Old Spaces, New Faces: Adjusting to a Changing Student Body in a Rural School District

• In Event: 34.071 - Educational Opportunities and Culture Across Time and Space

Abstract

Social and cultural ties in rural towns create cohesive communities with strong trust and sense of belonging. However, the intensity of common bonds makes it difficult for newcomers to achieve acceptance and incorporation. Rural schools are mirrors of the community and this ethnographic study examines the acculturation process in a Kansas district where newcomer children struggled adapting to the cultural orientation of school and community and teachers struggled developing efficacy and rapport with culturally unfamiliar students and families. The academic effects of out-of-school factors such as transiency, income insecurity, and volatile family structures created teacher stress and newcomer children questioned their ability to satisfy the social and cultural expectations imposed by the community. Implications of this insider-outsider dichotomy are discussed.

Authors

• Eric Freeman, Wichita State University

• Kristin G. Sherwood, Wichita State University