The small rural school principalship : key challenges and cross-school responses

This article explores the responses of school principals of small rural schools in Victoria, Australia to leadership challenges they identify as characteristic of these contexts. The research is an exercise in grounded theory building, with the focus on the principalship as it is enacted in small rural settings. The article also seeks to trace the impact of macro and meso influences on micro rural contexts. While many very positive attributes of small rural schools are evident, this article speaks to principalship engagement with contextual problems – issues concerning work intensification, role multiplicity, school viability, new regulatory funding requirements and the abandonment of equity policies in education – since there is a dearth of information in Australia at this time about how school principals confront these challenges in small rural locations. The research exposes a growing culture of creative collaborative responses to the pervasive impediments of leading small rural schools.

Engaging students in authentic science through school - community links : learning from the rural experience

There is an increase in school-community linked initiatives in school science. A substantial proportion of these involve rural schools. This article asks the question: In what ways do these initiatives offer possibilities for better engaging rural students with school science? The paper draws on information from a number of school-community linked science initiatives in rural areas, including exemplars from the recent Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) project, which were obtained primarily through interviews with participants. The initiatives are analysed in terms of an 'innovation framework', concerning the ideas and purposes underlying them, the knowledge and pedagogies used, and the experiences of the participants in the initiative. The paper concludes that these initiatives differ in significant respects from traditional school science, and offer the possibility of productive future directions. The authors discuss the challenges and policy directions that need to be pursued to represent these practices in mainstream curricula.

Teacher education for rural communities : a focus on 'incentives'

In Australia we face a national crisis in attracting and retaining teachers and other professionals with regard to rural areas. In response to this difficulty in ‘staffing the empty schoolhouse’ (Roberts 2004), the majority of state  education departments have initiated some form of rural incentive scheme designed to attract teachers to rural schools. This paper argues that such  schemes have little chance of success unless teachers taking up such  incentives have actually been prepared for teaching in nonmetropolitan   schools. Although many universities claim to prioritise rural and regional  education and community development as part of their vision statements, in reality relatively few education providers reflect this rhetoric in their practice  and only a handful have made direct links to such state-based schemes in  pre-service teacher education, or initiated their own rural incentives. A  preliminary study into pre-service preparation and rural incentive schemes, as part of a three-year ARC Discovery Grant, indicates that, nationally, the  majority of Faculties and Schools of Education have no easily accessible or  advertised incentive programs to encourage students to undertake a rural  practicum. Nor do many reflect rural education in their course-work.

This paper will introduce the ‘TERRAnova’ project, and then discuss findings of the preliminary work to date that has focussed on identifying incentives and their significance. Drawing on evidence collected from websites from   Australian Universities representing all pre-service teacher education programs in the nation, we argue that few Faculties and Schools appear to  see it necessary or desirable to provide students with links to information  about particular state-based rural funding opportunities. We show how some, either directly or indirectly, imply the importance of a rural practicum, and that  a few teacher education programs provide written advice to students who  are considering taking up a rural practicum. It is unclear, however, whether  follow-up advice is provided, so that the impact and effectiveness of such advice on students’ experiences and willingness to take rural education   seriously can be questioned. Our analysis so far indicates that it is the regional universities which are more likely to address rural education needs, and on this basis we question the metro-centricity of teacher education practice more broadly and suggest ways of expanding the options of teachers in their initial teaching appointments.

Mentoring in the leading across effective small schools program : the perspectives of 'critical friends'

In this chapter, I refer to the reflections of Wendy Graham and Carolyn Scott who were ‘critical friends’ or mentors working alongside school leaders in the Leading across Effective Small Schools (LAESS) program. As recently retired principals of small rural schools, the mentors offered support, encouragement and advice to LAESS participants in order to enhance collegial cross-school improvement and develop leadership skills. These perspectives provide another important dimension to this book, because a mentor or critical friend can be more objective and see the bigger picture more clearly. Mentors are removed from day-today school life, yet importantly these mentors have ‘insider’ or situated knowledge about small rural school contexts and leadership which assists current school leaders to reflect on their practice and grow as leaders. The chapter also draws on comments from mentors, which emerged in independent formal evaluations of the LAESS program conducted by Carol Oakley.

