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1. Defining Rural: Rural Teachers’ Perspectives and Experiences

   https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060645  

   Inouye, Martha; Macias, Meghan; Boz, Tugba; Lee, Min Jung; Hammack, Rebekah; Iveland, Ashley; Johansen, Natalie (June 2024, Education Sciences)

   Public agencies and other funding organizations have often defined rural in reference to “urban” and using parameters such as population density, access to cities, and distance to market areas. Using such definitions of rurality within the context of K-12 education as a way to support these systems is challenging because of the diverse geographic and socio-cultural identities of these places despite a common “rural” designation. This study aims to analyze elementary teachers’ perceptions of their school context and role within that context to better understand the diversity of what it means to be rural. Semi-structured interviews with 3rd–5th-grade teachers (n = 35) were used. Data sources also included identity and community walk slides created by these teachers. Structured interview prompts were tailored to these activities. A priori and emergent coding analyses were used to examine teachers’ conception of their rural context and their role within that context. The results show that rural, as defined by teachers, is a diverse and connected place in which diverse community assets support teachers in their instruction in unique ways. By better understanding the diversity of what it means to be rural, we begin to understand the ways in which context shapes experience and best determine how to support rural educational experiences for both teachers and students. 

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2. Engaging Rural America in Computer Science: Understanding the Rural Context

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--56367  

   Bean, Nathan; Weese, Joshua; Feldhausen, Russell; Friend, Michelle; James, Friday; Allen, David (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   In the United States, 1 in 5 people, approximately 66.3 million individuals, live in a rural area. To address the growing need for computing professionals and the need for a computationally literate populace, we need to engage rural learners effectively. A first step in this direction is understanding the learning context for students engaging in computer science, and how that differs for a rural population. In this paper, we draw upon the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, and the 2021 American Community Survey, to underscore a lack of access to computer science learning contexts for students in these communities. We also explore how rural out-migration is compounding this challenge, and explore the roots of the rural out-migration trend. We then examine how multiple strains of research and scholarship identify rurality as either a place-based identification (i.e., where a student is from) or a distinct social identity. While convenient, geographic-based definitions lack important nuance in understanding rural populations and tend to emphasize heterogeneity in rural populations, especially regarding economic factors (i.e., what the communities produce). In contrast, identity-based definitions often emphasize commonalities across rural populations including a set of shared values, a sense of belonging to a rural community, emphasis on social bonds, and a distrust of solutions offered by government, academia, and technology which are often seen as misguided and antithetical to those shared values. In certain kinds of decision-making, this rural identity has even been shown to overshadow intersectional racial and ethnic identities. This is an important consideration as 22\% of the US rural population is composed of racial and ethnic minorities. Finally, we discuss strategies to engage with rural populations authentically and meaningfully. We offer as an illustrative example our Cyber Pipeline program, an outreach effort including a Creative Commons licensed, customizable, modular curriculum; extensive teacher preparation program; and ongoing support for K-12 teachers working to bring computer science into rural schools. We also describe reasons why these rural-dwelling teachers seek to provide computer science education for their students. We highlight the specific challenges of this program, as well as our identified promising practices, in the hopes of fostering similar programs across the United States. 

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3. Designing from the rural

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3328487  

   Hardy, Jean; Phelan, Chanda; Vigil-Hayes, Morgan; Su, Norman Makoto; Wyche, Susan; Sengers, Phoebe (June 2019, Interactions)

   null (Ed.)
4. Co-designing a rural research practice partnership to design and support STEM pathways for rural youth

   https://doi.org/10.3776/tpre.2022.v12n2p45-70  

   Bhaduri, Srinjita; Biddy, Quentin; Elliott, Colin Hennessy; Jacobs, Jennifer; Rummel, Melissa; Ristvey, John; Sumner, Tamara; Recker, Mimi (November 2022, Theory & Practice in Rural Education)

   Rural students, schools, and communities have unique challenges that hinder academic achievement, growth, and opportunities, compared to other locales. While there is a need to study this community more, there is also a pressing need to bring the local community members together to support the future generation of learners in developing pathways that lead them to future career opportunities. This article focuses on how a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) can be developed in rural communities to support STEM pathways for local middle-school youth. RPPs are often described as long-term collaborations between both researchers and practitioners in which the participating partners leverage research to address specific persistent problems of practice. We present findings from a developing design-based RPP focused on bringing community members and organizations together to co-design opportunities for underserved youth in rural mountain communities. 

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5. Rural selection drives the evolution of an urban–rural cline in coat color in gray squirrels

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10544  

   Cosentino, Bradley_J; Vanek, John_P; Gibbs, James_P (October 2023, Ecology and Evolution)

   Abstract Phenotypic differences between urban and rural populations are well‐documented, but the evolutionary processes driving trait variation along urbanization gradients are often unclear. We combined spatial data on abundance, trait variation, and measurements of fitness to understand cline structure and test for natural selection on heritable coat color morphs (melanic, gray) of eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) along an urbanization gradient. Population surveys using remote cameras and visual counts at 76 sites along the urbanization gradient revealed a significant cline in melanism, decreasing from 48% in the city center to <5% in rural woodlands. Among 76 squirrels translocated to test for phenotypic selection, survival was lower for the melanic than gray morph in rural woodlands, whereas there was no difference in survival between color morphs in the city. These results suggest the urban–rural cline in melanism is explained by natural selection favoring the gray morph in rural woodlands combined with relaxed selection in the city. Our study illustrates how trait variation between urban and rural populations can emerge from selection primarily in rural populations rather than adaptation to novel features of the urban environment. 

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