Describes an ethnographic dissertation that portrays how patterns of culture and history in a rural community in Maine negatively influence many rural students' academic aspirations. Consolidated schools exacerbate the effect by separating students from their parents and communities and alienating them in school. (TD)

Many rural schools today are faced with problems of inadequate facilities and instructional materials, limited course offerings, inadequate funding, poor teaching, and limited job opportunities for students. Rural young people, particularly women, have bleak prospects for post-secondary education or non-traditional employment. Because rural youth…