Maturing school-community partnerships : developing learning communities in rural Australia

This paper reports findings from a project that examined the extent and nature of the contribution of rural schools to their communities’ development beyond traditional forms of education of young people. Case study communities in five Australian States participated in the project, funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. Communities and schools that share the belief that education is the responsibility of the whole community and work together, drawing on skills and knowledge of the community as a whole, experience benefits that extend far beyond producing a well-educated group of young people. The level of maturity of the school– community partnership dictates how schools and communities go about developing and sustaining new linkages, or joint projects. Twelve characteristics central to the success of school–community partnerships were identified. The characteristics are largely sequential in that later characteristics build on earlier ones. Underscoring these characteristics is the importance of collective learning activities including teamwork and network building, which have been identified elsewhere as key social capital building activities. A generic model of the relationship between the indicators of effective school–community partnerships and the level of maturity of those partnerships is forwarded.

Social entrepreneurship and partnerships with regional and remote schools

This paper explores how notions of social entrepreneurship have inspired the author to engage in innovative partnerships with two small rural schools in Central Queensland, Australia. It explores practical ways in which to help rural schools contribute to the transformation of their schools, considering that we are now in an information-based society operating in a postmodern world where change happens quickly and continually. The paper explores the mapping of the journeys undertaken both by the schools and by the author as a university lecturer, and analyses how the concept of social entrepreneurship is used to empower schools with these changes. Two partnerships with local schools are examined in terms of helping the participants become social entrepreneurs by deploying innovative problem solving strategies that can provide ways forward to help to begin to revolutionise the regional and rural education 'industry' and in the process engage regional and rural communities.

'no through road'? Disadvantage in rural education

Investigates educational disadvantage for students completing their secondary education in rural schools. For these students rural location has contributed reduced exposure to a broad range of literacy practices, and involvement in student cohorts with lower levels of socio-economic status, less extensive cultural knowledge and lower post-school aspirations.

Vilas, “logares” e cidades: a história da educação rural do Pará na Primeira República - 1889 a 1897

Trata-se de um estudo sobre a história da educação rural no Pará, entre 1889-1897. A intenção última é conhecer, a partir da pesquisa histórica, como se deu a educação rural do Pará na Primeira República, tendo como foco os governos provisórios de Justo Chermont e Huert Bacelar e o governo constitucional de Lauro Sodré. Nosso objetivo geral é entender como a educação para homens e mulheres do interior do Pará foi pensada e operacionalizada no plano governamental. Especificamente, estabelecemos quatro objetivos: a) Levantar os investimentos feitos nas escolas rurais no período em questão; b) Descrever como eram concebidas as escolas rurais do estado do Pará na Primeira República; c) Entender quais os procedimentos utilizados, através dos documentos oficiais, para formar o cidadão das escolas rurais; d) Compreender os objetivos da formação educacional da população rural. Duas questões nortearam a investigação: 1º) Que intenções permeavam a educação destinada às populações das áreas rurais do Pará nos governos do período de 1889 a 1897? 2º) O que foi realizado, no plano governamental, para a concretização desses objetivos? As fontes documentais foram coletadas no Arquivo Público do Estado do Pará, na biblioteca Arthur Vianna e nos Setor de Obras Raras do Centro Cultural do Pará Tancredo Neves (CENTUR). O corpus da pesquisa está composto de: relatórios dos governadores; mensagens, ofícios, abaixo-assinados, circulares e requerimentos; relatórios de diretores da Instrução Pública; relatórios de visitadores; relatórios de grupo escolares; cadernos de Leis do período. Metodologicamente, operamos a análise em três momentos: 1) momento da heurística; 2) momento da crítica; 3) momento da interpretação. O texto está composto de introdução, três seções e considerações finais. O trabalho realizado indica que os governos estaduais na Primeira República pouco fizeram pela formação do homem do interior do estado, apesar do uso político acentuado da educação como prioridade para estes. Identificamos que os investimentos com a Instrução Pública tiveram seu limite estabelecido pela ideologia do regime republicano que entendia a população rural como uma gente de segunda ou de terceira, que precisava ser “lapidada” para o trabalho. Por extensão, o espaço rural é compreendido como o lugar do atraso, da incivilidade e que, portanto, um pouco de formação à sua população era o suficiente para transformar homens rudes em cidadãos, ainda que de categoria inferior.

