Educational leadership has been the focus of many studies; however, leadership does not occur in a vacuum. Understanding the context in which it occurs will in turn help to explain the phenomenon itself. Rural communities in the United States have many differences when compared to urban and suburban areas. Twenty-eight percent of schools in the…

An exploratory analysis of the meanings families attach to schooling, this article is based upon interviews conducted with three white, middle-class families--one from rural West Virginia, another from a small West Virginia city, and a third from rural Pennsylvania. I hoped that this preliminary effort would help me think about how families view…

This book draws on interviews with 47 former participants in one- and two-room schools, primarily in the northern part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Chapter 1 presents a history of the one-room, one-teacher rural school, discussing the school consolidation trend, pupil transportation, and the three factors most instrumental in the one-room…