ABSTRACT
Health workers and others who are not social scientists often seem to think that cultural studies in depth of a particular community over-emphasize traditional practices and attitudes, and give an impression of cultural continuity being stronger than and resistant to cultural changes. This assessment of contemporary studies of changing rural communities is often made by the health worker with a programme to put across in what he regards as a stubbornly conservative community. He grasps at any evidence he can find of changing ideas among the people and of a willingness to accept new practices, and is impatient with the social scientist who, when studying such communities and the impact of health programmes on them, tries to keep some sort of balance in assessing the socio-economic effects of change. Only a sense of perspective in such studies will provide guide-lines about why the community accepts some or all of the programme and rejects other parts or the whole of it.
