As part of a conference on education in the South, this session looks at the past, present, and future of southern education. The session comprises four panels and eleven papers. The three papers in the first panel discuss the history, literature, and culture of the South, touching on the South's historical uniqueness and variety, trends in southern politics and government from 1960 to 1980, and the images of the South presented by southern writers. Ruralism and the future of education in the South are the subjects of the second panel, whose four papers examine industrialization in the rural South, the federal response to rural educational needs, poverty and other problems of rural southern education, and long-term trends in values, knowledge, and demographic factors. The three papers in the third panel describe the design and possible uses of two databases of social and educational indicators, one for the entire South and one for its rural areas. The final session's paper narrates the history of two educational leaders, and of local education, in rural Bullock County (Alabama). (RW)