Policies of dispersal are increasingly favoured internationally for the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. With forty percent of the world's forcibly displaced people being school-aged children, the dispersal of refugee-background people into regional areas means that rural schools are central sites of community response to refugees.…

In this article we offer a comparative analysis of vocational education and training (VET) in two rural regional locations by situating the pragmatic problem of advising rural students against the backdrop of differently structured market-oriented vocational education systems in Canada and Australia, respectively. Each of these jurisdictions…

We argue here that critical educational scholarship is crucial to developing educational analysis attuned to the nuances of place, mobility, and change in rural locations. Critical sociological analysis, we argue, can also nuance and complicate simplistic portrayals of rural communities and their social, economic, and cultural character. Two…

Faced with urban schools' reluctance to host student teachers on practicum because "student teachers disturb their teaching order," Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China, collaborated with four rural provinces to develop a University-Government-School (UGS) initiative for rural practicum placements. To understand the teachers'…

This literature review interrogates current international writing about inclusive education (IE) in regional and remote settings, with explicit reference to Australian considerations, including the emergent National Curriculum. The task of this review has been to establish the types of knowledge reported about IE in minority, marginalized and…

The history of online learning at the K-12 level is almost as long as its history at the post-secondary level, with the first virtual school programs beginning in the early 1990s. While these opportunities were designed as a way to provide rural students with access to more specialized courses, as opportunities have become organized into virtual…

In this article, the author offers his responses to the commentaries made by Arlie Woodrum (2009), Susan Faircloth (2009), David Greenwood (2009), and Ursula Kelly (2009) on his book "Learning to Leave," as well as his article, "Rural Schooling in Mobile Modernity: Returning to the Places I've Been." Each of the commentators…

One of the common characteristics of rural communities globally, and especially those in the developed countries of the world, is the exodus of youth in search of "greener pastures." While this exodus of youth has been happening for centuries and has often been spurred along by fundamental changes in the way societies organise…

Australia and Canada are large countries with small populations relative to their size, in which a not inconsiderable number of citizens live beyond major centres of population. In both resource-based economies, the provision of quality education in rural schools is an important part of the national social and economic infrastructure. This article…

Family literacy is a form of intergenerational learning that is based on the fundamental connection and interaction between the education of children, young people and adults. The family--in its broader sense--builds the foundation for lifelong learning. This book was published to help promote literacy by raising the understanding and awareness of…

In this paper, the author has attempted to provide an overview of some of the issues and challenges confronting rural educators and parents in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has chosen to focus on three of the most pressing at this point in time: (1) declining enrollment and its consequences; (2) the continuing pressure on…

The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. The following purposes summarize the work of the…

This paper examines seven variables or issues regarded as central to improving the recruitment, training, and retention of rural teachers, doctors, and other professionals, as well as efforts to overcome related problems in rural Australia and Canada. First, selection practices should identify professionals from rural backgrounds and those with…

Discusses supervised correspondence education for both teachers and students to complement conventional classrooms and expand secondary curriculum for rural schools. Recommends needs assessment; checking availability of needed materials; sharing material among schools; course scheduling to assure students of regualar supervision and assistance;…

Questionnaires mailed to a sample of teachers, students, and parents in Western Australia and Northwestern Ontario (Canada) were used to study the effects of isolation on rural education. Although the geographical distance may permeate all aspects of isolation, three discrete types of isolation emerged from the responses--social, cultural, and…