While many remote places in Queensland, Australia have access to schools, very few have provision for preschool education. Recent efforts to change this have included the development of a kindergarten program delivered through the local school. An impact assessment undertaken in 2017 involved visiting 30 remote sites offering the program. Analysis…

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…

A global perspective of education, special education, rural communities, and non-traditional instruction is provided for two countries. Both Turkey and Australia have responded to the COVID-19 global pandemic in similar yet, different ways. Through the tale of two countries navigating the rapid response to school closure for students with…

In 2017, SPERA [Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia] members and supporters were surveyed on their views of rural education. Forty-two participants responded to the online survey through targeted and snowball recruitment. Participants shared their opinions of the main issues in rural education, the challenges facing rural…

In spite of being relatively wealthy and resource-rich, a persistent narrative of the island state of Tasmania is the deficit framing of its regional and rural education where, under the placeless and mobile orientation of hypermodernity, the only serious option for success for its young is to leave their communities. This paper presents a…

In this paper I focus on the problems that face (teacher) education policy and practice in meeting the challenge of 'persistent and entrenched locational disadvantage' in marginal communities. In "Dropping off the Edge 2015," Tony Vinson and colleagues (2015) clearly demonstrate that complex and entrenched disadvantage has continued to…

Inclusive education remains a challenge for Australian tertiary education, particularly specialized pedagogical approaches like work-integrated learning (WIL) and service learning. Critiques of mainstream pedagogical approaches raise questions about the predominant models of educating students (Butin, 2010; Howard, 1998). There is a definitive…

In this piece I raise a number of rural education issues that I think might be productively engaged through a sociological lens. The paper has developed from notes on 'international trends in rural education' for a pre conference workshop of AARE in December of 2014. My general conclusion is that the field of rural education, at least as it exists…

Classrooms and their pedagogy have historically been characterised by a disconnection from the community outside, and this trend is particularly problematic for rural schools (Bryden & Boylan, 2004; Corbett, 2006). There is reduced encouragement for teachers to connect classroom and community with the current focus on standardised testing,…

This paper analyses a community-based educational program involving private and public sector partners instituted in a small city in northern Tasmania. The program represents part of a state-wide initiative to challenge the persistence of structural educational disadvantage and what is understood to be an entrenched "culture" that is…

This paper, and its position within this special issue, seeks to contribute to the growing discussion and debates about the importance of adding the 'rural' to all matters 'education'. Advocating that indeed rurality is everybody's business, not just for those who live in rural places. The central argument of 'adding the rural' is that in its…

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature…

The massification and globalization of higher education, combined with the widespread adoption of processes underpinning accreditation and quality control of university programs, have tended to result in learning contexts that are increasingly narrowly conceived and tightly controlled. Underlying many quality control measures is a "one size…

This paper explores some of the political and methodological challenges involved in researching rural education. It begins by outlining the situation in Australia regarding the relationship between social justice and rural education. It first describes the disadvantages experienced by many rural communities and presents an analysis of rural…

This article examines the issues surrounding the mapping of the oral language development of Standard Australian English (SAE) in the early school years of remote and very remote Aboriginal education in the Northern Territory (NT). Currently, teachers in this context have 2 mandated documents as guides that chart the development of SAE oracy.…