Higher education institutions now depend on learning management systems to deliver their academic programs. Implementing them poses challenges in rural areas and at universities serving historically marginalised communities. This study investigates how undergraduate students use a learning management system to access their curriculum materials at a rural university serving historically marginalised students in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study investigates students' access to digital learning materials through perceptions of system usefulness and operational simplicity, platform access and educational equality, and system participation. The researchers used a qualitative research approach to conduct semi-structured interviews with forty undergraduate students who used the institutional Learning Management System. The researchers used thematic analysis to examine the research material. The findings show that students understand the pedagogical benefits of learning management systems, as they help them access study materials, submit their work, and continue their studies. The research identified multiple structural and economic obstacles which hinder students from adopting the system. Students face obstacles such as inconsistent internet service, expensive data plans, and restricted access to digital tools. Their educational institutions provide different levels of assistance. The existing limits create ongoing access problems that prevent students from fully participating in academic programs, even though institutions have promised to develop digital learning systems. The research shows that educational institutions should balance their technological needs with their social responsibility to develop equitable learning environments, as users receive educational content through learning management systems. The article concludes that meaningful integration of learning management systems in rural universities requires not only user-focused technological design but also sustained structural interventions.
Educational inequality in rural contexts requires professional development programs that address both teaching competencies and teachers’ quality of life. This study evaluated the Khruwattanawithi program for beginning rural teachers in Thailand using Kirkpatrick’s model. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods evaluation design was employed with 67 participants who completed surveys and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative results indicated consistently high ratings across all levels, with Reaction receiving the highest scores and Learning slightly lower, while Behaviour and Results showed strong evidence of training transfer and school-level impact. No significant differences were found across gender, field of study, school type, teaching assignment, or debt level, confirming the program’s broad applicability. Correlation analysis revealed significant positive associations among all levels, with the strongest link between Behaviour and Results, supporting the theoretical transfer chain. Qualitative evidence further demonstrated gains in digital literacy, classroom research, reflective practice, and systems thinking, which contributed to enhanced student engagement, school innovation, and professional advancement. The findings suggest that holistic, practice-oriented professional development integrating pedagogical competence and well-being support can promote teacher sustainability and educational equity in disadvantaged rural areas, offering insights for scaling similar initiatives in comparable contexts.
Generative artificial intelligence has become a transformative presence in higher education. The incorporation of generative artificial intelligence into educational frameworks has reshaped how students acquire knowledge, educators teach, and educational institutions operate. This study presents the qualitative findings on how students in rural and regional higher educational settings use generative artificial intelligence for their academic endeavours. A qualitative design was used in this study with a web-based survey asking open-ended questions, providing insights into student perspectives. This paper argues that generative artificial intelligence creates tension in rural and regional higher education: it can expand learning support and flexibility for students who are geographically and socially distant from campus, while simultaneously risking the amplification of existing digital divides, cultural biases, and equity gaps. Using students’ accounts from a multi-campus regional university, the study addresses insight into how generative artificial intelligence is incorporated into study practices and how this use intersects with persistent issues of access, support, and digital inclusion. These findings contribute new evidence to guide equitable and ethical generative artificial intelligence implementation in rural and regional higher education. The findings suggest that while generative artificial intelligence can enrich the educational experience by adapting to diverse learning styles, it necessitates robust frameworks to manage ethical issues ensuring equitable access. This study highlights the need for policy interventions that provide necessary infrastructure and foster an environment where generative artificial intelligence complements traditional educational methods, supporting an inclusive learning environment. Such measures may ensure these benefits are realised across diverse geographical and socioeconomic contexts.
This issue of the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education demonstrates the depth and burgeoning state of research in our field. It showcases research from places as diverse as Pakistan, Spain, Australia, Indonesia, and Chile, to name a few. It is a real statement of the strength, richness and diversity of our field; and hopefully of the health of this journal in being an outlet for this mosaic of voices in rural education. But what is the link between these articles and research beyond the obvious topic of rural education? What are these researchers telling us from every corner of the globe? Surely, they are speaking to us about the hot topics in our field: for example, the impact of Artificial Intelligence in rural and regional higher education, teacher preparation, matters of boarding schools for Indigenous youth, and concerns with equity and leadership. After excavating in the depths of each article, we believe this collection of research implicitly and explicitly addresses issues of agency in rural and regional schooling, higher education, policy and community. Agency in rural education, sometimes takes a backseat against matters of structure, resources, funding, and inequality.
