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WHAT MATTERS AROUND HERE: A COMMUNITY STUDY
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WHAT MATTERS AROUND HERE: A COMMUNITY STUDY OF RURAL

EDUCATION AND POVERTY

by

Angela M. Kirby

A DISSERTATION

Presented to
Michigan State University
In partial fulﬁllment of the requirements for
The degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Educational Administration

ABSTRACT

WHAT MATTERS AROUND HERE: A COMMUNITY STUDY OF RURAL
EDUCATION AND POVERTY

By

Angela M. Kirby

The research shows that poor tend to be educationally disadvantaged and rural
poor more educationally disadvantaged. Yet, educational policy reform typically uses
urban—based models when addressing issues of rural education. This study expands a
limited body of research in the area of rural education of poor students and their
communities. The unique contribution of the study lies in its focus on articulating a set
of understandings about the combined issues of place, poVerty and education. In the two
categories focusing on one community values regarding family and education, eight
themes emerged. They highlight themes of isolation; social exclusion and limited access
to resources accentuate the need to examine social networks and communal assets. The
rural emergent community stories provide a powerful counterpoint to the supposition that
poverty is primarily an economic issue. Findings illuminate the need to shift the
educational policy focus from eradicating poverty based on quantiﬁed numbers of poor
people, to addressing a comprehensive causal explanation of why rural people are poor,

its effects on educational aspirations and behaviors.

Copyright by
ANGELA MARIE KIRBY
2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

These acknowledgements are of a personal and professional nature. First, I would
like to thank Dr. Phil Cusick, the chairperson of my dissertation committee. Dr. Cusick
started almost every discussion with the question “what do you know?” I thought I knew
very little. He however, believed otherwise. He suggested this dissertation topic and
spent countless hours sharing his ideas and helping me develop my own. He challenged
my thinking with grace, honesty and humor. He developed my thinking and became a
friend to me.

To the other members of the committee to whom I hold in high regard. Without
their help and support, the dissertation would not have been what it is. Dr. Rietu
Mabokela, Dr. Chris Dunbar and Dr. Maenette Benham shared their expertise in the areas
of research methodology, theory and the cultural applications of this work. Moreover,
because each are experts in diverse ﬁelds focusing on culture and social justice, their own
work greatly inﬂuenced my own as a research and analyst. I am deeply grateful to have
worked with them.

My personal thanks go ﬁrst to my husband. Jim is the son of a small-town barber
and the oldest of eleven children. Raised as a working class Catholic, he delivered papers
and swept the barber shop ﬂoor in a rural town pulsing with life. Craving a life beyond
rolling comﬁelds, bean suppers and church bingo, he saved his pennies and leﬁ his home
town to seek his fortune in the city. He understood rural poverty. And his valued

feedback grounded my own ideas. His experience helped me to understand the results of

this study. During the completion of this dissertation, he endured many hours alone
while I was away and working. During that time he cared for our own ﬁve children and
busy equine ranch. He is a patient man, a practical and benevolent father, as steady, deep
and even as the current of a river that ﬂows to turbulent waters.

The rest of my family provided support in tangible ways. The older children,
Jimmy and Matthew encouraged me to complete this dissertation when I thought I could
not. I remember Matthew saying, “Mom, we have all given up too much for you to quit
now. You have to complete this.” My daughter Katherine became outside counsel,
prooﬁng for readability. She helped by discussing the emergent themes and the
presentation of the dissertation study. She inserted her own feminist critique to the
analysis of obvious power imbalances embedded in the social structure. I felt great pride,
in a way that only mothers do when we discussed the application of theory to the results
of this study with my daughter. Finally, my son Michael and daughter Elle who are our
youngest children have never known a mother without a book in her lap and a pressing
deadline. They tolerated this continued disruption of their family life with a cheerful
acceptance.

Final thanks go to the remarkable people who gave me permission to tell their
stories. They shared their hearts, their homes and their intimate stories and experiences.
As with any study, some of the results can be interpreted as unpleasant. I myself, as a

participant observer, felt my heart tear when I recorded their experiences.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ...................................................................................... x
List of Figures .................................................................................. xi
CHAPTER I: THE PROBLEM .............................................................. 1
Overview ................................................................................ 1
Purpose and Signiﬁcance ............................................................. 3
Conceptual Framework ............................................................... 7
Research Question .................................................................... 11
Review of Literature ................................................................. 13
Literature Describing the Rural Family ................................... 13
Characteristics of Rural Families .......................................... 14
Economic Support ........................................................... 15
Rural Identity and Isolation ................................................ 19
Education ..................................................................... 20
Place and Educational Aspirations ........................................ 21
Community and Rural Educational Aspirations ......................... 24
Poverty, Family and Rural Educational Attainment .................... 25
Summary of the Literature ........................................................... 28
Looking Ahead ........................................................................ 30
Organization of this Study ........................................................... 32
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY ......................................................... 33
Introduction ........................................................................... 32
Purpose and Research Questions ................................................... 34
Method ................................................................................. 35
Social Processes of Rural Educational Aspirations and Behaviors ............ 37
Pilot Study ............................................................................. 40
Study Design .......................................................................... 43
Method of Data Collection .......................................................... 45
Questionnaire Design and Interviewing .......................................... 46
Sample Design ........................................................................ 49
Participant Sample ................................................................... 53
Community Proﬁle .................................................................. 55
Data Coding and File Construction ................................................ 58

vi

CHAPTER III: RESULTS ................................................................. 60

Introduction .......................................................................... 60
The Setting ............................................................................ 63
Participants ............................................................................ 69
The Family ............................................................................ 71
Family Values: Traditions as Educational Tools ........................ 72
Family Values: Vital Connections through Reciprocity ............... 77
Household Structures ............................................. 77
Economic Support ................................................. 81
Family Values: Rural Identity and Rural Isolation ...................... 86
Education .............................................................................. 96
The Purposes of Schooling ................................................. 99
The Inﬂuence of Kin on the Perceptions of Schooling ................ 105
Leveling ...................................................................... 107
Schools as Vehicles of Mobilty ........................................... 110
Distrust ...................................................................... 113
Distrust of Teachers as Outsiders ........................................ 116
Distrust of Government ................................................... 118
Rural Education and Survival in Rutgers ............................... 121
Chapter Summary ................................................................... 122

CHAPTER IV: GENERALIZATIONS, IMPLICATIONS, REVIEW OF
LITERATURE, CONTRIBUTION, CONCLUSION

Central Focus of the Study ......................................................... 124
Key Findings ........................................................................ 125
Contributors .......................................................................... 1 30
Primary Contributors of Low Educational Aspirations ............... 118
Historical and Socio-structural Contributors ........................... 130
Economic Contributors ..................................................... 134
Contributors to Limited Mobility ......................................... 136
Implications ............................................................................ 1 39
Introduction ............................................................................ 1 39
Policy Implications .................................................................. 140
Theoretical Implications ............................................................ 143
Summary .............................................................................. 145
Limitations of the Study ............................................................ 148
Theoretical Overview ............................................................... 149
Review of Literature ................................................................. 151
Contribution of This Study ......................................................... 151
Conclusion ............................................................................ 153
APPENDICES ............................................................................... 155

