ERIC Number: EJ1018450
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1551-0670
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Improvisation as a Curricular Metaphor: Imagining Education for a Rural Creative Class
Corbett, Michael
Journal of Research in Rural Education, v28 n10 2013
Rural communities contain a largely unacknowledged innovative capacity founded on improvisational traditions. These traditions may be rooted in work practices in agriculture and other rurally-based productive activities but today they have expanded into other lifeworld locations, particularly virtual spaces that accelerate time-space compression. I make the case here that in the networked world of high modernity or postmodernity, both the nature of rurality and the potential of rural education need to be theorized differently. I begin with a critique of Richard Florida's metrocentric idea of the creative class, then move to reconceptualizing rurality as a real and imagined space, and conclude by analyzing a film and video project in an Atlantic Canadian school that used improvisation in literacy curriculum work. I argue that improvisation is a potentially productive metaphor for curriculum, one which draws on rural traditions and local funds of knowledge while at the same time incorporating a productive, forward-looking engagement with new technologies.
Descriptors: Rural Education, Figurative Language, Criticism, Films, Video Technology, Literacy Education, Creative Activities, Foreign Countries, Educational Research, Safety, Curriculum, Cultural Background, Parent Attitudes, Preservice Teachers, Middle School Students, Social Class, Teaching Methods
Penn State University College of Education, Center on Rural Education and Communities. 310B Rackley Building, University Park, PA 16802. Tel: 814-863-2031; Web site: http://www.jrre.psu.edu/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Middle Schools; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A