O espírito de horror à vida educativa nos campos: a educação rural paulista nas décadas de 1930 e 1940

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Ideologia industrial x cultura rural: o método SESI de ensino em uma escola rural

This study compares two educational practices: the Rural School method (Escola do Campo) and the SESI teaching method, suggesting that the latter one is inefficient when applied to rural schools, as illustrated with a case study of a rural school that was obliged to adopt this method in 2012. The epistemological basis of a dialogical pedagogy for rural education has been used in order to criticize the practices of a method whose origins in the industrial ideology and in consumerism promotes a true cultural invasion, according to Paulo Freire, hindering the students' dialogues with respect to the ways of life in rural areas and in towns – an interaction that assured school performance in the previous educational system, which has been arbitrarily discontinued by the political power. Different surveys were used in this study for both compared cases, specially dissertations that have evaluated the Rural School project (Projeto Escola do Campo), adopted in Araraquara in 2004, a dissertation about the SESI teaching method that has discussed its new didactic material and, also, an evaluation of the contents of a representative sample of textbooks of History, Geography, Sciences and Mathematics for the 6th grade of elementary school. It is a theoretical text, not an essay, considering that it is based on concrete situations, which were explained using researches on the implicit themes and summarizes the analytical procedures that have allowed to unveil, in the textbooks prepared by SESI, the stimulus and the valorization of consumerism, without any criticism and environment concerns.

A multi-scale analysis of transforming agricultural markets in the context of globalization: implications for natural resources, food prices and rural poverty in Latin America