Appendix A: Application for Review of a Project

vii

Involving Human Subjects and Consent .............. 156

Appendix B: Interview Questions ................................................ 160
Appendix C: Methodology Tables ................................................ 168
Appendix D: Figures ................................................................ 172
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................... 183

viii

LIST OF TABLES

. Semi-structured Interview Outline ................................................ 49
. Summary of Findings ............................................................... 70
. Average Educational Attainment .................................................. 97
. Demographic Comparison Data ................................................... 98

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Fish Camp ............................................................................ 74
2. Smoking Catﬁsh ..................................................................... 76
3. Extended Families Living on Family Land ..................................... 78
4. Family Home in Rutger School District .......................................... 79
5. Extended Family Living Communally on Family Homestead ................ 80
6. Ice Fishing ............................................................................ 82
7. Local Employment ................................................................... 82
8. Downtown Rutgers .................................................................. 84
9. Family Living Year-round in a Travel Trailer .................................... 87
10. Extended Family on a Rural Homestead ........................................... 93
1 I. Home Bordering School Grounds .................................................. 94
12. The School ............................................................................. 96
13. Rental Property ...................................................................... 115

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION, CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, LITERATURE REVIEW

A town is a thing, like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a town
has shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns, so that
there are no two towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels
through a town is a mystery, not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster
than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it and faster than women can call it
over the fences (Steinbeck, 1953, p. 485).

Rural life is often overlooked in postindustrial society while urban problems
garner greater public awareness. Urban problems seem bigger and perhaps more
troubling than rural problems because of the concentration of large numbers of people
(Fitchen, 1991). Yet poor rural towns have persistent and worrisome problems. One such
problem is the reality that rural places have lower educational aspiration and attainment

levels than others (NBA, 2001).

This narrative describes the educational aspirations, values and behaviors of one
poor rural town and the social process that sustains community members. It is a
community study with the school at the center. It is a phenomenological description of
the community’s educational values against a backdrop of existing social values,
community life and social behaviors. Here, the community’s great priority of cultural
traditions is tied to the land. The family ties bind the community traditions with clans of

inter-related kin, thinning homesteads, and communal living. The community remains

l

isolated from the larger world through internal governance and resistance to outsiders.
Federal and state educational policy does not integrate well into the complex crevices of
rural values. The school and faculty in this rural community act as conduits of
educational policy by acknowledging this cultural clash while attempting to readjust the

community’s educational expectations.

It was this issue that moved me to investigate the educational attitudes and
behaviors of a high poverty rural community and the social process that sustains it. As a
former elementary principal in a rural area I observed educational attitudes, values, and
behaviors that were in conﬂict with state and federal educational initiatives. Moreover, I
observed that administrators and teachers received sanctions for schools that did not
perform according to a set of criteria normed against urban or suburban data (DeYoung &
Kannapel, 1999). Administrators, unable to negotiate these vast cultural differences,
might be viewed as ineffective at the state level but highly effective at the local level.
Rural educators, once known for softening educational policy, were increasingly forced
to follow the policy, some might suggest, to the detriment of the school and the school
community. It was this juxtaposition, this contest of wills between them that led me to a

community study of rural education, poverty and cultural policy.

In this study, I seek to describe a set of understandings emerging from a poor rural
town and with a population density so low that the term “frontier” comes to mind. This is
an isolated community, far from urban hubs. The people who live here struggle to make
ends meet, often traveling to distant towns and working several low-wage jobs. The

school is the community’s largest employer, yet few locals are employed within the

educational system. The school district’s educational achievement data and the state

and national test scores are low and have been classiﬁed as “failing” (Figure 12).

Purpose and Signiﬁcance
Rural educational attainment lags behind urban educational attainment, especially
in college completion. According to some researchers, these lags can be attributed to
roles rural families and communities play in the educational progress of youth (Beaulieu,
Isreal and Wimberly, 2003). These researchers suggest that disparities in educational
success may be less a matter of metropolitan or non-metropolitan setting or geographic
location and more a factor of variations in the ability of the family, school and

community.

Wherever students live or go to school, those that come from low-income
communities have lower educational aspirations than do their more economically
advantaged peers (Hass, 1992). It appears that poverty reduces children's opportunity to
learn, both in the family and at school (Huang, 1999). Compared to the educational
research on urban poor students, the information on their rural counterparts is meager;
however, some researchers have found that rural poor students have lower educational
aspirations and outcomes than both their more economically advantaged peers and their
urban counterparts (Marion, Mirochnik, McCaul & McIntyre, 1991: Center for Research

and Evaluation, 1991).

These results are likely to remain static, as students who stay in rural places have
the lowest educational aspirations of America's youth, and they earn less than those who

leave (Cobb, McIntire, & Pratt, 1990).

Relatively little is known about the social reproduction or mobility of high
poverty rural families, or the social processes that underpin them. More is known about
the concept of “place” and the importance of “place” to the rural student’s educational
aspirations. Haas and Nachtigal (I997) stress the importance of place and the connection
that the students must make on how they ﬁt into the rural community. Likewise, Paul
Theobald’s (1997) work focuses on the importance of place- conscious education in the
development of rural values. Historian Victor Magagna (1991) contends that there were
"intimate connections between territory and community" that historically deﬁned rural
lives and livelihoods. Like Magagna, Theobald describes this intra-dependence as a key
construct in rural living. Taken together, these scholars contend that the inﬂuence of
“place” outweighs social inﬂuences. In short, they suggest that strong ties to “place’

underpin and guide social inﬂuences, including those of class and mobility.

But what happens when the concepts of “place” are disrupted or changed through
economic or political inﬂuences? This study is not the ﬁrst to recognize that educational
attitudes and behaviors often have a social and economic basis and these changes have
received theoretical attention as well. Some recent studies have explored and
documented the social dynamics of citizens residing in rural enclaves when complex
educational policy changes are imposed (Woodrum & Howley, 2004). One such study
explored the impact of school consolidation on educational attitudes and behaviors

associated with school and “place” in rural Appalachia. Other prior work has considered

4

the social elements of such changes as it relates to kin and in rural communities. They
have been viewed as parts of an integrated system of changes acting together in a nested
social network. Studies exploring rural poverty and policy in particular document strong
social networks and an increased reliance on kin, naturally reducing a reliance on civic

institutions, including schools.

In summary, the poor tend to be educationally disadvantaged, the rural poor more
educationally disadvantaged. Rural schools face unique, complex, often difﬁcult
problems. Strong ties to community complicate educational reforms designed to lift them
out of poverty by using educational gains as a vehicle toward a global job market.
Furthermore, these problems are often inﬂuenced by socially reproduced notions of
“place” that community members and students carry with them.

Several decades of quantitative sociological research have demonstrated that the
social structure into which one is born has a massive inﬂuence on where one will end up
(McLoed, 1995). But little of this research has a rural focus. And although class and
geographic mobility in terms of relocation does occur, the structure of these social
processes is an under-researched ﬁeld. With that in mind, the goal of this research is to
expand knowledge in the area of rural education of poor students and their communities.