The Indonesian government implemented a new educational strategy known as Deep Learning in 2025. Participation in the associated training programme is limited to selected teachers. This study primarily explores the perspectives of educators in rural Indonesia to identify potential inequities arising from current policy practices, with urban teachers included for comparison. Drawing on Critical Policy Theory, the study analysed the views of 15 educators from rural and urban settings through semi-structured interviews. The interview data were transcribed and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The findings show that rural educators experience limited access to training, insufficient institutional support, and perceive discriminatory effects linked to the policy. Rural teachers also reported a limited understanding of the policy and described classroom practices as sub-optimal due to inadequate support. Overall, the findings suggest that current policy practices disproportionately disadvantage rural educators while privileging those in urban settings. These results highlight the need to revise existing policy frameworks to ensure more equitable and inclusive implementation, with particular emphasis on the development of rural education.
This article reports research findings on how positive and limiting experiences related to wellbeing within primary and/or secondary boarding schools in La Araucanía, Chile, shape and influence the educational trajectories of indigenous students. The study adopts a qualitative descriptive methodology and involved eight participants. The main results show positive factors that strengthen educational trajectories throughout life in these educational spaces, such as the formation of friendships, harmonious coexistence, and fostering independence. Likewise, the study identifies limiting factors that may hinder educational progress, including factors that can sometimes lead to dropping out of school, such as peer violence, bullying, and the need for emotional support. The main conclusions underscore the urgent need to further study the educational trajectories of children and young people attending these institutions, as these factors may positively or negatively affect the educational outcomes of indigenous populations. In doing so, this research seeks to contribute to reducing educational inequality between indigenous and non-indigenous students and to promoting a sense of belonging and wellbeing in these educational spaces.
This article examines whether Indonesia’s school zoning policy promotes educational equality and equity, and what its implementation reveals about educational administration and leadership. Focusing on Bangka Belitung Province, an archipelagic region with marked rural–urban variation, the study employed a mixed-methods design combining 25 focus group discussions with school principals, teachers, and administrative staff, as well as a survey of 300 parents and guardians across urban and rural districts. Quantitative analysis included t-tests, one-way ANOVA, linear regression, and multilevel models to capture individual- and school-level factors, while qualitative data were analysed thematically. The findings showed that zoning may support equality of access by distributing students more evenly across schools. However, equity gaps persist where rural–urban resource disparities, uneven teacher capacity, and limited support systems constrain school quality. Perceptions of fairness also varied across stakeholder groups, with mothers, younger parents, and families in private schools reporting lower perceived equity. Multilevel results suggest that school-level structural factors exert only a modest influence on perceptions, highlighting the importance of school leadership and administrative practices. For educational administrators, the findings indicate that admission policies alone cannot ensure equitable outcomes, particularly in geographically dispersed islands settings where uneven service access shapes schooling opportunities. The article contributes evidence from an under-researched archipelagic context and offers practical insights for school leaders seeking to align zoning with educational justice. Beyond Indonesia, the findings may be relevant to education systems using proximity-based admissions under decentralised governance, especially in rural areas or resource-constrained settings.
Learning Management Systems are becoming increasingly indispensable in higher education, but their adoption in rural universities presents very different challenges and opportunities, influenced by geographical location, infrastructure, and socio-cultural factors. The qualitative research here aims to analyse undergraduate students' perspectives on Learning Management Systems at a rural university in South Africa, with the aim of understanding how these digital tools are perceived in a resource-poor setting. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology as the underpinning theory, a phenomenological method was employed, with semi-structured interviews conducted with 40 students from four faculties. Thematic analysis outlined four main themes as follows: (1) the two-sided nature of the access to digital technology, Learning Management Systems act as a barrier to the educational gap but on the other hand, it stresses the existence of the digital divide; (2) the battle between the promise of technology and the reality of the teaching process; (3) the necessity of helping tools that are responsive to both culture and context; and (4) the influence of Learning Management Systems on the academic community, the issue is whether it will be the case of boosting or bottlenecking. The study not only reveals that the Learning Management System is a promising solution to the learning problems of rural institutions, but it also calls for the tackling of issues that cause the success of these solutions to be dependent on such prevalent factors as unstable connectivity, varying degrees of digital literacy, and the need for more gentle and inclusive instructional design. Thus, the present research contributes to the discussion of digital equity in rural higher education and offers practical insights for educators, administrators, and policymakers seeking to implement Learning Management Systems in meaningful, sustainable, and fair ways.
