Governments worldwide have invested in teaching standards and performance benchmarks to improve teacher preparation and teacher quality that impacts student achievement. As a means of addressing these imperatives, the Australian government has recently encouraged formal partnerships between tertiary providers, schools and education systems in…

Foreign language (FL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching present considerable challenges in the rural U.S. South. Local language ideologies, budgetary considerations, and challenges in other curricular areas (e.g., math and science) lead to marginalizing both FL and ESL in schools. This article examines the personal and professional…

In response to exclusionary globalisation processes, Bolivia forms part of a wider Latin American return to regionalism and nationalism. With the indigenous president Morales, Bolivia distances itself from "imposed" neoliberal policies, aiming instead for "dignity and decolonisation". The Bolivian conflict is characterised by…

In this paper, in response to Ajay Sharma's paper titled "Portrait of a science teacher as a bricoleur: A case study from India" and associated reviews, I address the value of bridging two narrative styles for describing teacher development, discuss questions of over-essentializing an Indian school context, propose that teacher and…

Addresses the national goal for U.S. students to be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement by the year 2000. Proposes an eight-point action agenda for mathematics reform for rural and small schools. Actions involve (1) educating teachers and administrators; (2) keeping parents and community informed; (3) adopting new text and…

There is an evolving paradigm shift in the field of rural education away from emulating urban schools and toward a pedagogy of place. This shift is influenced by the following trends: 1) the rediscovery of the unique features of rural and small schools as strengths to be nurtured, not problems to be solved; 2) the recognition that centralized,…

This paper reports a study of teachers' attitudes toward implementation of social skills instruction. Twenty-eight regular and special education teachers from a rural southwestern high school voluntarily responded to a questionnaire. Teachers reported a preference for proactive, comprehensive social skills activities implemented as part of a…

To identify promising practices, issues, and problems concerning education for the gifted in Maine, 239 classroom teachers and 14 administrators from 11 school districts geographically distributed throughout the state responded to questionnaires which profiled teacher personal characteristics and styles, described the educational setting and…

Published in 1917, this book overviews rural schooling during the early 1900s and was written to address the problems of rural teaching and to serve as an introductory guide for rural teachers. Specifically, the book aimed to bring attention to the needs of rural life and the possible contributions of the rural school, to describe effective…

An innovative project in training teachers for community development was begun in three remote villages in Sri Lanka in 1975 by one of the country's 28 teacher colleges. Under supervision by a resident Teacher Educator, teacher trainees were placed in villages for two weeks per term not only to teach the two courses per day required by all of the…

As a result of a previous study made to determine what it was like to teach in inner-city schools of America, a complementary study was conducted which focused on the problems of teaching the rural disadvantaged. Together they provided a data base which identified prominent educational problems characteristic of impoverished urban and rural…

Two areas--understanding what rural education is and what its real needs are--are critical in preparing educators, specifically language arts educators, for a rural setting. Although the problems facing these teachers are many, minimal preparation and training at the college level deal with the rural setting. Mainly due to funding, modern…

In this article, the author identifies two current--and competing--discourses concerning teaching and public education in general. One is the "official" discourse, embodied in "No Child Left Behind" language, with a focus on accountability, standards, credentials, and testing, accompanied by punitive measures for failing to…

A study conducted in 1988 assessed the effectiveness of the multigrade system in providing a primary education at four pilot schools in sparsely populated, rural areas of Zambia. In an attempt to alleviate the problems of financial strain and low enrollment in rural schools, this system combines two or more grade levels into one class taught by…

Considers qualities required of rural teachers in the USSR and implications for teacher education. Reports survey results of 430 rural teachers in the Tatar region concerning what a rural teacher must know and problems specific to rural teaching. Concludes that rural teachers must coordinate teaching with social work and face housing and material…