It seems that urban-based models and systems have guided research on rural
education (Kannepal & DeYoung, 1999). Moreover, there is a paucity of research and
theory development in rural education and in the narrower category of educational
aspirations and values, social reproductive properties impacting social mobility and social
reproduction in the education of rural poor students. Most of the literature focuses on

more industrialized populations: urban or suburban communities. The two categories of

schools share many problems but a substantial cultural divide works against the
possibility of using urban and suburban research as a framework from which to compare
and to understand rural educational communities (Theobald, 2005)

According to Theobald (2005) there are vast differences between these three
groups as communities and as socially responsive entities. Some scholars have provided
evidence that the educational aspirations of rural citizens are weaker than their urban and
suburban counterparts (Breen, 1989; Cobb, McIntire and Pratt, 1989; Howley, 2005;
McGranahan, 1994). The inﬂuence of the rural family and community on educational
aspirations and experiences has received some scholarly attention, as well (Howley,
2006; Jensen, McLaughlin & Slack, 2003; Licter, Roscigno & Condron, 2003; Glasgow,
2003; Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003). Geographic isolation and constrained
economic conditions impacting rural poverty levels (Tigges & F uguitt, 2003) are some of
the obvious structural attributes that contribute to the social processes underpinning
educational experiences, values and behaviors in rural communities (Jensen, McLaughlin
& Slack, 2003; Licter, Roscigno & Condron, 2003; Glasgow, 2003; Beaulieu, Isreal &
Wimberly, 2003). Other less obvious structural red ﬂags that notate the differences
between urban and rural also include institutions that maintain and reproduce community
(Bonanno & Constance, 2003) including community schools (Willis, 1977; McLoed,
1987). These contributing institutions have received scholarly attention as well (Fitchen,
1991; Purcell-Gates, 1997; Maeroff, 1998; Scott, 1998; Theobald, 2005).

This research helps frame the conceptual issues of community isolation, poverty
and family inﬂuence--factors that impact educational aspirations in rural places. Rural

sociological research suggests that the community’s local social relationships create

critical connections that bridge action and connect homogeneous groups within the
community to each other and to the outside world (Flora & Flora, 2003). Recent research
suggests that such features are key factors that impact educational achievement (Isreal,
Beaulieu and Hartland, 2003). Other scholars indicate that rural educational attainment
and aspirations are dependent on a set of complex interactions between school, home and
the community (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003).

Taken together, these works suggest that there are several aspects of rural
communities (family life, community life, socio-structural features) that are qualitatively
different than their urban and suburban counterparts. Moreover, this body of research
suggests that rural communities may play a critical role in the construction of educational
attitudes, values and behaviors associated with education and educational mobility.

The signiﬁcance of this study is that it expands the limited body of work in three
important ways. First, it views rural educational communities as socially responsive
entities--contributors to educational aspirations, values and behaviors. Second, this study
expands the limited body of research in qualitative detail. Third, it looks at recent
educational reform efforts on high poverty communities and describes the effects therein.
As a community study, it offers an in-depth investigation of a single site and identiﬁes

factors that both feed and sustain the community social system.

Conceptual Framework

 

Sociological community theories that helped clarify the differences between
social groups, which were utilized to formulate an understanding of the nature of rural

educational aspirations, values and experiences in rural communities. Speciﬁcally, the

work of Ferdinand Tonnies (1955) is used to explain the existing community differences
between these attitudes, values and experiences in large and small scale communities.
Moreover, this theory is used to explain the naturally rooted social relationships that
deﬁne rural communities, furthering the reproductive nature of educational attitudes,

behaviors and values and the internal logic that sustains them.

Sociological literature illuminates the differences between rural communities and
industrial community’s, providing a foundation for understanding their individual
differences. The work of Tonnies is based on the assumption that patterns of social
relationships in small and large-scale societies contributed to the development of cultural
assumptions. Moreover, Tonnies’ work provides a construct by which to examine the
social process underpinning educational attitudes and behaviors and the inﬂuence of

place and of community and the internal logic that supports these assumptions.

At the turn of the century, Tonnies used the terms gemeinschaft and gesellschaft
as a way to describe the set of varying social relationships and distinct cultural values
created by the phenomenon of workers in industrial societies that were leaving thier
agrarian roots, relocating in industrial societies for employment (Howley and Woodrum,
2004). Tonnies described gemeinschaft communities as places where people are bound
to one another through feelings of togetherness and with roles that are multi-plex and
interwoven. According to Tonnies, gemeinschaft lives are intricately interconnected,
based on family or neighborhood groupings, and are culturally homogeneous (Woodrum,
2004). By contrast, in gesellschaft communities, people live independently and are held
together by an instrumental goal. In gesellschaft communities, one group that an

individual belongs to may be separate from another, and the values held by one group are

often different and even in conﬂict with values held by the other yet they are held
together by a common objective. Examples of gessellschaft social groupings include an
investment brokerage company or a modern industrial sociality. In such a social
grouping, cultural diversity is part of the machinery of gesellschaft communities held

together by a common goal.

Understanding these concepts is at the heart of the debate regarding the roles
schools play in these different communities. In gemeinschaft communities, the role of
schools is to serve the needs of the local community and should reﬂect the values and
needs of the local community (Maynard & Howley, 1997). In gemeinschaft
communities, beliefs, schemes and mores are often shared and understood by those
residing within the community. Community members share the bonds of friendship or a
sense of togetherness. Each local place has separate and distinctive identities and
behaviors independent of their neighbors (Howley and Woodrum, 2004). And in these
local communities, residents have a sense of identity in the social network that
accompanies community membership. Some researchers describe this sense of belonging
as a narrational history representative of gemeinschaft communities (Wittel, 2001 ).
Accordingly, detailed knowledge about individual and group roles and behaviors in the
social network is commonplace. In other words, in rural communities, not only does

everybody know everybody, they also know what the other is doing.

In gemeinschaft communities, the ﬁrst role of the school is to educate students on
the day-to-day operations of the school. The norms, mores and schemes of the
community are part of the work of the educational social structure, centrally focusing on

function and outcome (Howley and Woodrum, 2004). Second, rural schools play

9

important roles in establishing a visible institution of citizen identity and in deﬁning the
community. They are centers for sports, theater, music and important civic activities,
where local talent becomes legendary. As symbols of community autonomy,
membership, viability, integration and tradition, schools in rural communities contribute

to a sense of survival in the adult culture.

Conversely, suburban or urban educators may advocate a gesellschaft role in the
education of the individual child very differently than gemeinschaft educators.
According to this way of thinking, individual membership is founded on public
responsibility, not community groups. These are “complex social spaces” (Howley and
Woodrum, 2004, pp.l) with elaborate divisions of labor tied to a political structure or
divisions of labor. These are often relatively large organizational structures or social
service institutions serving independent or “self interests.” Gesellschaft communities
lend themselves naturally to a greater reliance on outside social and governance
structures. Rather than community control being maintained by mores and norms, rules
are enforced by civil institutions, with a greater reliance on formal structures for
governance. The role of the school is to educate students within these complex social
relations for a global economy and the universal job market with transferable skills for
future jobs, often in distant places (Hass and Natchigal, 1998). In gesellschaft
communities, education is used as a “vehicle” to transcend culture, geography and kin. A
universal education means one of speciﬁcation and transferability. As a result, the growth
of gesellschaft communities has created an extremely mobile population, both

geographically and socially.

