Addressing Deficits Without a Deficit Mindset: What's at Stake in Rural Education Research

• In Event: 42.083 - Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 42.083-2 - Reconsidering Spatial Inequity in the 21st Century

Abstract

Rural is often defined by what it is not: urban; and the field of rural education is similarly defined by what seems to be its inextricable contrast to modernity. Using foundational literature on deficit mindset, this paper examines the inherent tension in rural education research that seeks to address rural education “problems.” The authors provide a theoretical overview of “problem defining” literature in the field of rural education research with data from a stratified sampling of rural education articles from the turn of both centuries, concluding with a discussion about rural salience and spatial inequity.

Authors

• Amy Price Azano, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Catharine Biddle, University of Maine