This paper examines rural-urban differences in parent involvement in their children's education, drawing upon such concepts as "community attachment,""community cultural context,""family cultural capital," and "community social capital." As part of the 1992-93 Missouri School Improvement Program, nearly 57,000 parents whose children attended 296 Missouri schools completed a survey that included five items measuring the extent of parent involvement. Schools were grouped into four categories, based on rural or urban school in metropolitan or nonmetropolitan county. Parent involvement was positively related to socioeconomic status (SES) and parent rating of the accessibility of school staff, and was negatively related to minority status, student grade level, number of children in the family, and single-parent status. When these control variables were held constant, parents whose children attended nonmetro rural schools scored significantly higher on parent involvement than parents in any of the other categories of schools. At the same time, independent of control variables and location of residence, parents who had lived longer within the school district participated more than more recently arrived parents. The effect of SES on parent involvement was greatest in nonmetro rural schools. The results indicate that the effects of individual and contextual characteristics on parent participation can be independent and additive to one another. Contains 22 references. (SV)