The current debate on rural issues has raised an important question: how social identities of individuals envolved with agricultural activities are built, taking into consideration that these identities imply in changes of thoughts and habits of individuals and institutions? The present study identified and compared social representations of 400 students from a rural university on cottagers and agricultural workers. The activities envolved the free usage of terms such as "rural worker" and "cottagers" to analyze what there reponses would be. The results showed that the student's perceptions of cottagers are related to pre-conceived notions such as archaic and excluded from current types of economical production while agricultural worker is seen as modern and more appealing to younger generations and also least involved in local conflicts and tensions.
social representations; cottagers; agricultural worker
