At its core, the school to workforce pipeline is a pathway from parental care to employment. Between these stages is education, much of which school districts, higher education institutions, and organizations with technical training provide. However, rural districts face multiple location-specific challenges when supporting students along this…

Rural-serving community colleges (RSCCs) play vital roles in their communities yet often struggle to facilitate student transfer to further education, especially in STEM fields. This mixed methods study explored how rural STEM educators leverage relationships to support transfer. Social network analysis of focus groups with 36 educators at five…

Our study investigates the challenges encountered by learners and teachers of physical sciences in rural schools, specifically in the Joe Gqabi district of South Africa. We utilised self-study and constructivism theories in rural settings to examine the complex challenges for physical sciences in rural schools. In an interpretivist qualitative…

Professionals and communication partners report experiencing challenges with regard to developing the knowledge and skills needed to support individuals with complex communication needs who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). These challenges can be exacerbated in rural and remote areas where access to resources and training may…

Developing teachers' professionalism is important to developing the internal capacity of schools in rural and remote areas. This study investigated rural mathematics educators' (n = 677) perceptions of professionalism to better understand how to provide more focused and relevant support for mathematics teachers in similar rural and remote…

This study uses a naturalistic inquiry approach to investigate how rural educators navigate the affordances and barriers of implementing an out-of-school program to identify and develop middle school STEM talent in rural communities. At the time of this study, the STEM program was in its fourth year of implementation. Participants included 34…

Effective teacher professional development is defined as structured professional learning activities which result in changes in teacher practice and improvements in student learning outcomes. Superintendents face common challenges unique to the rural environment which hinder the delivery of effective teacher professional development in rural…

This qualitative case study investigated rural high school social studies teachers' perceptions of Robert Stahl's decision-making materials within their content area and the relevance of curricular implementation. The primary questions addressed in this study focused on high school social studies teachers' perception of current instructional…

The COVID-19 pandemic plunged education communities into an emergency mode of operation and challenged the pedagogic core of education. Schools across America suddenly lost access to everything essential to their daily educational practices, including face-to-face interactions with students. School administrators scrambled to devise remote…

COVID-19 prompted unprecedented disruptions to schools with challenges particularly severe for high-poverty remote rural schools. This case study recounts the story of a rural school that had participated in a research-practice partnership (RPP) multi-year improvement effort prior to the pandemic and documents the ways the RPP and the school-based…

Purpose: A chasm exists between the expanding mental health needs of school-aged youth and the school resources available to address them. Education agencies must efficiently allocate their limited resources by adopting innovative public health models. The need for these effective approaches is acute in rural regions, where resources tend to be…

The onset of the Next-Generation Science Standards [NGSS] has created a need for elementary teachers to develop purposeful, multi-dimensional formative assessments (FAs). In order to promote this process, we utilized teacher learning communities (TLCs) and practice-based professional development focused on key aspects of the reform while…

In many countries, English as a foreign/second language (L2) teaching has become compulsory in urban and rural public schools. In rural areas, the challenges for the implementation of this state-sanctioned policy have been explored among L2 teaching specialists. However, this mixed-methods study considered a different teacher group and examined…

Using Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory, this study investigated the school experiences of nine high-ability students from three secondary schools in rural Western India. Analyses of semistructured interviews revealed several interconnected systems of influences on the school experiences of participants. Intrapersonal aspects such as…

This qualitative study delved into 15 Iranian middle school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' perceptions, practices, and challenges of differentiation for gifted students. To this end, a set of data sources including interviews, observation notes, and documents were used. Results of interview transcriptions exhibited that the rural…