Education For Rural People

Rural life is more complex than it is perhaps credited. This edited volume explores several themes that highlight such complexities, particularly in terms of what they imply for rural teaching and learning. These themes include the geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic diversity within and across rural communities; the notion that rurality is not a deficit but rather a context; and the array of novel and interesting ways to build upon rural assets and overcome challenges so that rural students are not afforded fewer educational opportunities simply by virtue of their zip code. More practically, this book offers counsel for readers who may be interested in learning more about rural circumstances so that they can make informed and responsive decisions about policies and programs targeting rural students, educators, and schools. Praise for Cultivating Rural Education: "Making appropriate decisions about policy and practice in rural education settings demands an understanding of rural communities and the nuances of rural lifeways that are not standard fare in most decision-makers’ professional backgrounds and preparation. This book clearly and insightfully helps guide readers to those understandings, offering a valuable resource both for individuals with nonrural backgrounds (as a thorough introduction to the salient contexts of rural education) and for those with rural backgrounds (as a guide for framing/reframing and clarifying their existing understandings)." Jerry D. Johnson, Professor and Lydia E. Skeen, Endowed Chair in Education Kansas State University "Howley and Redding have co-edited a book that brings to life the complexity of rural people and places and helps readers understand what this complexity means for rural education. The range of voices and research in Cultivating Rural Education demonstrates how varied rural places are, how real the educational challenges rural schools and districts face are, and how much strength and ingenuity rural people bring to the table to address those challenges." Robert Mahaffey, Executive Director Rural School and Community Trust The book Cultivating Rural Education gives an actionable planning process to understand, define, and cultivate our rural schools and communities. The community and school are so closely tied together, it is time for our stakeholders and community members to highlight what is right and adjust the areas that need adjusting to help save and establish a true path(s) to sustainability for Rural America." Allen Pratt, Executive Director National Rural Education Association

An international joint study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) was conducted on education and rural development to review the status of the topic from the standpoint of public policies and the conceptual frameworks on which they are based and also to shed light on what may be called "good practice." The findings of the study are meant to serve not as models, but rather as points of reference for all those who are seeking ways of developing education in rural areas and contributing more effectively to rural development. Chapter I, "Education and Rural Development: Setting the Framework" (David Atchoarena and Charlotte Sedel), provides a contextual and theoretical introduction to the new rural development and poverty reduction thinking, as well as a discussion on the contribution of education to rural development. In Chapter II, "Basic Education in Rural Areas: Status, Issues and Prospects" (Michael Lakin with Lavinia Gasperini), the book reviews in depth the provision of basic education in rural areas and offers some policy directions for improvement. Further exploring a particular dimension of basic education, Chapter III, "Making Learning Relevant: Principles and Evidence from Recent Experiences" (Peter Taylor, Daniel Desmond, James Grieshop and Aarti Subramaniam), devotes specific attention to strategies linking the formal school teaching with students' life environment, including agriculture, and to garden-based learning. The intention is to provide updated information and new insights on much-debated aspects which are often associated with rural areas although their application is much broader. Chapter IV, "Strategies and Institutions for Promoting Skills for Rural Development" (David Atchoarena, Ian Wallace, Kate Green, and Candido Alberto Gomes), shifts the analysis from education to work and discusses the implications of the transformation of rural labor markets for skill development. A particular concern is the rise in rural non-farm employment and the need to enlarge the policy focus from agricultural education and training to technical and vocational education for rural development. This debate is taken further in Chapter V, "Higher Education and Rural Development: A New Perspective" (Charles Maguire and David Atchoarena), which considers higher level skills and the contribution of the tertiary education sector to rural development. Special attention is given to the reform of higher agricultural institutions and lessons based on case studies are provided to document good practice in institutional reform. Finally, Chapter VI, "Main Findings and Implications for Policy and Donor Support" (David Atchoarena with Lavinia Gasperini, Michael Lakin and Charles Maguire), concentrates on the main findings of the study and discusses policy implications and possible responses for donors and countries. (Contains 28 tables, 14 figures, and 64 boxes.).

