Rural Conditions And Trends

Rural Community Studies in Europe: Trends, Selected and Annotated Bibliographies, Analyses, Volume 2 documents studies concerning several rural areas in Europe. The book presents information concerning a specific area, which includes a review of historical trends; annotated bibliography; and an analysis of studies conducted on the area. This volume particularly covers rural areas in the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Finland. This book will be of great interest to researchers who require information about rural communities.

This report focuses on the status of rural education and is intended to provide information to education researchers, policymakers at the federal and state levels, as well as others concerned about issues in rural education. Specifically, the goal is to increase federal policymakers' attention to rural education problems, promote improvements in rural schools, and stimulate further research on rural education. This report documents how rural conditions are sufficiently different from urban ones to warrant being examined independently, and it endorses the hypothesis that a single set of public policies may not adequately address educational issues in rural versus urban settings. National data, mainly from surveys by the National Center for Education Statistics, are synthesized covering the following topics: (1) economic and demographic context of rural education; (2) location and characteristics of rural schools and school districts; (3) relationship between the rural school and its community; (4) policies and programs benefiting rural education; (5) profiles of educators in rural schools; (6) effects of education reform in rural schools; (7) public school finance policies and practices affecting rural schools; (8) assessment of student performance in rural schools; (9) education and work experiences of rural youth; and (10) the future of rural education. The report contains numerous data tables and a section describing statistical data sources and methodology. (LP)