In January 2024, UNCF's Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute (FDPRI) published "Adult Learner Initiative External Report," which outlined key findings and recommendations from an evaluation of the Adult Learner Initiative. To supplement and extend that work, Ascendium Education Group collaborated with FDPRI and Lumina Foundation to…

This forum response extends the argument made by Avery and Hains that oral traditions can be useful for including the cultures and contexts of rural areas within science instruction. To buttress the oral expressions presented in Avery and Hains, I compare oral expressions of a second rural area, 600 miles to the South, in Eastern North Carolina. I…

In this descriptive and comparative study, we present results highlighting the complexity and scope of the challenges facing rural districts as they navigate the changing demographics of the students and families they serve. Rapid increases in the number and concentration of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in rural areas…

In every state in the South, the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher who were born outside the state exceed the percentage born in-state, reflecting their dependence on imported talent over building their own talent-development systems. In Virginia, the Southern state with the highest percentage of residents with a B.A. or…

This brief summarizes the lessons learned during a February 2010 AYPF study mission to North Carolina that examined how rural education systems are providing high quality instruction and improving the readiness of young people for life beyond high school. Participants learned about how federal and state policies and funding streams affect rural…

In "Learning to Leave," Michael Corbett argues that: (1) education has served as a tool to disassociate students--both physically and culturally--from the places from which they come, particularly if they are from rural places, in effect creating an ambivalence toward education; (2) the ways in which individuals express this ambivalence…

The lack of consensus among researchers in defining the focal construct of rurality has led to contradictory conclusions of whether or not a rural-urban performance gap exists in higher education. Compounding this problem are the changing definitions of rural and urban, even among governmental agencies. Thus, this study used two different…

The 10 papers presented in this report examine various aspects of rural bookmobile projects in the United States. The objectives of this first bookmobile conference were to offer (1) encouragement to bookmobile workers; (2) information for improving their services; (3) new data for subjective analysis of services; and (4) assistance in developing…

Based in rural northern Orange County (North Carolina), the Adolescents-in-Need Project began in 1981 as a joint effort of the school district, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and community agencies. Project goals focused on preventing untimely events in the lives of teenagers, and included helping adolescents…

A random sample mail survey of residents in seven rural southeastern Kentucky counties in 1979 was a retesting of earlier studies of the attitudinal characteristics associated with Appalachian inhabitants. Results showed the value and attitude traits of individualism, self-reliance, fatalism, religious fundamentalism and traditionalism to be very…

THIS PAPER STATES THAT A GROWING NUMBER OF NONPROFESSIONAL JOBS ARE BEING FILLED BY INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE HAD SPECIALIZED EDUCATION PAST HIGH SCHOOL. RURAL YOUTH ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE IN COMPETITION FOR POST-HIGH SCHOOL TRAINING DUE TO INADEQUATE BACKGROUNDS, OCCUPATIONAL GUIDANCE, BASIC PREPARATORY EDUCATION, AND SPECIALIZED EDUCATION FOR JOB…

This paper examines rural conditions from three perspectives: education, demographics, and economics from national, state and regional data sources; Rural Attitude Survey data from students at Western Carolina University in the Appalachian mountain region; and concerns of teachers about education in the region derived from focus group discussions.…

Textbooks used in grades 2 through 12 in a county school system in rural North Carolina were analyzed to determine the degree of cultural congruency between school curriculum and ethnic cultural setting in Appalachia. Thirty-five elementary school reading books, high school and elementary school social studies books, and high school literature…

To provide school systems, organizations, and individuals interested in improving rural education with current information on local conditions, the Rural Education Institute of East Carolina University has compiled demographic and educational data on 41 eastern North Carolina counties into this educational atlas. The 32 maps show the 41 counties…

This series of newspaper articles evaluates North Carolina's schools and establishes a relationship between the state's rural poverty and low student achievement levels. Test scores in 1988 are consistently low in all but four of the poorest rural counties. Small schools are disappearing from rural areas. Large schools can offer students more…