Vivimos una época en la que el mundo se transforma aceleradamente. La globalización está siguiendo un curso imparable, la población mundial así como la población urbana siguen creciendo, y en los países emergentes los ingresos promedios aumentan, resultando en un cambio también acelerado de las dietas y hábitos alimentarios. En conjunto esos factores están causando un aumento fundamental de la demanda de alimentos. Junto con la apertura de los mercados agrícolas, estos procesos han provocado un crecimiento del comercio internacional de alimentos durante la última década. Dado que muchos países de América Latina están dotados de abundancia de recursos naturales, estas tendencias han producido un crecimiento rápido de las exportaciones de bienes primarios desde América Latina al resto del mundo. En sólo 30 años la participación en el mercado agrícola de América Latina casi se ha duplicado, desde 10% en 1980 a 18% en 2010. Este aumento del comercio agrícola ha dado lugar a un debate sobre una serie de cuestiones cruciales relacionadas con los impactos del comercio en la seguridad alimentaria mundial, en el medio ambiente o en la reducción de la pobreza rural en países en desarrollo. Esta tesis aplica un marco integrado para analizar varios impactos relacionados con la transformación de los mercados agrícolas y los mercados rurales debidos a la globalización y, en particular, al progresivo aumento del comercio internacional. En concreto, la tesis aborda los siguientes temas: En primer lugar, la producción mundial de alimentos tendrá que aumentar considerablemente para poder satisfacer la demanda de una población mundial de 9000 millones personas en 2050, lo cual plantea grandes desafíos sobre los sistemas de la producción de alimentos. Alcanzar este logro, sin comprometer la integridad del medio ambiente en regiones exportadoras, es un reto aún mayor. En este contexto, la tesis analiza los efectos de la liberalización del comercio mundial, considerando distintas tecnologías de producción agraria, sobre unos indicadores de seguridad alimentaria en diferentes regiones del mundo y sobre distintos indicadores ambientales, teniendo en cuenta escalas diferentes en América Latina y el Caribe. La tesis utiliza el modelo “International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT)” – un modelo dinámico de equilibrio parcial del sector agrícola a escala global – para modelar la apertura de los mercados agrícolas así como diferentes escenarios de la producción hasta el año 2050. Los resultados del modelo están vinculados a modelos biofísicos para poder evaluar los cambios en la huella hídrica y la calidad del agua, así como para cuantificar los impactos del cambio en el uso del suelo sobre la biodiversidad y los stocks de carbono en 2050. Los resultados indican que la apertura de los mercados agrícolas es muy importante para mejorar la seguridad alimentaria a nivel mundial, sin embargo, produce también presiones ambientales indeseables en algunas regiones de América Latina. Contrastando dos escenarios que consideran distintas modos de producción, la expansión de la tierra agrícola frente a un escenario de la producción más intensiva, se demuestra que las mejoras de productividad son generalmente superiores a la expansión de las tierras agrícolas, desde un punto de vista económico e ambiental. En cambio, los escenarios de intensificación sostenible no sólo hacen posible una mayor producción de alimentos, sino que también generan menos impactos medioambientales que los otros escenarios futuros en todas sus dimensiones: biodiversidad, carbono, emisiones de nitratos y uso del agua. El análisis muestra que hay un “trade-off” entre el objetivo de alcanzar la sostenibilidad ambiental y el objetivo de la seguridad alimentaria, independiente del manejo agrícola en el futuro. En segundo lugar, a la luz de la reciente crisis de los precios de alimentos en los años 2007/08, la tesis analiza los impactos de la apertura de los mercados agrícolas en la transmisión de precios de los alimentos en seis países de América Latina: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México y el Perú. Para identificar las posibles relaciones de cointegración entre los índices de precios al consumidor de alimentos y los índices de precios de agrarios internacionales, sujetos a diferentes grados de apertura de mercados agrícolas en los seis países de América Latina, se utiliza un modelo simple de corrección de error (single equation error correction). Los resultados indican que la integración global de los mercados agrícolas ha dado lugar a diferentes tasas de transmisión de precios en los países investigados. Sobre todo en el corto plazo, las tasas de transmisión dependen del grado de apertura comercial, mientras que en el largo plazo las tasas de transmisión son elevadas, pero en gran medida independientes del régimen de comercio. Por lo tanto, durante un período de shocks de precios mundiales una mayor apertura del comercio trae consigo más inestabilidad de los precios domésticos a corto plazo y la resultante persistencia en el largo plazo. Sin embargo, estos resultados no verifican necesariamente la utilidad de las políticas comerciales, aplicadas frecuentemente por los gobiernos para amortiguar los shocks de precios. Primero, porque existe un riesgo considerable de volatilidad de los precios debido a cambios bruscos de la oferta nacional si se promueve la autosuficiencia en el país; y segundo, la política de proteccionismo asume el riesgo de excluir el país de participar en las cadenas de suministro de alto valor del