This presentation offers a systematic review of rural (PK-12) education technology literature. Drawing upon a social change framework (Ogburn, 1922), current rural education technology research within the subfield is collected, examined, and synthesized. The initial mapping of included literature lies within two broad themes: distance education…

During the Obama/Duncan federal education policy era, grant programs emphasized school -- community, and university partnerships to address student needs in high poverty areas. Critics noted the over-representation of urban poverty regions as compared to rural areas. Meanwhile, researchers have contributed insight regarding methods for effective,…

We examine 100 years of rural education research within the context of the demographic, migratory, economic, and social changes that have affected rural America in the past century. We use systematic review of the literature on rural teacher recruitment, retention, and training as a case study for looking at the constancy and change in the…

This literature review interrogates current international writing about inclusive education (IE) in regional and remote settings, with explicit reference to Australian considerations, including the emergent National Curriculum. The task of this review has been to establish the types of knowledge reported about IE in minority, marginalized and…

The factors of people, technology, structure, and task provide a sociotechnical model for understanding the essential elements of schools as organizations. Schools can be understood as cultures and managed as such. Effective schools focus on a task-oriented organizational culture that meaningfully involves all participants in the key elements of…

Special education policy and services in Newfoundland and Alberta were examined and compared. The two provinces were chosen because of legislative policy differences in the provision of special education, large proportions of nonurban citizens, and a recent tenfold increase in services. Analysis of surveys completed by 30 school boards in…

Among the many outside influences on Appalachian culture in the late 19th-early 20th centuries were reformers and educators, many of them women who came to the mountains to work as teachers, settlement workers, and nurses. This paper focuses on settlement schools in eastern Kentucky as the locus of interaction between reformers and mountain women.…

This study investigates the impact of activities done in the basic education sub-sector by a consortium of four non-government organizations in four provinces in Afghanistan from January 2004 to June 2005. The evaluation uses the project objectives and components as the evaluation framework, and data collected through survey questionnaires,…

Much progress has been made in the quest for better rural schools. In 1977, People United for Rural Education (PURE) began its work as an advocate for rural education and small schools. In 1979, PURE was notified that it was to receive the National Volunteer Activist Award. In 1980, the Rural/Regional Education Association became the Rural…

The essence of the politics of language is the choice of audience. This paper analyzes politics of language and choice of audience in the work of two liberatory educators, Myles Horton and Paulo Freire. Horton and Freire had much in common, each working to create educational processes to benefit the poor and each focusing on liberation for the…

Gifted and talented children have cognitive and affective characteristics that set them apart from their more typical classmates. These characteristics may be particularly problematic in rural areas where stability, traditional values, small schools, and self-sufficiency can be at once a barrier and a support. This paper discusses the…

This paper focuses on the difficulties faced by rural school districts in their efforts to serve children with severe multiple disabilities. Both historic and contemporary views on mainstreaming and inclusion of students with multiple disabilities are presented. Concerns of educators about the inclusion of such students center around the amount of…

In 1991, after 25 workers died in a fire in a rural North Carolina poultry-processing plant, reporters exposed the exploitation that workers had endured and the company's callous disregard for workers' safety. This paper draws on the story of the fire and its victims to challenge some popular assumptions about poverty in general; rural poverty in…

The traditional conception of rural as homogeneously agricultural has become archaic. This paper reviews definitions of rural diversity related to rural special education and proposes a broad definition based upon culture of community and region. In the late 1970s, the National Rural Project identified "problems" in rural special…

Technological developments of the past decade have increased the potential of distance learning and telecommunications to help rural schools overcome disadvantages of remoteness, geographic isolation, lack of specialized staff, and limited program offerings. Classroom-focused distance learning is distance insensitive and involves transmission of a…