The marked tendency of Americans to look upon the rural Midwest as the "national reservoir of values" points to the need for deeper analyses and interpretation regarding the origins of Midwest rural education, focusing on analyses which square well with the realities of the rural Midwest today. (CB)

Reviews a book that overviews the history of rural England and the factors that contributed to the decline of England's rural communities. One hundred years later in rural America, similar factors and pervasive cultural assumptions about rural ignorance are related to the shifting of political and economic power away from rural communities. (LP)

This paper critiques current "school-to-work" practices in rural schools. A look at the rural context reveals that rural workers are more likely to be unemployed and are paid less than workers elsewhere, resulting in high rural poverty. In addition, many kinds of rural decline (in services, transportation, job availability) are tied to…

The economic decline of rural communities and the accompanying trend toward rural school consolidation are intimately connected to the American liberal and individualist world view. In general, liberalism has meant having a representative government, an economic arrangement that maximizes the freedom of accumulation, and an educational system that…

Reviews a book that documents the circumstances surrounding the closure of a small, rural West Virginia high school. The book's strength derives largely from its crossing of disciplinary borders to address social, political, and economic factors that have influenced changing educational values and the trend toward consolidation in rural West…

This book addresses the role that rural schools can play in promoting community and developing a community-oriented world view. Specifically, this book suggests that rural schools, through concerted pedagogical and curricular attention to the dynamics of their particular place, can rekindle community allegiance and can nurture the fulfillment that…