Homegrown Teachers: Leveraging Residency Pathways to Address Rural Teacher Shortages

Rural schools have difficulty attracting and retaining teachers. To explore whether residencies might provide novel solutions, a case study of 16 teacher candidates in one rural residency program was conducted. The research focused on their motivations to teach in a rural area and the resources they identified as supporting their teaching. Findings suggest that teacher candidates identify rural familialism, defined as the inter-generational wisdom and resources passed down to new teachers, as a key resource.