"A collection of essays examining the various social, cultural, and economic intersections of rural place and global space, as viewed through the lens of education. Explores practices that offer both problems and possibilities for the future of rural schools and communities, in the United States and abroad"--Provided by publisher.

This book examines challenges associated with the education of teachers in and for rural places. It offers a new perspective with respect to how Canadian educators are shifting the conversation toward a hopeful discourse concerning how educators can foster meaningful rural learning environments, which will contribute to building stronger rural communities and regions. A central focus of the book is emerging reconceptualization of education, place and indigeneity in Canadian education in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Though the challenge of addressing rural teaching and learning lies partly in the nuances and complexities of unique places, there are also common threads that affect virtually all communities in rural, regional and remote educational, cultural, economic, and social geographies. Chapters in this collection provide current research in Canadian rural education including examples and stories from the field – contributed by teachers, administrators, and superintendents – on the challenges and creative opportunities that they have discovered in their own rural context, giving hope and inspiration for what is possible. The book will appeal to all readers interested in rural education and teacher education, as well as to those concerned with educational inequality and indigenous education.

This book broadens the scope of the subject of rural education and enlivens the ways in which the subject may be studied. Through textual and visual analysis of a range of sources – including young adult novels, the farming simulation game ‘Hay Day’ and reality television programs – the contributors investigate how the lives of young people in rural spaces are mediated by a range of social locations including class, ethnicity and sexuality. Additionally, through rich and detailed ethnographic work, the book explores the complicated and multifaceted meanings of rural places and examines how these meanings shape experiences of schooling for teachers and students. In doing so, the book embeds the study of rural education in explorations of patrilineal inheritance on family farms, international migration, globalisation and economic restructuring. It aims to start a conversation about the robust and complex ways in which the confluence between ‘rural’ and ‘education’ may be imagined, experienced and researched. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

This book provides authentic accounts of the effects of the revolutionary political reform experienced in the past half century on education in Europe’s considerable rural hinterland. These reforms include the liberation of the Baltic and Eastern European states from Soviet communist domination, the ‘eurozone’ economic crises, and the current and future migration of people fleeing war and poverty from the Middle East and Africa. Overshadowing these events are so-called global forces which champion economies of scale and pressurize academic performance as keys to economic success. Trapped in this distal whirlwind of change are 1000s of small and/or rural elementary schools and the life chances of more 1000s of young children. The research presented here unveils the unseen and under-reported consequences of top-down, urban-oriented educational policies on children’s and communities’ experience of place and space. Exposure of these conditions in rural Europe is long overdue, but obscured for decades by political extremes of left and right. Yet, the lived reality of peremptory and swathing school closure programmes, and poverty inflicted on rural populations in parts of Eastern Europe is relatively unreported in the western educational literature – a situation exacerbated by the virtual invisibility of rural educational research generally. The chapters in this book reveal the insights of social science scholars from 11 European countries including those from low GDP, formerly soviet bloc countries, recently enabled to present their research at western European conferences such as the European Educational Research Association. Their research will inform and alert education academics, researchers and professionals to these rural European educational contexts. The research methodologies reported are diverse and innovative. The national context chapters are complemented by overview chapters which survey and synthesise (i) definitions and conceptualisations of rural, (ii) pan-European appraisal of educational, structural and geospatial statistics on small and rural schools, and (iii) identify key messages for better understanding of the rural situation in European research, policy and practice. Crucially, despite the gloom, the authors report positive strategies for rural school survival at governmental and/or school and community levels, that include community involvement, rural educational tourism, and deliberative inter-community school network planning.

This book explores what social justice looks like for rural schools in Australia. The author challenges the consensus that sees the distribution of resources as the panacea for the myriad challenges faced by rural schools and argues that the solution to inequality and injustice in rural settings has to take into account other important dimensions of social justice such as recognition and association. These include teachers’ concerns for issues of power, respect, and participation in their work that extend to policy-making processes and implementation; students’ post-school aspirations and, finally, parents’ hopes and fears for their children’s futures and the sustainability of their community. The book brings together political and social theory with education and youth studies, provides new insights about the complex nature of schooling in rural places, and makes a strong connection between schooling and the people and communities it serves.