Rural cultural wealth: dismantling deficit ideologies of rurality

Abstract

Purpose Rural education research has historically been cast in a deficit lens, with rural places characterized by their problems or shortcomings, as if the way of understanding rural itself is to compare it to nonrural locales. These intransigent and narrow perceptions of rurality hinders recognition of the assets and possibilities of rural places. The purpose of this paper is to apply community-empowering, transgressive knowledge to analyses of rural communities to advance rural education research and practice. Design/methodology/approach In this conceptual paper, the authors propose an asset-based, conceptual framework to ground rural research and education practices: rural cultural wealth. Findings The authors describe and explore the concept of rural cultural wealth within the context of education. Furthermore, the authors discuss the dynamics of rurality and propose four constructs that comprise the rural cultural wealth framework, rural resourcefulness, rural ingenuity, rural familism and rural community unity, and consider implications for future research and practice. Originality/value The goal of this paper is to advance a rural cultural wealth framework aimed to interrupt social reproduction of educational inequities that impact rural students.

Dualities of Place among Rural and Urban Periphery Homegrown Adults in Israel☆

“…The interviewees broadly referred to the deficit notion of periphery from the perspective of weakness of the peripheral area as disadvantaged. Yet, the other side of viewing the empowerment and advantage in the periphery, as also presented in the current study as part of the emerged dualities, suggests that we should adopt alternative approaches that avoid or overcome deficit conceptions of peripheral individuals as disadvantaged groups (Boltanski 2011;Lamont 2012) and go beyond deficit approaches (Crumb et al 2023). As mentioned by Tzfadia and Gigi (2022) recently, living in remote areas does not necessarily mean marginality, and thus, intersectionality is needed in order to understand periphery not as a single factor of remoteness.…”

Capacity and Control: Superintendent-School Board Relations in Locally Controlled Districts

“…Local capacity includes a range of social, economic, political, and natural resources to enact local control (Beckley et al, 2008; Chaskin, 2001; Spillane & Thompson, 1997). Viewed through an urban-centric lens (Biddle & Azano, 2016), rural spaces have often been considered areas of low community capacity (Crumb et al, 2022). The findings from this study, however, reveal the assets and strengths of rural communities, and how rural community capacity can be enacted on a nuanced, micro-level.…”

Effectively Engaging First-Generation Rural Students in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Sociology

“…Yosso highlights the forms of capital, such as aspirational, navigational, and familial, that are uniquely developed by communities of color as a result of their experience. Rural FGCS also develop these forms of capital, which can be highlighted in the classroom and drawn upon to strengthen their experiences in college (Boettcher et al 2022; Crumb et al 2022; Whiteside 2021). This perspective provides a corrective to the dominant framing of FGCS and rural students as deficient in cultural capital.…”