This book provides authentic accounts of the effects of the
revolutionary political reform experienced in the past half century on
education in Europe's considerable rural hinterland. These reforms
include the liberation of the Baltic and Eastern European states from
Soviet communist domination, the 'eurozone' economic crises, and the
current and future migration of people fleeing war and poverty from the
Middle East and Africa. Overshadowing these events are so-called global
forces which champion economies of scale and pressurize academic
performance as keys to economic success. Trapped in this distal
whirlwind of change are 1000s of small and/or rural elementary schools
and the life chances of more 1000s of young children.
The research presented here unveils the unseen and under-reported
consequences of top-down, urban-oriented educational policies on
children's and communities' experience of place and space. Exposure of
these conditions in rural Europe is long overdue, but obscured for
decades by political extremes of left and right. Yet, the lived reality
of peremptory and swathing school closure programmes, and poverty
inflicted on rural populations in parts of Eastern Europe is relatively
unreported in the western educational literature - a situation
exacerbated by the virtual invisibility of rural educational research
generally.
The chapters in this book reveal the insights of social science scholars
from 11 European countries including those from low GDP, formerly soviet
bloc countries, recently enabled to present their research at western
European conferences such as the European Educational Research
Association. Their research will inform and alert education academics,
researchers and professionals to these rural European educational
contexts. The research methodologies reported are diverse and
innovative. The national context chapters are complemented by overview
chapters which survey and synthesise (i) definitions and
conceptualisations of rural, (ii) pan-European appraisal of educational,
structural and geospatial statistics on small and rural schools, and
(iii) identify key messages for better understanding of the rural
situation in European research, policy and practice. Crucially, despite
the gloom, the authors report positive strategies for rural school
survival at governmental and/or school and community levels, that
include community involvement, rural educational tourism, and
deliberative inter-community school network planning.