10

Tonnies (1955) presented a concise differentiation between the terms
"community" (gemeinschaﬁ) and society (gesellschaft), arguing that "community" is
perceived to be a tighter and more cohesive social entity within the context of the larger
society, due to the presence of a "unity of will." Supporting this work, scholars McMillan
and Chavis (1986) listed four elements that deﬁne a "sense of community": 1)
membership, 2) inﬂuence, 3) integration and fulﬁllment of needs, and 4) shared
emotional connection. These combined factors, according to Tonnies, constitute qualities
found within gemeinschaft communities. The inﬂuence of family and kinship, the
heartbeat of community, are the most inﬂuential, but other shared characteristics, such as

place or belief, could also result in gemeinschaft.

Tonnies’ (1955) work informs this study in several important ways. First, he
illuminates the distinctions between two social groups through the development of the
industrial age. To that end, Tonnies provides a basis for the deconstruction of the
relationship between social groupings (speciﬁcally, rural) and the increasing power of the
state. This understanding is central to this study because it sheds light on the social
processes that underpin rural receptivity of educational policy developed by distant state
heads. Second, Tonnies contends that there are two basic forms of will: (1) that to
approve of others and, (2) to serve the goals of the social group. The differences between
community priority and individual focus parallel those of gemienschaft and gesellschaft
community focus. Tonnies’ theory helps make sense of the data collected in this study,
which suggests a rural resistance to educational pressures to achieve according to
traditional urban-based models (DeYoung & Kannapel, 1999). That in gemienschaft

communities, what matters locally is vastly different than what matters in the minds of

11

distant state heads facilitating the currency of educational exchange. It helps to explain
why, in many rural communities, schools have become vehicles for educating people to
leave, fulﬁlling the forecast that these depleted towns are doomed to continued poverty
and decline (Haas & Natchigal, 1992). Tonnies’ work provides a framework from which
to deconstruct these intertwined, yet opposing goals.
Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the educational attitudes, aspirations,
values and behaviors of poor rural students and parents and to investigate how this rural
environment and community impact these attitudes and values. It attempts to illuminate
the social processes of rural poverty and how it circumscribes the futures of rural youth.
Moreover, it looks at the societal level where class structure is reproduced and
investigates the ways in which schools and educational structures such as policy
contribute to social immobility. The research will be guided by a series of questions, and

our ﬁrst exploratory question is:

1. How do the rural poor experience education, and how does their experience
become reﬂected in their aspirations and beliefs about education? As will be
explained in the samples, the areas chosen are not only rural, they are rural
communities. They very small towns in relatively unpopulated areas; most of the
residents have lived there for more than two generations; there is a strong sense of
identity in the community and there may be an equally strong sense of values. And
because some of those values are about education, this study seeks to understand
those values and how they might inﬂuence the school and educational aspirations and

social mobility. Therefore, the second exploratory question is:

12

2. What are the community values regarding education and in what ways do
community social networks enable or disable social movement? The second
exploratory question has to do with perspective and social reproduction. Does the
community encourage particular attitudes and values among their children? How do
community values impact student attitudes about education? How do children
experience those? Do they see education as something imposed from without, or do
they have educational practices that transcend school? And do these rural citizens see
education as possibly taking their children away from them to urban areas and white-
collar jobs? Therefore the third exploratory question is:

3. What do the members of the community, parents, teachers, interested citizens
do, in a behavioral sense, relative to education and how are these behaviors
enacted and reproduced? Moreover, what is the social process or ‘internal
logic” that has evolved to support and sustain these behaviors? What do citizens
do to facilitate engagement or disengagement from the school community? Do they
try to mobilize the community resources in the interest of learning? What educational
practices do they engage in? How does a "sense of place" transfer into behavior
observable in the community and school? In what ways are youth’s aspirations
deﬁned by the physical and social boundaries, therein? What contributions do social

networks make to reproduce class and level aspirations?

Review of Literature

This community study focused on the educational experiences, behaviors and

values of one poor educational community, and the embedded social processes that

13

sustain them. The literature highlights two bodies of work in rural research focusing on
(I) the family and, (2) educational aspirations in rural communities. The ﬁrst section
focuses on the literature which describes the ways rural poor families manage their lives
and meet the needs of the family. The literature is presented along three themes: (1) the
characteristics of rural families, (2) the means by which rural households support each
other that frame their economic actions and, (3) the literature that focuses on the role of
“place” in rural lives. The second section examines the literature on rural educational
aspirations, values and behaviors. In this section, the literature is presented in (l) the role
of place in educational aspirations, (2) the roles that communities play in educational

aspirations, and (3) the dual roles of family and poverty in rural educational aspirations.

Literature Describing the Rural Family

Families play critical social and economic roles for rural people. Family ties
and ancestral roots are often enough to root them to place and give them a reason to
continue living in geographic isolation and a depressed economy (F itchen, 1991). Living
in poverty is often a tricky business that requires cooperation among community and kin.
This section describes key features describing rural families in high poverty regions and

the social processes that sustain them.

Characteristics of Rural Families

The primary characteristic of the rural family structure is it in its conformity to
the “traditional family structure.” In the past, “rural families were often distinctly larger,
more stable and younger than urban families” (MacTavish & Salamon, 2003, p. 73).

More recent literature however, provides evidence that rural family marital patterns are

14

changing (McLaughlin, Gardner & Licter, 1999). Recent research suggests that rural
people experience residential mobility often within the family. Families may live as an
individual household, but drift to a relatives homesteads and reside communally with

other family members, often grandparents (Licter, Roscigno & Condrom. 2003).

Some research indicates that there has been a decline in two-parent families,
affecting the economic and social conditions in rural areas (Licter & Eggebeen, 1992).
Still others argue that as a group, the number of rural poor appears to be increasing with
characteristics that distinguish them from urban poor (Huang, 1991). As a group, they
are white, two parent households living without public assistance just below the poverty
line. They live in high poverty counties that are geographically concentrated, far from
urban hubs. The most impoverished live in the most remote rural areas, and those
experiencing persistent generational poverty are disproportionately found in rural areas
(RURPI, 2004). And because those living in rural areas often live in isolation, they have

fewer options to improve their lot (Save the Children, 2003).

Studies show that poverty is a part of rural living (Licter, Roscigno & Condrom,
2003). Rural poverty rates for children are higher than for their metropolitan peers
(Rogers 2001; Swanson & Dacquel 1996). Rural poverty is less likely to be inﬂuenced
by neighborhood effects or racial segregation and more likely to be associated with rural
isolation in culturally distinct regions, such as rural Appalachia. The rural poor are more
likely to have children from married families rather than single parents. And rural
poverty has distinctive qualities that impact rural families (Licter & Eggebeen, 1992;
Jensen & Eggebeen 1994). Rural poverty is likely to involve families who are “under-

employed” (Findeis, Jensen & Wang, 2000) and therefore need to seek out ways to

15

supplement meager incomes. These families are often employed in more than one job.
Despite their efforts, rural families are more likely to experience acute and persistent

poverty for longer durations (Licter, Roscigno & Condrom, 2003).