sector agrícola, y por lo tanto esa política podría obstaculizar el desarrollo económico. Sin embargo, es indispensable establecer políticas efectivas para reducir la vulnerabilidad de los hogares a los aumentos repentinos de precios de alimentos, lo cual requiere una planificación gubernamental precisa con el presupuesto requerido disponible. En tercer lugar, la globalización afecta a la estructura de una economía y, por medios distintos, la distribución de los ingreso en un país. Perú sirve como ejemplo para investigar más profundamente las cuestiones relacionadas con los cambios en la distribución de los ingresos en zonas rurales. Perú, que es un país que está cada vez más integrado en los mercados mundiales, consiguió importantes descensos en la pobreza extrema en sus zonas rurales, pero a la vez adolece de alta incidencia de pobreza moderada y de desigualdad de los ingresos en zonas rural al menos durante el periodo comprendido entre 2004 y 2012. Esta parte de la tesis tiene como objetivo identificar las fuerzas impulsoras detrás de estas dinámicas en el Perú mediante el uso de un modelo de microsimulación basado en modelos de generación de ingresos aplicado a nivel los hogares rurales. Los resultados indican que la fuerza principal detrás de la reducción de la pobreza ha sido el crecimiento económico general de la economía, debido a las condiciones macroeconómicas favorables durante el periodo de estudio. Estos efectos de crecimiento beneficiaron a casi todos los sectores rurales, y dieron lugar a la disminución de la pobreza rural extrema, especialmente entre los agricultores de papas y de maíz. En parte, estos agricultores probablemente se beneficiaron de la apertura de los mercados agrícolas, que es lo que podría haber provocado un aumento de los precios al productor en tiempos de altos precios mundiales de los alimentos. Sin embargo, los resultados también sugieren que para una gran parte de la población más pobre existían barreras de entrada a la hora de poder participar en el empleo asalariado fuera de la agricultura o en la producción de cultivos de alto valor. Esto podría explicarse por la falta de acceso a unos activos importantes: por ejemplo, el nivel de educación de los pobres era apenas mejor en 2012 que en 2004; y también las dotaciones de tierra y de mano de obra, sobre todo de los productores pobres de maíz y patata, disminuyeron entre 2004 y 2012. Esto lleva a la conclusión de que aún hay margen para aplicar políticas para facilitar el acceso a estos activos, que podría contribuir a la erradicación de la pobreza rural. La tesis concluye que el comercio agrícola puede ser un importante medio para abastecer una población mundial creciente y más rica con una cantidad suficiente de calorías. Para evitar adversos efectos ambientales e impactos negativos para los consumidores y de los productores pobres, el enfoque debe centrarse en las mejoras de la productividad agrícola, teniendo en cuenta los límites ambientales y ser socialmente inclusivo. En este sentido, será indispensable seguir desarrollando soluciones tecnológicas que garanticen prácticas de producción agrícola minimizando el uso de recursos naturales. Además, para los pequeños pobres agricultores será fundamental eliminar las barreras de entrada a los mercados de exportación que podría tener efectos indirectos favorables a través de la adopción de nuevas tecnologías alcanzables a través de mercados internacionales. ABSTRACT The world is in a state of rapid transition. Ongoing globalization, population growth, rising living standards and increasing urbanization, accompanied by changing dietary patterns throughout the world, are increasing the demand for food. Together with more open trade regimes, this has triggered growing international agricultural trade during the last decade. For many Latin American countries, which are gifted with relative natural resource abundance, these trends have fueled rapid export growth of primary goods. In just 30 years, the Latin American agricultural market share has almost doubled from 10% in 1980 to 18% in 2010. These market developments have given rise to a debate around a number of crucial issues related to the role of agricultural trade for global food security, for the environment or for poverty reduction in developing countries. This thesis uses an integrated framework to analyze a broad array of possible impacts related to transforming agricultural and rural markets in light of globalization, and in particular of increasing trade activity. Specifically, the following issues are approached: First, global food production will have to rise substantially by the year 2050 to meet effective demand of a nine billion people world population which poses major challenges to food production systems. Doing so without compromising environmental integrity in exporting regions is an even greater challenge. In this context, the thesis explores the effects of future global trade liberalization on food security indicators in different world regions and on a variety of environmental indicators at different scales in Latin America and the Caribbean, in due consideration of different future agricultural production practices. The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) –a global dynamic partial equilibrium model of the agricultural sector developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)– is applied to run different future production scenarios, and agricultural trade regimes out to 2050. Model results are linked to biophysical models, used to assess changes in water footprints