Perhaps the most maligned group of people in the United States, atheists and other nonbelievers (e.g., agnostics and freethinkers) reside everywhere and are employed in every field. Disclosure of nonbelief generally imposes costs, such as alienation from family and associates or even loss of employment. As a result, nonbelievers often disguise…

Dissertation literature focusing on issues of curriculum and instruction (C&I) in rural schools has substantially increased since 1987. We located 580 possibly rural C&I dissertations and subsequently identifi ed 194 as probably rural; of these we were able to obtain digital copies of 188 full-length studies. Our purpose was to…

This article presents case studies of two rural districts--both confronting economic and demographic challenges--that were making significant strides toward closing achievement gaps between students with and without disabilities. The districts accomplished this work by using six practices, common to both but implemented differently in each: (a)…

The school district is the fundamental administrative unit of schooling in the United States and the superintendent the lead official. The nature and the challenges of this position, however, vary across the landscape. Because most superintendents lead rural districts, the challenges facing those districts are the ones that typically bedevil the…

This case study focuses on a four-district collaborative that shared services for more than 15 years in an effort to retain rural schools and thereby to preserve community identity. With population losses in the four districts and suburbanization in the largest, the collaborative made extensive use of distance education in addition to itinerant…

Based on survey responses from more than 500 third-grade teachers, this study addressed three research questions relating to technology integration and its impact in rural elementary schools. The first analyses compared rural with non-rural teachers, revealing that the rural teachers had more positive attitudes toward technology integration. Then…

In this paper, we discuss the implications for gifted students of challenges facing rural schools. We explore 4 challenges with particular relevance to rural schools: (a) declining population, (b) persistent poverty, (c) changing demographics, and (d) ongoing accountability requirements. Recommendations positioned to address these challenges…

Computers are now a ubiquitous part of US elementary school education. With policy reports suggesting that inequities in information and communication technology (ICT) access across US schools are a thing of the past, investigating how such resources and their use may nonetheless continue to vary becomes all that much more important. Through a…

This article presents a case study of egalitarian educational practices evident in a rural school that served a large proportion (40%) of Amish students. The Amish are a pacifist Christian sect widely misunderstood as quaint and even backward; their traditional work is small-scale farming. In 1972 the Amish wrested the national right--via a US…

This article reports findings from a study of the perceptions of parents about the experience of long bus rides on their children. Twenty-six parents, whose homes were located on the longest bus route in a rural Midwestern school district, provided interviews regarding the experiences of a total of 37 students. In the analysis of the interview…

This article presents three rural schools with different leadership strategies and educational practices. Pseudonyms are used in place of the schools' real identities for confidentiality. Although rural schools do not seem to value best practice in ways that researchers and policymakers might recognize, neither do they set out to repudiate the…

Contextualized in relationship to other case studies about rural districts that have experienced population growth and decline as well as in relationship to the small sociological literature on "boom towns," this study considered the dynamics that seem to be interfering with one previously rural and now suburbanizing district's ability to address…

Policymakers and educators see professional development as a way to improve the quality of instruction in classrooms across the nation, but the empirical literature linking professional development to improved student achievement is extremely thin. Logically, though, it would seem that the right kinds of professional development would improve…

This reprint of an article on how one rural school district was able to use effectively a variety of acceleration strategies in different elementary schools is preceded by a commentary that stresses that the form of programming is less crucial than the training and attitude of the participating teachers. (Contains 3 references.) (CR)

A survey completed by 161 Ohio school board presidents examined superintendent selection practices and how they related to district size and rurality-urbanicity. Overall, board presidents preferred recommended practices (such as use of professional consultants and uniform selection criteria) over traditional ones. However, board presidents from…