Mapping Rural Education Research: A Systematic Review of Methods, Geographies, and Definitions

• In Event: 47.087 - Rural Schools and Communities: Conflict and Collaboration

Abstract

This comprehensive, systematic mapping review of U.S. rural education studies (n = 535) provides a bird’s-eye view of methodology, geography, and definitions. Methodologically, we identified pervasive underreporting, obscuring from research consumers how studies are conducted, their representativeness and generalizability/transferability, or need for/possibility of replication or local adaptation. Geographically, we found scattered, disconnected pieces of knowledge, mostly from the Midwest and/or South, but nearly nothing about understudied elsewheres (e.g., New England, Pacific Northwest), minimizing possibilities for robust, comparative place-based scholarship. Definitionally, most studies provide readers with no sense of what makes a research setting rural. Our findings emphasize Rural America as neither monolithic nor a foil for the metropolitan, emphasizing the need to develop sufficient nuance in our field’s research base.

Authors

• Jesse Moon Longhurst, Southern Oregon University

• Michael Thier, International Baccalaureate

• Sheryl D Craig, Seiling Public Schools

• Phillip D Grant, University of West Georgia

• Casey Jakubowski, Albany State University