Potential Roles for Schools in Rural Revitalization: The Coming Vitality of Rural Places

• In Event: Potential Roles for Schools in Revitalizing Rural Communities: Perspectives From Canada, the United States, and Australia

Abstract

Craig Howley and Aimee Howley are presenting together in the symposium.
The Coming Vitality of Rural Places

Observers with varied outlooks (e.g., Berry, 1977; Bowers, 2004; Orr, 1995; Kunstler, 2005) argue that the human project is treading a path into the future that even those with overweening power and ambition cannot sustain, despite the fact that they have engineered such a future. Perhaps perceiving the threat, the adherents of unlimited growth have become increasingly shrill about the sort of schooling their doomed vision requires, and they have squeezed public educators everywhere to bend their efforts to the vision. In rural places, as part of this effort in recent decades (since, say, 1983), the liberal wing of this vision has advised “revitalization” largely under the banner of “entrepreneurial” development (e.g., Gatewood & DeLargy, 1985; Larson, 1999; Rosenfeld, 1984). That is, rural places need to act more like good cities (e.g., Florida, 2004; cf. Carr & Kefalas, 2009). A quite different script seems to be overtaking the world, however: economic stagnation or worse, for instance, but more ominously, climate degradation and the end of the short reign of cheap energy. These are the assumptions of this paper, which speculates on the existentially necessary and persistent vitality of rural places.


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Authors

• Craig B. Howley, Ohio University - Athens

• Aimee A. Howley, Ohio University