Rurality=Rural Reality: Encouraging a Race-Conscious Approach

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Claiming Space: Critical Approaches to Race, Capitalism, and Inequities in Rural Spaces

Abstract

This paper discusses the lack of race-conscious approaches that endure in the Southern Black Belt and its negative effect on rural schools and schooling. The call for the conference states “...reimagining education and school” we contribute a race-conscious approach to racial equity work in rural schools. Using Critical Race Theory as a frame of investigation, we define and explain rurality (as rural reality), and discuss the need for race-consciousness in rural research. In our paper, the term rurality signifies and describes rural reality. We also hope to provide educational scholars with a discussion of racialized theoretical frameworks to operate within. We end by proposing a vision of rural education scholarship in the Southern Black Belt.

Authors

• Timberly L. Baker, Arkansas State University

• Amy E. Swain, East Carolina University