Rural Education

Conceptual foundations to define rural education are murky and eclectic. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nation building was the one educational mission driving rural education. The structure of rural schooling depended heavily on decisions made during the Civil War (1861–1865) and on the Homestead Act (1862). The Act and the actions taken as a result of it had an adverse effect on rural America, specifically in the center of the nation, where it created artificial communities based solely on land speculation, established an agricultural economic framework dependent on national markets that lasted until the farm and economic crises of the 1980s, and ultimately diminished the indigenous customs and belief systems about the way of life in rural America. At the same time, programs like the Cooperative Extension's 4-H youth program and the rapid growth of community colleges in the 1970s offered higher education and adult education opportunities to many rural communities. These programs have struggled to serve a broader constituency in rural areas beyond agriculture.

No single definition exists to define rural America and its schools; some believe poverty is the one common thread, whereas others believe that any area that is not metropolitan is rural. Rural communities were never homogeneous. The schools that served these regions had to work with issues of race in the South and the Great Plains, and with considerable economic diversity, including fishing (New England), mining and rural industry (Appalachia and the West), farming and sharecropping (Great Plains), and ranching (Great Plains and the West). Concurrently, schools dealt with each unique population inhabiting schools (by ethnicity, religion, and social class). Changes in rural education may be region-specific, and generalizations about education in one rural area may or may not be [Page 666]true for another. This entry attempts to define some common challenges and future prospects.