This article examines the impact of a place-based professional learning initiative delivered across four regional locations in Victoria, focused on mentoring practice and educator renewal. Drawing on qualitative participant feedback (n = 15) and inductive thematic analysis, the study explores how relationally oriented professional learning influences educator confidence, professional identity, and perceived retention. Findings indicate widespread shifts in participants' understanding of mentoring, particularly toward relational, intentional, and growth-oriented practices and highlight the value of structured conversation frameworks and opportunities for professional dialogue. Qualitative themes reveal renewed professional identity, reduced professional isolation, and increased confidence in engaging in challenging conversations. The paper argues that when professional learning is delivered in-region and designed as relational and reflective, it can function as professional renewal rather than compliance-based development. Implications are discussed for mentoring as a system-level strategy for strengthening regional educator retention and professional sustainability.
Although the definitions of rural schools vary across educational research and from different educative realities, all educative rural contexts are suffering from the same social and cultural situation (globalisation, depopulation and school closures) and the framing of these schools as a disadvantage, problematics and from a deficit discourse. This situation can affect the perceptions that teachers, families and students have about the rural school and the meaning it has for them, shaping a social imaginary around them that determines the educational practices and the sustainability of the territory. In this context, the purpose of this study is to advance theorical knowledge of senses and meanings of rural schools from the voices of those who live there (teachers, families and students), challenging the prevailing negative representation and dichotomy culture between rural-urban context. For that, the research will be carried out in two phases: (i) exploratory and (ii) ethnographic study considering the experiences and perspectives of 8 community small rural schools in northern Spain (Aragón). The results reveal the existence of different meanings around rural schools. On the one hand, there are metro-centric perspectives that tend to reproduce an urban model in rural areas and show a reductive sense of rural schools as monolithic reality related to school organisation, services and school culture. On the other hand, there is a sense of the rural in relation to participation, community and sustainability, addressing a pedagogical and contextual approach valuing the idiosyncrasy of the rural realities. These discourses seem to be influenced by the implementation of metro-centric and neoliberal policies, which jeopardise the contextual logic of rural schools.
Single-teacher multigrade schools in rural Balochistan, Pakistan operate under chronic structural constraints, yet how teachers sustain learning and what justice-relevant work their practice performs remains underexplored. This convergent mixed-methods study combined a survey of 100 teachers with five semi-structured interviews, interpreted through Fraser’s redistribution-recognition-representation framework and an ecological conception of teacher agency. Barriers were evident across domains, while adaptive practices were frequently reported. Regression results indicated that adaptive practice was most robustly associated with infrastructure/environmental adversity and administrative burden. Interview evidence shows these adaptations as compensatory justice work: they redistribute learning opportunities, recognise learners’ linguistic repertoires, and create informal channels of participation where formal support is weak. Teacher adaptation, however, is not a substitute for systemic reform. Policy priorities include minimum infrastructure standards, protection of teaching time, multigrade-specific preparation, and participatory governance that supports teacher well-being and locally responsive practice.
Book review of Simone White, Jayne Downey and Melyssa Fuqua (2024). Sharing Leadership Stories in Rural Education. Leading Rurally across Australia and the United States. Springer.
This article investigates the association between teachers providing academic support to their students and student's perceptions of their relationships with their teachers, with a focus on the role of geographical location. Utilising the Revised School Climate Measure, this pilot study surveyed 522 students across four Australian faith-based schools—two urban, and two regional schools. The data were analysed using a combination of correlations, one-way MANOVA and binomial regression. The results indicate that academic support is a contributing factor to students in regional schools reporting stronger relationships with their teachers compared to their urban peers. This study provides a foundation for future research and could be replicated on a larger scale. The implications offer school leaders and policymakers additional information to help address areas of disadvantage within regional Australian schools, while also highlighting the need for further investigation in this area.
Teacher shortages are a worldwide concern and may disproportionately affect rural schools. Teacher mobility is an important but under-studied factor in these shortages. Understanding teachers’ reasons for different mobility decisions (leaving the profession; moving to another school) can inform policies to increase retention. This project used a subset of rural teacher data from a statewide exit survey collected from educators in South Carolina, a racially diverse state in the southeastern United States, who left their positions at the end of the 2023-24 school year. The survey, which was developed by the research team in association with a state-funded research consortium, allowed exiting teachers to indicate the relative importance of different factors driving their mobility choices, including personal reasons, job resources, job demands, and policy reasons. A multivariate multiple regression revealed that teachers working in rural distant schools placed lower importance on job demands and policy reasons for exiting than teachers in rural fringe schools. A logistic regression model analysis revealed that differences in teachers’ perceptions of job resources, job demands, and personal reasons were statistically significantly related with different mobility choices, and that job demands were most strongly associated with leaving the profession completely. Ultimately, the findings from this study may highlight community assets that rural schools can leverage to retain teachers more effectively in the future.
