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 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…

Discusses certain educational, demographic, and economic trends challenging rural education and summarizes Rural Attitude Survey results. Despite consolidation efforts, rural schools are poorer and smaller than nonrural schools. Despite their marginalization by the dominant culture, rural communities have precisely the qualities valued by critics…

The study developed a definition of "independent living" for handicapped individuals and evaluated the definition's seven domains using data provided by 3,758 handicapped members of the 1980 sophomore cohort of the High School and Beyond National Longitudinal Survey (N=14,553). The seven domains are: (1) self-care and advocacy skills;…

This extensive assessment project report focuses on the Rural Secondary Schools (RSS) Project in Thailand. The background, design, rationale and objectives of the assessment are described, as are the eight phases of the study: reconnaissance; proposals; basic planning and pre-testing; data collection; analysis; academic review; final report; and…

This report covers studies carried out in 1976 and 1977 into the conduct of parent workshops and the operation of preschool education groups in the Span program, a program for geographically isolated families in Queensland, Australia. The 1976 workshop was designed to increase parents' knowledge, skills and participation in playgroups for their…

The study compared available placements, related services, and teacher qualifications for severely handicapped students in rural and urban areas of 190 school districts in 46 states. The effects of two predictor variables, percentage of urban population and median family income, on the following dependent variables were examined: student…

Structural and cultural inequalities hinder the attainment of approximately 25 million rural American youth. A characteristic lack of education and employment opportunities is combined with a restricted realm of attainment in rural areas. Rural people are negatively stereotyped by the mass society, as seen in an examination of linguistic terms…

In order to achieve the EFA (Education For All) goal agreed by participating nations at the Dakar World Education Forum 2000, The Lao government has undertaken various studies for its "National Plan of Action for Education for All." Lao is an inland mountainous nation with 49 ethnic groups. Such diversity makes the provision of social…

The summary report, a condensed version of the final report of the Thai-Alberta Cooperative Assessment Project, is drawn largely from Chapter 8 of the final report and presents the essential nature, scope, and findings of a project involving data from over 5,000 Thai participants (principals, teachers, students, parents and alumni) in a sample of…