural attributes. Since every society consists of certain types of roles, statuses, and institutions, starting any study or presenting any suggestions require a study and reflection on these elements as well as understanding their existing relationship. It could be realized that the "religion" phenomenon has a crucial importance in the lives of residents in Kashan County and its nearby villages. This element renders a required power to the people, including carpet-weavers. In a village where the religious roles and institutions are prominent, the residents have succeeded in their economic activities too; in contrast, where the religious institutions are less distinguishable, weaved carpets are sold cheap. A society will be prosperous if its cultural attributes are reasonably noticed without any adverse intervention. The "religion" phenomenon, as a powerful component of the society, can support social development from within.

This paper applies a classified sampling method through a field study (including questionnaires of 142 heads of rural households). It tries to analyze data in the questionnaires by using descriptive and inferential statistics, and calculation of correlation coefficient, multiple regression, and path analysis. Out of 14 correlated independent variables, 4 variables including social solidarity, wealth, membership in rural public institutions, and ownership of agricultural lands and orchards have explained over 60 percent of determinants of constructional participation. Results of the path analysis represent direct and indirect effects of the following variables on the extent of rural household heads' participation in the construction programme: satisfaction, social solidarity, progress motivation, membership in rural public institutions, travel, application of mass media, ownership of agricultural lands and orchards, income, dependency on government, out of which social solidarity (Beta=0.70) and extent of rural household heads' dependency on government (Beta=0.12) show the maximum and minimum path coefficients respectively.

An effective and efficient management involves predicting future developments as well as providing for the concerned factors to deal with them. Today, rapid and universal world changes require that agricultural extension organizations meet present demands and prepare themselves to manage the future changes effectively. The changes have already started to occur within various components of every extension system including organization, target groups, methods, practices, and objectives. An extension organization may simply sustain its dynamism when it would be able to manage the challenges associated with its own environmental and intraorganizational changes. The paper reviews the same subject matter using a vision of extrapolation. It studies how to realize the future universal approaches of agricultural extension at the global level using five components of software technology in the management theory of universal organizations.