Economic Swoort

Many rural families today are described as the “working poor.” While some are
gainfully employed, they hover just below the poverty line. Those living in socially
isolated rural communities may experience local economic conditions that facilitate a
greater reliance on each other for each other necessary for survival. People living in
places with high poverty rates with challenging labor markets are likely to seek greater
social support from each other (Hofferth & Iceland, 1998). According to Cotter (2002)
economic and population characteristics of rural places contribute to their poverty levels,

reporting that rural poverty rates are as high as 63 percent in some areas.

Working class and poor families are reported to have close ties and a greater
reliance on family (Lareau, 2002) and those that live in locations where they grew up are
expected to have the closest ties to kin. Conversely, those that move may have weaker
social ties (Hagan, eta] 1996). When individuals move, it takes time to build up social
networks and capital in new places. Further, the research shows that the longer families
live in a geographic location the more attached they are to their communities (Goudy,
1991). Rural poor with strong family ties, despite living in a community with a weak
economic environment are less likely to leave the community (Hofferth & Iceland, 1998).
Those living in generational rural poverty are likely to express ambivalence about

education and school cultures, and are less likely to view education as a vehicle to move

16

them out of grip of poverty (Duncan & Hill, 1987). Studies by Concoran (1987) submit
that this reﬂects generational social patterns identiﬁed as reﬂective of educational levels,

work and power.

As a group, they are responsible for caring for greater numbers of dependents
(MacTavish & Salamon, 2003). Recent research suggests that as rural families expand to
accommodate greater numbers of dependents, they have a greater reliance on each other
to fulﬁll multiple roles because rural areas offer fewer structural and support services
(MacTavish & Salomon, 2003). Moreover, when these structural support services exist
locally, they are less likely to use them (Fitchen, 1991). Rural places may lack
affordable child care and after-school programming, adult care facilities or medical
services. Reciprocal obligations, often characteristic of rural living, provide the necessary

help that would otherwise be provided by institutions.

Mactavish and Salamon (2003) write that rural families are left to assume these
roles and “make due” with their current set of resources (Nelson & Smith, 1999). Yet, the
research suggests that rural families ﬁnd it difﬁcult to care for family in traditional ways.
According to these scholars, feeding their families and maintaining a home has become
more difﬁcult for rural poor families. They report that limited rural incomes have
stereotypically been known to supplement low incomes with traditions tied to the land.
Gardening, canning, hunting and ﬁshing, gathering wood and berries, are examples of
these stereotypes (Jensen, et a1. 1945). Rural people are known to barter and trade for
goods and services. Traditional self—sufﬁciency and self-preservation practices are
characteristics that distinguish rural families from their urban and suburban counterparts

(MacTavish & Salomon, 2003).

17

Rising household costs and the suburbanizing of small towns has had an affect on
the challenges of daily living for rural people (Fitchen, 1981; 1991). With an increasing
set of housing restrictions, codes and inspection fees, suitable housing is a challenge for
lower income rural families. Household structures have changed and the rural landscape,
now dotted with manufactured or mobile homes. According to MacTavish and Salamon
(2003) manufactured or mobile housing represents one in eight existing homes in rural
America, and one in ﬁve new homes, with three-quarters located in rural areas. And
because of the rise of rural familial dependence, it is likely that these homes are put up on
family plots. They are likely to reside in more isolated, rural places, populated with
concentrations of younger, poorer people with lower levels of educational attainment
(MacTavish 2001). Moreover, residing in such affordable housing structures is one that
is often preferred because family ties and reciprocal relationships offer a reason for rural
people to stay in poor rural areas (Fitchen 1991; Fitchen 1992; MacTavish & Salamon,

2001).

Other economic conditions challenge rural families. According to researchers,
rural households are likely to have one working adult member and they are likely to work
in more than one low—skilled, low-wage job (Fitchen, 1991). Low-skilled and low-
paying jobs concentrate in rural spaces while suburban and urban areas tend to draw
skilled and technical positions (Jensen & McLaughlin 1995). This is because many
skilled and professional jobs are often found in more metropolitan areas (McGranahan,
1988). Production centered jobs are more likely to be located in urban areas and this

condition has increased over time (McGranahan & Ghelﬁ, 1998).

18

Rural towns are likely to realize lower educational attainment, lower income
and job-skills, fewer opportunities for employment and lower levels of civic engagement
(MacTavish and Soloman, 2003). According to recent rural education research, local
demand for a skilled work force impacts rural students’ educational aspirations and
achievement (Cobb, McIntire and Pratt 1989; Smith, et. a1. 1995). Systems explanations
of rural poverty highlight the importance of local opportunity and regional economic
demand (MacTavish & Salamon, 2003). The world of work fails rural people through
low-wage, low-skilled jobs that offer few social connections to the broader social

structure or a diminished social status (Fitchen, 1991).

Economic dependence on extractive industries is characteristic of impoverished
rural areas. The issues of immigration, poverty and poor working conditions among rural
working families put tremendous pressure on public service institutions, including
schools (Taylor, Martin and Fix, 1998). In communities with extractive industries,
depression has persisted for decades. School systems in those communities are ﬁscally
weak often receiving the lowest per pupil funding. They typically face grave problems of

deep poverty, affecting academic performance.

Literature on Rural Identity and Isolation

According to research, spatial qualities create physical and conceptual distances
between rural people and “the outside world,” (Fitchen, 1992). Space and place are
especially signiﬁcant to rural people to the extent that it becomes a part of their rural
identity and impacts their participation with the outside world (Howley, 2005). Rural

identity is important is important in the way in which people collectively identify

19

themselves in relation to each other and the broader culture (Howley, 2005). For some,
one aspect of rural identity lies in the convention that rural community may be viewed as
a “chosen” place (F itchen, 1992). The trend to move away from rural places to the city
for jobs suggests an exodus from a waning place or declining social condition. Those that
stay are likely to identify strongly with their community as an inextricable part of their
identity (Fitchen, 1991; Orr, 1992). To that end, rural residents tend to live longer in
their communities (Friedland, 1982). This preference is reinforced by familial ties,
“shirt-tail” cousins and personal connections to community (Fitchen 1991; Fitchen 1992;
Logan and Spitz 1994). They are more likely to maintain strong connections to the land
and to traditional ways of living (Congor and Elder 1994; Haas and Natchigal, 1997).
Family ties and ancestral roots are part of the reason why people stay in rural places

despite poor economic conditions (Fitchen, 1991).

There is a body of literature that suggests that “place” not only impacts how rural
people analyze economic and political decisions, it impacts how they are involved (Berry,
1977; Haas & Natchi gal, I998; Orr, 1992; Tyack, 1974). Some researchers contend that
place is of such signiﬁcance to rural people that it becomes a part of their communal
identity (Fitchen, 1991; Howley, 2005). Others suggest that place and geography
grounds rural people to their relationships with others (Falk, 2004). Haas and Nachtigal
(1997) argue the importance of place and context, a way that students determine how
they ﬁt into the community. Likewise, Paul Theobald’s (1997) work focuses on the
importance of place consciousness in the development of rural values. Orr (1992)
contends we are inextricably interconnected and urged researchers to develop a more

active understanding of place and space.

