The Poor Little Rich District: The Effects of Suburbanization on a Rural School and Community.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aimee Howley, Educational Studies Department, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701. (howley@ohio.edu) Citation: Howley, A. (with Carnes, M., Eldridge, A., Huber, D., Lado, L. M., Kotler, R., & Turner, M.). (2005, July 18). The poor little rich district: The effects of suburbanization on a rural school and community. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(9). Retrieved [date] from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles /20-9.pdf
Revisiting the Rural Superintendency: Rethinking Guiding Theories for Contemporary Practice
Sorber, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Center for the Future of Land-Grant Education, West Virginia University, 500 Allen Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506 (ecmchenrysorber@mail. wvu.edu). The Journal of Research in Rural Education is published by the Center on Rural Education and Communities, College of Education, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. ISSN 1551-0670 Recent sociological research has highlighted myriad social and economic challenges that require rural superintendents to critique internal spaces of oppression and exclusion. This body of scholarship illustrates the need for a revised conception of the rural superintendency as a position responsive to external infl uences, while simultaneously attuned to within-community spaces of marginalization and inequity. Inattention to these intra-community spaces of marginalization threatens the utility of a critical placeconscious framework for leadership (Nespor, 2008). In this conceptual article, we identify constructs for understanding the work of rural educational leaders in two iterations, or waves, of literature since the 1960s: (1) insider/ outsider and (2) place-conscious/critical place-conscious. We interrogate a focused set of publications that have driven or researched in practice these constructs. We fi nd that the second wave—place-conscious/critical place-conscious— is largely prescriptive, and recent research attempting to use critical place-conscious leadership, coupled with literature on rural community change and broader superintendent scholarship, has exposed weaknesses in the model. Thus, we argue for a revised model of critical place-conscious leadership that better addresses the heterogeneity within rural communities, the rapidly changing context of rural communities, and the realities of contemporary practicalities of the professionalized rural superintendent.
The Small Rural Primary School
Rural education is a conundrum long‐endured, but seldom considered at any length until very recently. The Small Rural Primary School is one such recent consideration, this time from Britain. Readers in the us will experience the unsettling feeling that they almost know the authors’ topic. Bell and Sigsworth's consideration, however, is reflective in a way that is not common in similar us works. For American readers, such differences can help shake new perceptions out of old conundrums. The notion of community development articulated here has particular relevance for American educators.