Rural India is witnessing a surge in the number of low-cost, poor-friendly private schools that seemingly offer quality alternatives to government schools. Untangling stakeholders' viewpoints, this research explains how outcome and performance-focused learning, broadly known as neoliberal performativity in education, is enacted in these…

We study whether visits to a college campus during eighth grade affect students' interest in and preparation for college. Two cohorts of eighth graders were randomized within schools to a control condition, in which they received a college informational packet, or a treatment condition, in which they received the same information and visited a…

The study explores how literacy sponsorship (Brandt, 2001) is constructed in a United States rural region by focusing on the discourse of rural teachers and students. Data included interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations, an environmental print literacy scan, and analysis of community and classroom-based texts. A multi-cycle…

American discourse is often accused of neglecting the interests and values of rural citizens, and this is particularly true when it comes to education. Rural students and the schools they attend receive little attention in either policy or academia. This report attempts to shed badly needed light on the challenges, and point to policies and…

Overall, the educational achievement of rural and regional students is lower than that of students elsewhere. To address uneven student achievement, a regional NSW high school, in collaboration with the local university, adopted a whole school approach to literacy teaching and learning. The literacy pedagogy adopted by the school has been applied…

More than one in four of America's public schools are rural, and nearly one in six of the nation's students are in rural areas. Many children and their families in rural America need better and more equitable educational opportunities. This is the main theme of "Why Rural Matters 2015-16: Understanding the Changing Landscape," the eighth…

Educational practices that purposely seek to tie the realities of place to instruction, particularly for the purpose of student engagement, are typically referred to as place-based education. This study investigates how one teacher considered place in making instructional choices for eighth grade English students in a rural high school, and…

"Why Rural Matters 2013-14" is the seventh in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states. While it is the seventh in a series, this report is not simply an…

This study examines high school expectancies in a sample of at-risk, rural youth, and how these expectancies relate to 8th grade functioning, 9th grade functioning, and 9th grade experiences of high school. A total of 76 eighth-graders and their parents, drawn from a larger study of the transition to high school, participated in interviews the…