20

Education

Despite that fact that 45 percent of All-American schools are rural (NCES, 2003),
just as urban and rural educational attainment levels differ, there is considerable variation
within rural schools. The Rural School and Community Trust compiled data on all 50
states which conﬁrmed that schools vary widely culturally, economically and ethnically
(2003). Low educational attainment levels pose a challenge for many rural areas seeking
economic development. High school completion rates correspond closely to the degrees
of urbanization and industrialization while low education is highly correlated to chronic
deep-seated poverty (US. Department of Agriculture, 2003). Seniors attending schools
in metropolitan areas are 1.5 times more likely to have parents with at least a bachelor’s
degree than in non-metropolitan areas (Pollard & O’Hare 1992, in Haas 1992). And with
the economic demand for technical and advanced training drawing youth to urban areas
for advanced degrees and jobs, there is even less opportunity and stimulus for education
in rural than in urban areas (McGranahan, 1988). Inferior achievement levels are said to
be linked to a number of factors. The following sections discuss the most relevant
inﬂuences presented in research today. This section describes a body of literature
affecting rural educational aspirations focusing on (I) place, (2) community, and (3) the

combined inﬂuences of family and poverty.

Place and Educational Aspirations

Researchers suggest that place provides an important contextual foundation for

assessing the educational environment (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003). Recent

21

literature examining the differences between rural and urban places is founded on the
critical argument that place impacts educational attitudes, values and assumptions (Ching
& Creed, 1997). There has been a recent resurgence in scholarly attention around “place”
and the community as a concept. Drawing from anthropology, sociology and critical
geography (Massey 1987; Soja, 1989), scholars argue that concepts such as "space and
place" (Fold and Basso 1996; Tuan 1977) and the local ecological contexts related to
place (Gallagher I993; Leacock 1971; Orr 2002) are critical to understanding the
processes of socialization (Mitchel, 2000), persistent poverty (Duncan 1982, 1987;
Jensen, McLaughlin and Slack 2003) , educational and intellectual development]
trajectories (Lichter, Roscigno and Condron, 2003), educational aspirations (Howley
2005; Labovitz 1974) and employment (Berkman & Syme, 1979; Claude, et.al 2000;
Flora & Flora, 2003; Flora and Luther, 2000; Furstenberg, 1993; Geertz 1983; Jensen
1999, 2003; Massey 1987 Tigges, et. al. 1998; Wilkenson;l99l; Wilson, 1987, 1995,
1996).

According to the literature, place matters with regard to educational attainment
(Beaulieu, Isreal and Wimberley, 2003). Historically, rural areas have fallen behind
urban in the areas of educational attaimnent of their adult residents (Killian & Beaulieu,
1995). Place related contributors to this problem include inadequate school facilities,
problems in transportation due to geographic size of district, limited course selection
(Beeson, 2000), and a sizable number of students coming from low-income and low-
education families (Oakey & Cusick, 1994). A limited number of community members
holding college degrees and a lack of local work requiring educational training impacts

educational attainment levels are other place related contributors to low educational

22

achievement (Ballou and Podgursky 1998; Jensen and McLaughlin 1995; National
Education Association 2001). ”The challenges of advancing educationally in rural
America are greater for children living in communities where adults are poorly educated”
(Beaulieu, Isreal and Wimberley, 2003, pp.274). Those children are more likely to have
reduced educational attainment rates (Carter, 1999; Hansen & McIntire, 1989; Paasch &
Swaim, 1998).

Moreover, rural schools have problems that distinguish them from urban and
suburban schools. Elementary and secondary schools in hi gh-poverty urban and rural
areas offer fewer academic classes and are less likely to attract teachers who are highly
qualiﬁed (Licther, Roscigno and Condron, 2003). Disproportionate school funding makes
it more likely that the students are more likely to be taught in older and more run down
schools. Students in those schools, on average, score below those in suburban schools in
both mathematics and reading on standardized tests. Moreover, they are less likely to
earn hi gh-school diplomas (Lichter, Roscigno and Condron, 2003).

Place impacts the ways in which educational policy challenges are received
(Beaulieu, Isreal and Wimberley, 2003). Rural schools are often face greater constraints
in funding (Hobbs, 1995). Pressures to cut consolidate and outsource impact how
families interact with the school (Howley, 2005). Community members from rural areas
may feel a loss of control over their child’s education (DeYoung, 1995), resulting in
declining civic involvement. Research suggests that structural aspects of community and
school impact educational aspirations and outcomes (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberley,
2004). For example, while some researchers assert that larger schools are more effective

because they are able to offer a more varied set of course offerings (McDill & Rigsby,

23

I973), others contend that smaller schools offer positive features, such as lower class
sizes that impact student—teacher relationships and ultimately, academic performance
(Howley, 1995; Gregory & Smith 1987; Walberg, 1992). However, studies have found
little evidence that the size of school impacts rural academic performance (Greenberg and
Teixeira, 1998; Hobbs, 1995). According to researchers, parental educational attainment
and family involvement are important factors in educational aspirations and outcomes

(Beaulieu, Glenn and Wimberly, 2003).

Community and Rural Educational Aspirations

Rural research reveals that educational aspirations are a cultural phenomena
(Trainer, 1993). People will likely take on the social characteristics of their peer group.
Research done by Victoria Purcell-Gates (1991) on literacy education, social class and
social reproduction with rural Appalachian families suggest that there is a profound
cultural difference in the educational attitudes, values and experiences of rural poor. She
asserts these cultural practices and beliefs are interwoven into all aspects of daily
activities, attitudes and beliefs and help to deﬁne and distinguish them among cultural

groups.

Rural college participation rates lag for rural people; they attend college at rates lower
than the national average (Killian & Beaulieu, 1995; Pollard & O’Hare, 1990). Student
educational attainment aspiration rates tend to be lower when surrounded by fewer educated
adults (Carter, 1999). Limited educational attainment by parents and limited achievement
increases the likelihood that children living in rural communities are more likely to have low
achievement and aspirations (Stockard and Mayberry, 1992). A self-fulﬁlling prophecy, rural

community attainment rates has important bearing student outcomes (Beaulieu & Isreal, I997).

24

Poverty, Family and Rural Educational Attainment

The inﬂuences of poverty and family impact many areas of rural family life
including educational outcomes. Rural poor children’s educational trajectories are
shaped by parental educational achievement and familial aspirations (Stockard and
Mayberry, 1992). These effects are stronger than the direct inﬂuence of one’s scholastic
ability or previous academic achievement history. Moreover, they are much stronger
than any direct inﬂuence from one’s peer group (Spenner & Featherman, 1978). As a
group, these students have lower educational aspirations than do their more economically
advantaged peers (Roscigno & Crowley, 2001; US. Department of Education 1997).
Data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey show large rural/urban
achievement gaps for a nationally representative sample of US. eighth graders (NELS

2001).

Rural poor families often display ambivalence towards school and school cultures
(Duncan & Hill, 1987). Concoran (1987) suggests that this is due to generational social
patterns reﬂecting educational levels, work and poverty. Okey and Cusick (1993) found a
similar result in their study of rural dropouts. Dropping out, according to those
researchers, was less an individual act by one student than a pattern of behavior engaged
in by three or four generations in the same family. Children who live in communities
with poorly educated adults or adults with limited educational aspirations are likely to
experience similar educational and professional circumstances (Stockard & Mayberry,
1992). Parental inﬂuences are crucial intervening links that explain the effects of social

class on status attainment, effects that are mediated through parental aspirations for their

25

children (Coleman, 1988). Social class is a stronger determinant of parental aspirations
than academic performance. Moreover, social class effects through parental educational

aspirations and encouragement has been noted by researchers (Otto and Haller, 1979.)

