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Constructing and Staffing the Cultural Bridge: The School as Change Agent in Rural Appalachia
Author(s) -
DeYoung Alan J.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
anthropology and education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1548-1492
pISSN - 0161-7761
DOI - 10.1525/aeq.1995.26.2.05x1253e
Subject(s) - appalachia , metropolitan area , staffing , sociology , state (computer science) , economic growth , bridge (graph theory) , rural area , public relations , political science , public administration , economics , law , medicine , paleontology , pathology , algorithm , computer science , biology
Rural American schools still educate almost 28 percent of the nation's children, but only educational historians and rural sociologists have paid much attention to issues and dynamics of such places. Here, rural educators often intentionally teach and model national norms, values, expectations, and skills. Such teachings, they allege, are particularly critical to children's successful participation in the national culture, as rural communities typically do not have the types of complementary social or economic institutions that support metropolitan schooling aims. Meanwhile, these schools themselves often continue as targets of state and federal reform efforts since their local tax base often makes them particularly dependent upon outside funding sources. In the following essay I briefly develop a number of these themes. I then illustrate various rural school dynamics and issues with data from a West Virginia school system in which I have been involved in various research capacities during the past five years.