Following on from the preceding volume in this series that focused on
innovation and implementation in the context of
school-university-community collaborations in rural places, this volume
explores the positive impact of such collaborations in rural places,
focusing specifically on the change agency of such collaborations. The
relentless demand of urban places in general for the food and resources
(e.g., mineral and energy resources) originating in rural places tends
to overshadow the impact of the inevitable changes wrought by increasing
efficiency in the supply chain. Youth brought-up in rural places tend to
gravitate to urban places for higher education and employment, social
interaction and cultural affordances, and only some of them return to
enrich their places of origin. On one hand, the outcome of the arguable
predominance of more populated areas in the national consciousness has
been described as "urbanormativity"--a sense that what happens in urban
areas is the norm. By implication, rural areas strive to approach the
norm. On the other hand, a mythology of rural places as repositories of
traditional values, while flattering, fails to take into account the
inherent complexities of the rural context.
The chapters in this volume are grouped into four parts--the first three
of which explore, in turn, collaborations that target instructional
leadership, increase opportunities for underserved people, and target
wicked problems. The fourth part consists of four chapters that showcase
international perspectives on school-university-community collaborations
between countries (Australia and the United States), within China,
within Africa, and within Australia. The overwhelming sense of the
chapters in this volume is that the most compelling evidence of impact
of school-university-community collaborations in rural places emanates
from collaborations brokered by schools-communities to which
universities bring pertinent resources.