This special issue explores the complex intersections of mobility and rurality across diverse global contexts. The contributing articles by up-and-coming rural scholars reveal how mobility encompasses multifaceted social, emotional, and cognitive transitions which shape rural individuals’ lived experiences and imagined futures. Collectively, this issue calls for more nuanced understandings of mobility in rural education research and policy by recognising it as intertwined with place-based assets, personal needs, and contextualised meanings. This special issue aims to foster innovative strategies promoting educational equity and sustainable development that honour the diverse contexts shaping rural lives and mobilities. Through the platforming of emerging scholars’ voices across methodologies and geographies, new strategies promoting sustainable rural education are envisioned.
Much of the academic literature on postsecondary planning for rural students has presented socioeconomic and geographic mobilities as intrinsically linked, arguing that a central dilemma for rural students is whether to stay in their home communities or leave to pursue upward socioeconomic mobility. The present narrative study explores this dilemma from the perspective of two high school juniors from one rural high school in the United States. Though Allen and Gabriella (pseudonyms) attended the same high school, their conceptualisations of their futures were vastly different. Gabriella dreamed of becoming an orthodontist and living in a city. Allen dreamed of owning his own agricultural business and staying in the local community. This article examines each student’s thought process as they chose whether or not to leave their home community. Findings indicate that a combination of sociocultural factors ‘push’ or ‘pull’ students in their respective directions. These factors include students’ lifestyle aspirations, their social identities and relationships with their community, and their views on the role of higher education in financial success. This suggests that rural students’ residential aspirations are more nuanced, individualised, and context-dependent than previously thought.
A divisive legislative mandate presented an impending deadline to meet zero-emission transportation for student busing in New York State. Though lauded as a progressive environmental measure, this directive proved to lack public support, be a challenge to the infrastructure of rural towns, and threatened the financial solvency of rural school districts. This situation required a repositioning of school transportation as part of the rural infrastructure and demonstrated the need for local voices to counter broad-strokes legislation, with particular attention to the unique needs of rural places.
This article examines rural youth mobility in China through Yu’s story, a young woman who simultaneously calls three places ‘home’. First, the story unsettles conventional categories of stayers and leavers in the migration framework. Yu’s trajectory highlights how negotiations between family responsibilities and structural constraints, rather than just individual aspirations, become the key determinants of rural youth mobility. Second, it challenges the stability and fixity assumptions embedded in the cultural construction of rurality. By focusing on Yu’s transportation practices, from electric bike rides within the village to long-distance bus journeys between towns, the article reveals how rural places are traversed in the complex and dynamic process of everyday mobility, showing how the appearance of stability in rural life is inherently dynamic and fluid. The article argues for recognising rurality as a generative space of connection and mobility, challenging urban-centred assumptions about rural youth mobility.
More than 200 million residents of rural China migrate to urban destinations for work, but due to restrictions on household registration (the hukou system), these migrations are often cyclical and temporary. These patterns have resulted in a phenomenon in which rural children are left in the care of relatives while parents migrate for higher wages in urban labour markets. The impacts of this migration on children’s outcomes are often ambiguous: while separation from parents is associated with a range of developmental and social challenges, the higher incomes that come from urban labour markets allow parents to send substantial remittance payments back to their primary household. We use panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010–2014) to test how parental migration affects (1) household education expenditure and (2) saving for future education. Left behind children are poorer and experience smaller increases in education spending than peers with co-resident parents. At the same time, households with a migrating parent are modestly more likely to start saving for education. These results, robust to propensity score matching, suggest migration changes expectations more than near-term expenditures.
This autoethnographic essay explores the concepts of mobility and literacy development by unpacking my rural, Queer journey—from closeted farm kid to openly Queer educator to rural, Queer scholar. To guide this autoethnography, I used five grounding texts, each explicitly reflecting rural Queer literacies. These texts were points of inquiry acting as earworms, continuously reminding me of my own rural Queer literacies. Following this dialogical reflection, I reference three understandings related to rural and Queer literacy development focusing on mobility, literacy as identity kits, and the influences of cis-heteronormativity and metronormativity. These understandings underscore the fluidity of mobility as it relates to literacy development, while also illustrating how mobility can complicate lifeworlds and challenge assumptive narratives of rurality and Queerness.
