Critical Interstices: Dismantling the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy in Rural Educational Research

• In Event: Rural And...: A Symposium on Intersectional Diversity in Rural Education Research

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework: Over the past century, rural schools and communities have been pushed to the periphery of educational research (Biddle & Azano, 2016). Yet rural scholars have adopted our own socio-spatial boundaries to delineate those who belong versus those who are from away (Colleague et al., 2019). This insider/outsider dichotomy is used both to define rural scholars and the communities they study (Rural Education SIG, 2020). As a result, rural education scholarship implicitly embeds this dichotomy in the delimitations of research by defining how a research site is rural (Coladarci, 2009), and how researchers are positioned as insiders or outsiders for the rural communities they study (Tieken, 2003).
A consequence of the focus on the rural dichotomy is that is obscures the diverse intersectionality of the identities of rural people and communities. Despite the expansive diversity of rural America (Showalter et al., 2019), the field has been slow to surface the broad sociocultural dimensions in rural spaces. Because rural communities are perceived by mainstream culture as homogenous spaces driven by white, Christian, heteronormative culture (Colleague & Author, 2017), the absence of explicit discussions about diverse and intersectional identities allows the dominant narrative to persist by default. The purpose of our presentation is to critically examine the interstices between the insider/outsider dichotomy in rural education research. Using a combination of a critical research review and autoethnography, we identify to what extent and how different identities are explicitly discussed in literature on rural educational leadership. We then analyze how the interstices in the field inform our own work as rural scholars.

Theoretical Framework: The purpose of our study is to dismantle the dominant narratives in rural educational research. We therefore use critical identity theory as our theoretical lens to examine how race, gender identity, sexual orientation, dis/ability, and religion are incorporated or hidden in the field. Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) is foundational for the study, as CRT disrupt deficit perspectives of BIPOC with counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).

Methods & Findings: Our study combines research synthesis and auto-ethnography. First, we conduct a systematic literature synthesis (Hallinger, 2013) of rural educational leadership. In our analysis, we assess the frequency and use of emic and etic identification of racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious identities across the field. Then, drawing from the qualitative tradition of autoethnography, we analyze the literature review findings in relation to our positionality as rural educational leadership scholars. We discuss how the presence and absence of different aspects of identities has influenced our research on educational equity in the rural South.

Contributions to the Field: Our presentation concludes with recommendations to move the rural education research field forward, including research collaborations with rural communities that center and elevate minoritized voices; developing new graduate students for rural education research; elevating rural scholars and supporting their recruitment, retention, and tenure process, publishing work that explicitly discusses identities of scholars and spaces, and expanding the interstices to inclusively reflect our field.

Authors

• Daniella Hall Sutherland, Clemson University

• Tomiko Smalls, Clemson University