This book includes studies of globalization-related social changes in rural areas of the United States and other countries and implications of these studies for sociological theory. Although no chapter focuses exclusively on education, education-related themes include rural school dropouts and intergenerational poverty, the migration of rural youth to urban areas in search of employment and opportunity, relating rural poverty to human capital (educational attainment) versus structural factors, rural occupational change and its effects on rural families, the effects of rural population growth on school systems, migration patterns of school-leavers in Ireland, and community identity as a factor in rural development. Chapters are: (1) "Introduction" (Nan E. Johnson); (2) "The Poor in Nonmetropolitan America" (William P. O'Hare); (3) "Mechanization in the Western Upper Peninsula Pulp-Logging Industry" (Jon H. Rieger); (4) "Development, Women's Work, and Economic Inequality in Rural Taiwan" (Rita S. Gallin); (5) "Inequality and the Emergence of Nonfarm Employment in Rwanda" (Daniel C. Clay, Theobald Kampayana, Jean Kayitsinga); (6) "Social and Economic Transformation in a Greek Farming Village" (George A. Daoutopoulos); (7) "Recent Population Change in Michigan's Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas" (Ching-li Wang); (8) "The Transmission of Information Regarding Population Change in a Rural County" (Richard W. Rathge); (9) "Fatal Farm Accidents in Michigan: Implications for Research and Policy" (Nan E. Johnson); (10) "Irish Rural-Urban Migration: Post-1960 Changes" (Damian F. Hannan); (11) "Changing Rural Communities: Reconstructing the Local Economy of a Nonmetropolitan Community" (Marilyn W. Aronoff); (12) "Social Change and Dress among the Kalabari of Nigeria" (Joanne Bubolz Eicher); and (13) "The Call of the Sugar Cane: Agricultural Change, Cooperative-Capitalism, and Migrants in Northwestern Uruguay" (Gaston J. Labadie). Contains references in each chapter. (SV)