The New Demographics of Rural Education

• In Event: Critical Perspectives and Conceptualizations of Rurality and Demographic Change: Serving Minoritized Populations in Rural School-Communities

Abstract

In this presentation, I will use the lenses of spatial injustice (Soja, 2010) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) to examine how changing rural demographics interact with education policy, shaping the educational opportunities and possibilities of rural communities. In the spirit of “interrogating consequential education research in the pursuit of truth,” this literature review will draw upon research on rural demographics and rural education to underscore the practical and moral imperative for policy and practice that respond to new demographic realities.

Approximately 15% of public-school students—about 9.3 million children—are enrolled in rural districts (Showalter et al., 2019). Though rural students are often assumed to be White, about 30 percent of rural students are Black, Latinx, Asian/Asian-Pacific Islander, Native, or multiracial (Robson et al., 2019). The proportion of BIPOC students is also growing—up from just 17 percent in 2000 (Johnson et al., 2018). Much of the growth in rural racial diversity is due to immigration and a rapidly expanding rural Latinx population (Lichter, 2012), as well as a growing rural multiracial population (Johnson & Lichter, 2022). Rural students are also increasingly linguistically diverse, with English Language Learners now accounting for 4.2 percent of the rural student population (NCES, 2021).

However, demographics vary widely across rural places, from White fishing villages in the Northeast to Black communities in the Mississippi Delta to Latinx border towns to Indigenous communities across the Southwest (Lichter, 2012). Demographic change also varies dramatically from region to region, with rural student populations diversifying most quickly in areas that have, historically, been Whiter, such as the Northeast.

These complex demographics have important implications for rural schools. This presentation will address a number of issues in rural education affected by changing demographics, including school segregation, linguistic diversity, parent involvement, school funding, culturally relevant pedagogy, and college access. Two frameworks are useful for understanding these implications: spatial injustice—that is, the uneven distribution of resources across geographies (Soja, 2010)—and community cultural wealth—the social, aspirational, family, and linguistic capital that can be used to transform education (Yosso, 2005). On the one hand, changing demographics can exacerbate spatial injustice; for example, without school funding policies that are responsive to student mobility, families’ linguistic needs, and structural racism, immigrant students may be effectively excluded from a quality education. However, educators can also capitalize upon communities’ unique cultural wealth—their funds of knowledge (González et al., 1995) and linguistic capital—to write curricula that are both culturally responsive and engaging, thereby expanding students’ educational opportunity and better preparing them for an increasingly diverse future.

Rural schools can play an important role in dismantling the racial injustices that structure and stratify rural America. However, realizing this liberatory potential requires an awareness of changing rural demographics and an understanding of what these changing demographics mean for educational policy and practice. This presentation will offer this more critical stance and serve to contextualize the rest of the session.

Author

• Mara C. Tieken, Bates College
  Presenting Author