Numerous stereotypes of the veteran population miss the diverse backgrounds of veterans as a group, particularly that one quarter of known veterans are living in rural communities across the United States (VA, 2022). Despite the Federal focus on veteran rural health, there needs to be more literature available on veteran success in community…

Educational travel, and in particular study abroad programs, are generally beneficial to students, but less is known about impacts on the communities in which they are located. This study explores such impacts for a small rural community in Costa Rica that has hosted dozens of ecotourism and study abroad programs. Sixteen interviews were conducted…

A persistent issue in Australia, and globally, is how to improve participation rates in higher education for students from regional and rural areas. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by exploring the idea of a Community Embedded University (CEU). We draw on empirical data from three participatory co-design workshops with university students…

This article intervenes in the persistent hierarchy of epistemological worth that produces scientific knowledge as meaningful, and knowledge from arts or humanities as marginal, or illustrative. The specific trans-disciplinary project we discuss brings together environmental social sciences with performance-based Forum Theatre methods to explore…

This paper explores the notion of rurality in Australian tertiary education as part of an investigation into the subtle but distinct differences in participation thinking and patterns among young people in regional, rural and remote communities. Drawing on qualitative data gathered as part of a wider research project for the National Centre for…

American college towns represent a unique but understudied feature of the global educational landscape. With hundreds of college towns dotting the American geographical landscape, this uniqueness is particularly relevant for rural higher education. This article identifies a taxonomy of characteristics found commonly in the everyday environments of…

Complexity theory suggests that educational research should consider students' community contexts, because individual students' outcomes are interrelated with community characteristics. While some prior literature finds that higher education enrollment choices are influenced by geography, scholars have largely overlooked the importance of…

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, children and families in rural communities have been experiencing unprecedented long-term social isolation and insufficient access to mental health services. Prior to the pandemic, access to mental healthcare in rural communities was already inadequate, leading rural populations to be routinely underserved when facing…

The Three Tier system of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) which was put in place with 73rd amendment in the constitution of India, is a major initiative for democratic decentralization. PRIs are acting successfully and gradually becoming more powerful and resourceful. Now most of the Panchayets, including block and village level, are having…

Located in Redding, California, Shasta College is an inspiring example of why serving students with "some college, but no degree" is critical to supporting the local community. Most residents in the area, which is one of the state's northernmost counties, live and work in the immediate area and serve the community through local…

This paper reports on an international collaborative study that investigated how students from rural contexts negotiate the transition to university, and how prior cultural and educational experiences influence their higher education trajectories. A qualitative, participatory methodology was adopted, centred on co-researcher narratives, digital…

This study examined and addressed the role of the broader rural community as supportive in shaping access to higher education among Black students as knowledge holders of their own lived experiences. Using a youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach, the theoretical underpinnings for the study included Yosso's (2005) community cultural…

Australian higher education participation continues to expand, yet in unequal ways. Regional, rural, and remote (RRR) student participation is stubbornly stalled, despite sustained research and policy initiatives to support these cohorts. To address this complex issue, we interviewed 10 RRR principals in Queensland and Victoria to explore specific…

In this article I analyze postcolonial theory as a critical framework to improve understanding of global service-learning (GSL) partnerships. Although research on student learning outcomes from participation in GSL has grown dramatically over the past decade, scholarship on community outcomes and perspectives in GSL continues to lag. Just as…

This chapter describes the cocurricular activities offered through The Democracy Commitment at Allegany College of Maryland and the impact of these civic experiences on its students.