Social capital is one tool utilized by rural sociologists to describe “the norms,
social networks and relationships between adults and children that are of value. When
parents create a home environment strong in social capital, it is one that translates into
academic success for their student” (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003, pp. 278).
Parental education and family income are two important social capital factors inﬂuencing
educational achievement, aspirations and outcomes (Choy, 2001). According to
researchers, “students with college educated parents realize a better than 80 percent
likelihood of entering college after graduation from high school” (Beaulieu, Isreal &
Wimberly, 2003, pp. 278). Children from families with low parental educational
attainment have a higher risk of failing academically or dropping out, due to social
capital features associated with limited opportunities (Huang, 1999; Oakey, 1994).

According to rural researchers, some rural communities face barriers that limit the
attainment of family social capital. Rural families tend to be bigger than their urban and
suburban counterparts (Dagata, 2000; MacTavish & Soloman, 2003. Their income levels
tend to be lower (Ghelﬁ, 2000). Parental educational aspirations and attainment are also
lower (Hansen & McIntire, 1989). Rural poor families tend to stay together in married
households (Fields & Casper, 2001), consequently increasing the inﬂuence of the family

on educational aspirations, values and behaviors (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003).

Researchers suggest that parental human and ﬁnancial capital--as a measure of

parental educational attainment levels and family income—centrally affects educational

26

performance, values and aspirations (Quan & Blaire, 1999; Sewell and Hauser, 1975;
Sewell and Shaw, 1968). Social, human and ﬁnancial capital can create the physical
resources to assist in educational performance, achievement, aspirations and outcomes
(Bourdieu, 1977; Coleman, 1988). Parents with higher educational attainment and
aspirations tend to pass this along to their children. According to researchers, these
children beneﬁt provided that human capital, social capital and ﬁnancial capital are
grounded in a strong familial relationship (Quan & Blaire, 1999; Coleman, 1988). In
short, according to these researchers it is the strength of the relationship between the
parent and the child that is the basic measure of social capital impacting educational

aspirations.

Social capital features held at the community level impact educational aspirations
as well. Institutional support from schools, neighborhoods and communities provide
cognitive environments that inﬂuence educational attitudes, aspirations, values and
behaviors (Quan & Blair, 1999). Rural places are more likely to suffer disproportionately
from inadequate funding formula’s, structural inadequacies of the school and less
experienced and/or qualiﬁed teachers (Lichter, Roscigno and Condron, 2003). Efforts to
offset state funding imbalances are often thwarted by rural poor communities because
they depend on local property taxes and are therefore at a disadvantage at reaching the

children of rural poor families (DeYoung, 1990).

The social constitution of the school exerts a normative inﬂuence on educational
aspirations (Coleman, 1961; Labovitz, 1974). Some studies focusing on interpersonal
relationships and educational aspirations found that inﬂuences along three lines--parents,

teachers and peers (Spencer, l976)--affected educational aspirations to varying degrees.

27

This supports early assumptions that educational structural inﬂuences on educational
aspirations and values are mediated by interpersonal inﬂuence variables (Fitchen, 1981,

1991).

In sum, the combined inﬂuences of low income and family stability play a role in
rural cognitive trajectories, aspirations and academic outcomes (Lichter, Comwell and
Eggebeen I993; Isreal, Beaulieu and Hartless 2001). Rural people living in areas with
depressed labor markets surrounded by adults with low educational achievement and
aspirations are less likely to suspend immediate needs by investing in education (Fitchen,
1983). A higher education is less likely to be rewarded in America’s rural places
(Lichter, Roscigno and Condron, 2003). Thus, the literature suggests that the combined
inﬂuences reinforce low educational aspirations and achievement and contribute to rural

poverty and marginality.

Summary of the Literature

In sum, there is evidence that rural educational attainment levels lag behind their
urban counterparts. Moreover, educational behaviors and values of rural poor reﬂect
generational patterns of educational ambivalence. The ﬁrst body of research focused on
the role that families play in rural communities. Research that highlights the composition
and characteristics of high poverty rural communities was presented. This section
described the literature describing the ways rural families make ends meet. The literature
focused on economic support strategies and reciprocal relationships as strategies for

survival.

28

Next, historically, rural areas have fallen behind urban in the areas of educational
attainment of their adult residents. Factors linked to “space and place” that contribute to
this problem include inadequate school facilities, transportation, limited course selection,
and a sizable number of students coming from low-income and low-education families.
Those coming from communities where educational aspirations are low and parents have
low educational attainment are more likely to have reduced educational attainment rates
and reduced educational aspirations. Geographic isolation and resistance to government

interventions further rural reliance on kin and community for survival.

The second body of literature focused on educational features high poverty rural
communities. The literature suggests that the community’s role in the social processes
that sustain and reproduce educational aspirations, values and behaviors in high poverty '
rural communities are likely to be rooted in long standing relationships necessary for
survival. Residents living in socially isolated rural communities may experience local
economic conditions that facilitate a greater reliance on each other for social capital
necessary for survival. People living in places with high poverty rates with challenging
labor markets are likely to seek social support. Because rural areas are extremely
homogeneous, they are likely to receive support from kin, furthering reliance on the
existing social structure. A lack of experience with outside agencies and institutions and
a natural resistance and distrust of them as government institutions serves to reinforce the

powers of the community and family social structure.

The research on the social process that underscores and reproduces these values
centers on kin, community and social capital. Parental education and family income are

two important social capital factors inﬂuencing educational achievement and aspirations.

29

According to researchers, children from families with low parental educational
attainment have a higher risk of failing school, due to social capital features associated
with limited opportunities. Rural communities face barriers that limit the development of
family social capital. Rural families tend to be larger and income levels lower.

Moreover, parental educational aspirations and educational attainment tend to be lower.

Educational aspirations are likely to be guided by local economic demand.

Looking Ahead

 

Over the past several decades the relationship between social class, urban poverty
and education has received increased attention by scholars, policy makers and politicians.
Particularly notable are the works of Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman, Annette Lareau,
Pauline Lipman, James C. Scott, Jay McLoed and Paul Willis in sparking a growing
interest in this ﬁeld. Unfortunately, there has been much less attention on social class,
rural poverty and education. While rural America has realized a steady rise in rural adult
educational attainment in the 19905 and an increasing importance of education to rural
workers and places, a recent report by the National Center for Educational Statistics
(Gibbs, 2004) also ﬁnds that racial educational differences remain large and that adult
education levels remain far below the national average in many rural counties. Counties
with more educated populations appear to have performed better economically in the

19905 and have lower over-all poverty rates.

