This paper examines trends that are currently reshaping rural America and rural education. It reviews the debate about how best to improve rural school districts, suggesting that what is needed is a better understanding of the changing context in which this country's public school enterprise is taking place. The paper begins by reviewing the work…

Education students planning to teach in rural areas need, but do not receive, specialized training. Among differences encountered by rural teachers are professional isolation and limited inservice training; assignment to more subjects, more grade levels, and more extracurricular activities; lower budgets and salaries; inadequate materials; less…

Offering a contribution to additional clarity in the debate about the viability of "rural development" as an explanatory concept and program of action, the paper presents details of a causal model which underlies the approach to rural development taken by a W. K. Kellogg Foundation supported program in eastern Washington called "The…

Six ideological types of rural residents were defined to represent empirically determined reasons and underlying philosophies for living in the country, addressing a need to look at aspects of the growing nonfarm contingent of rural population, especially as it concerns extension program needs. The types were descriptively named Committed Farmers,…

Diverse aspects of rural problems and the social organization of Mexican labor are explored in this summary of Mexican rural history. Achnowledging Mexico's rich, unexhausted, and unexplored natural resources, Mexico is described as a poverty-stricken, hungry nation, with high degrees of malnutrition, deprivation, and illiteracy heavily…

The 1978 study, which was the first to use the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ) with rural youth, compared the self-image of rural and urban adolescent girls and sustained the hypothesis that adolescents in larger communities think more highly of themselves than adolescents in rural communities. Most previous studies, ambiguous with regard to…

In 1920, farm people comprised 61% of the rural population; in 1950, however, 60% of the rural population was composed of non-farm people. This change is attributed to increased agricultural efficiency and to expansion of industry and military services. From 1960 to 1966 the net out-migration averaged 804,000 persons per year from farm to city.…

WIDESPREAD CHANGES IN RURAL AMERICAN LIFE HAVE RESULTED IN THE CONCEPT OF URBANIZED SOCIAL ORGANIZATION--THE REACTION AND INTERACTION OF RURAL AND URBAN CITIZENS TO THE SAME PATTERN OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. THE ENTIRE POPULATION HAS BECOME SUBJECT TO URBAN-DERIVED SOCIAL STRUCTURES. FACTORS SUCH AS TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT AND MASS MEDIA…

This interim report, commissioned by UNICEF, emphasizes the value of nonformal educational programs to educationally deprived rural children and youth in developing countries. The first set of basic findings and recommendations arising from this extensive international research study is presented. Organized into five chapters, the text includes…

Uses Cherry County, Nebraska, to exemplify current experiences of learning and teaching in a one-room school--Nebraska has 350 of the nation's nearly 800 one-room schools. Interviews parents and teachers who cherish their one-room schools because they provide quality education, convenience (relative to consolidated schools), and support for rural…

Young people growing up in rural and isolated areas of Australia face particular challenges because structural change to the rural economy has dramatically affected their communities. Structural challenges include limited transportation, health and community services that are difficult to access and not confidential, scarcity of affordable…

Suggesting that students in the primary grades can explore the world around them and practice valuable skills in spelling, reading, writing, communication, and language, this book presents cross-curricular units on "people around us" that reach diverse needs by working through emotional memory, deductive reasoning, and multiple intelligences.…

Delineates the need to make rural education more relevant to rural students in developing nations, stressing limitations in traditional Western approaches. Advocates rural pedagogy that encourages lifelong learning and develops community resources. Provides a case study of a rural pedagogy program in Sri Lanka. (CH)

Recommends developing programs that involve rural secondary students in the organizational planning and work of collective farms in the USSR. Argues this helps students apply knowledge, develop skills, and sharpen their social focus. Advocates including environmental education to develop students' ecological awareness. Notes experimental schools…

This study examined the effect of academic peer mentors on the grade-point averages of underprepared freshmen at Mount Vernon Nazarene College (Ohio), a church-related coeducational college of arts and sciences. Underprepared freshmen at this school are required to participate in the College Experience Enhancement Program. For the fall, 1993 term,…