and water quality, as well as impacts on biodiversity and carbon stocks from land use change by 2050. Results indicate that further trade liberalization is crucial for improving food security globally, but that it would also lead to more environmental pressures in some regions across Latin America. Contrasting land expansion versus more intensified agriculture shows that productivity improvements are generally superior to agricultural land expansion, from an economic and environmental point of view. Most promising for achieving food security and environmental goals, in equal measure, is the sustainable intensification scenario. However, the analysis shows that there are trade-offs between environmental and food security goals for all agricultural development paths. Second, in light of the recent food price crisis of 2007/08, the thesis looks at the impacts of increasing agricultural market integration on food price transmission from global to domestic markets in six Latin American countries, namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. To identify possible cointegrating relationships between the domestic food consumer price indices and world food price levels, subject to different degrees of agricultural market integration in the six Latin American countries, a single equation error correction model is used. Results suggest that global agricultural market integration has led to different levels of price path-through in the studied countries. Especially in the short-run, transmission rates depend on the degree of trade openness, while in the long-run transmission rates are high, but largely independent of the country-specific trade regime. Hence, under world price shocks more trade openness brings with it more price instability in the short-term and the resulting persistence in the long-term. However, these findings do not necessarily verify the usefulness of trade policies, often applied by governments to buffer such price shocks. First, because there is a considerable risk of price volatility due to domestic supply shocks if self-sufficiency is promoted. Second, protectionism bears the risk of excluding a country from participating in beneficial high-value agricultural supply chains, thereby hampering economic development. Nevertheless, to reduce households’ vulnerability to sudden and large increases of food prices, effective policies to buffer food price shocks should be put in place, but must be carefully planned with the required budget readily available. Third, globalization affects the structure of an economy and, by different means, the distribution of income in a country. Peru serves as an example to dive deeper into questions related to changes in the income distribution in rural areas. Peru, a country being increasingly integrated into global food markets, experienced large drops in extreme rural poverty, but persistently high rates of moderate rural poverty and rural income inequality between 2004 and 2012. The thesis aims at disentangling the driving forces behind these dynamics by using a microsimulation model based on rural household income generation models. Results provide evidence that the main force behind poverty reduction was overall economic growth of the economy due to generally favorable macroeconomic market conditions. These growth effects benefited almost all rural sectors, and led to declines in extreme rural poverty, especially among potato and maize farmers. In part, these farmers probably benefited from policy changes towards more open trade regimes and the resulting higher producer prices in times of elevated global food price levels. However, the results also suggest that entry barriers existed for the poorer part of the population to participate in well-paid wage-employment outside of agriculture or in high-value crop production. This could be explained by a lack of sufficient access to important rural assets. For example, poor people’s educational attainment was hardly better in 2012 than in 2004. Also land and labor endowments, especially of (poor) maize and potato growers, rather decreased than increased over time. This leads to the conclusion that there is still scope for policy action to facilitate access to these assets, which could contribute to the eradication of rural poverty. The thesis concludes that agricultural trade can be one important means to provide a growing and richer world population with sufficient amounts of calories. To avoid adverse environmental effects and negative impacts for poor food consumers and producers, the focus should lie on agricultural productivity improvements, considering environmental limits and be socially inclusive. In this sense, it will be crucial to further develop technological solutions that guarantee resource-sparing agricultural production practices, and to remove entry barriers for small poor farmers to export markets which might allow for technological spill-over effects from high-value global agricultural supply chains.

Approved list of books for rural libraries. Books for rural libraries must be selected from the list approved by the state superintendent of public instruction, in accordance with section 1 of the rural library of 1903.

At head of title: Dept. of libraries, loans, and course of study.

Improvement in rural school houses and grounds, 1900-1906.

On cover: By R. D. W. Connor, Dept. of Education.

What is the relation of academic preparation, experience, intelligence, achievement, and sex of rural teachers in Mississippi to their pay?

Thesis note on label mounted on p.2 of cover.