Some scholars have provided evidence that the educational aspirations of rural

citizens are weaker, or more to the point “different” than their urban and suburban

30

counterparts (Breen, 1989; Cobb, McIntire and Pratt, 1989; Howley, 2005; McGranahan,
1994). Other rural researchers have provided research that helps frame the conceptual
issues of rural isolation and poverty that impact educational aspirations and experiences
(Jensen, McLaughlin & Slack, 2003; Licter, Roscigno & Condron, 2003; Glasgow, 2003;
Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003), including social capital features (Flora & Flora,
2003), economic forces (McGranahan, 2003; Falk & Lobao, 2003), geographic
considerations (Tigges & Fuguitt, 2003), the social institutions that sustain and reproduce
community ( Bonanno & Constance, 2003; Warner, 2003), age, race and gender
(MacTavish & Solamon, 2003; Glasgow, 2003; Tickamyer & Henderson, 2003; Licter,
Roscigno & Condron, 2003). Taken together, these works provide a fairly comprehensive
illustration of social class, rural poverty and education. There are, however, some gaps

that beg for ﬁirther research (Green, 1993).

One issue identiﬁed by several of these researchers is the exploration of the
naturally embedded social relationships that facilitate the reproduction of educational
attitudes, behaviors and values. In particular, there is a need to understand the social
processes and internal logic that sustains them. These factors contribute to generational
poverty as a by product of low educational aspirations and achievement (Beaulieu, Isreal
and Wimberly, 2003). A second issue identified by researchers (Green, 1993) and in
concert with this study is in the development of stronger links between social contexts
and personal accounts to understand the conditions in which rural poverty is generated
and the ways that educational aspirations are reproduced. Finally, there is a need to
understand the unintended consequences of educational policies calculated to target these

populations.

31

SOi

res
511‘.
of
alt.
rec

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as
int

(11:

Organization of This Study

 

This dissertation is organized into four chapters. Chapter I was an introduction to
the study. The problem and signiﬁcance of the study were explained, and the purpose of
the study was set forth. The conceptual framework used in the study was described in
detail. Exploratory questions posed in the study were stated. A literature review serves
to underscore the rationale for this study; speciﬁcally, literature denoting the distinct
qualities and characteristics of high poverty rural educational communities and related
social processes that describe them. Other important works include the literature on
social capital and place, as well as empirical research that embodies current thinking
about the educational aspirations, values and behaviors of high poverty rural communities

is detailed.

The methodology for this study is described in Chapter 11. Chapter III reveals the
results of the study. Chapter IV is a thematic analysis of the data. Several themes
emerged from the data in two main categories. The two main categories were in the areas
of family and education. In the category of family the themes focused on family values
along three lines; (1) traditions as educational tools, (2) vital connections through
reciprocity and, (3) rural identity and isolation. In the category of education, the themes
centered on perspectives and behaviors. The themes were (1) community perspectives on
the purposes of schooling, (2) the inﬂuence of kin on educational aspirations, (3) schools
as vehicles of social mobility, (4) distrust and, (5) survival in rural Rutgers. Chapter IV
includes ﬁndings from the study, a review of literature, contribution and conclusions

drawn from the ﬁndings, and implications of the results of this study.

32

3f

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In the literature review I attempted to illuminate the complexity of the rural
educational experience and their accompanying educational values, behaviors and
aspirations through a discussion of the tensions, experiences and paradoxes. I discussed
the characteristics common to rural poor communities, highlighting the inﬂuence of
place, kin, poverty, trust and the social processes that underpin them. Research on the
naturally embedded social relationships that facilitate the reproduction of educational
attitudes, behaviors and values in rural communities was presented. This study seeks to
extend that literature empirically with a ﬁeld study of one community, bring the literature
up to the present time, and bring it into focus at a time when it is being pressured by
educational policies. My purpose in this community study was to explore the educational
attitudes, values and behaviors of rural poor community members and school ofﬁcials,
and the social process that sustains them. Understanding these experiences has the
potential to help shed light on how these collective elements factor into rural educational

outcomes in one rural area.

In this chapter the methodology employed is explained, the pilot study is outlined,

and the disposition of data collection and sampling strategy is described. The method of

33

analyzing the data and the process of generating and revising probationary ﬁndings are

explained. A description of ﬁeld procedures is provided followed by a chapter summary.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the educational attitudes, aspirations,
values and behaviors of poor rural students and parents and to investigate how this rural
environment and community impact these attitudes and values. It attempts to illuminate
the social processes of rural poverty and how it circumscribes the futures of rural youth.
Moreover, it looks at the societal level where class structure is reproduced and
investigates the ways in which schools and policy contribute to social immobility. The

research will be guided by a series of questions, and our ﬁrst exploratory question is:

2. How do rural poor experience education, and how does their experience become
reﬂected in their aspirations and beliefs about education? As will be explained in
the samples, the areas chosen are not only rural, they are rural communities. They
very small towns in relatively unpopulated areas; most of the residents have lived
there for more than two generations; there is a strong sense of identity in the
community and there may be an equally strong sense of values. And because some of
those values are about education, this study seeks to understand those values and how
they might inﬂuence the school and educational aspirations and social mobility.

Therefore, the second exploratory question is:

34

4. What are the community values regarding education and in what ways do
community social networks enable or disable social movement? The second
exploratory question has to do with perspective and social reproduction. Does the
community encourage particular attitudes and values among their children? How do
community values impact students attitudes about education? How do children
experience those? Do they see education as something imposed from without, or do
they have educational practices that transcend school? And do these rural citizens see
education as possibly taking their children away from them to urban areas and white-
collar jobs? Therefore the third exploratory question is:

5. What do the members of the community, parents, teachers, interested citizens
do, in a behavioral sense, relative to education and how are these behaviors
enacted and reproduced? Moreover, what is the social process or ‘internal
logic” that has evolved to support and sustain these behaviors? What do citizens
do in a behavioral sense, to facilitate engagement or disengagement from the school
community? Do they try to mobilize the community resources in the interest of
learning? What educational practices do they engage in? How does a "sense of place"
transfer into behavior observable in the community and school? In what ways are
youth’s aspirations deﬁned by the physical and social boundaries, therein? What

contributions do social networks make to reproduce class and level aspirations?

Method
This study borrows from both anthropology and sociology. It employs the

techniques of ethnographic ﬁeldwork and semi-structured interview in a carefully chosen

35

community. Ethnography, a type of qualitative inquiry used in this study, is employed
when the purpose of the research is to study an intact cultural group in a natural setting
during a prolonged period of time by collecting primarily observable data (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005). Ethnography is distinguished from other forms of qualitative research by
its focus on (I) discovering cultural patterns in human behavior, (2) describing the
perspectives of members of that culture, and (3) studying the natural settings in which the
culture is manifested (Gall et al., 1996 in Leedy 1997). In this way, setting or “place”--
which is shown to have a marked inﬂuence on human behavior, and particularly in this

study--is studied in light of educational experiences, values and aspirations (Sojo, 2003).

A high-poverty, rural Michigan community was chosen to expand current
research in three important ways. First, it addresses issues of the social processes
underpinning educational aspirations, social reproduction and social mobility and in a
high poverty rural educational community. This is notable because prior work has
focused on urban settings (Kannepal & DeYoung, 1999). Second, it views community
members as integral parts of the educational process and the educational community as a
nested social system resistant to policy pressures from outside. Moreover, it views the
educational community from the community and familial level. In this way, this study
considers educational aspirations, values, behaviors and social reproduction as strongly
linked to both community and kin with perhaps dense networks of interpersonal ties.
This design offers information about educational attitudes, aspirations and behaviors,
allowing inferences to be made about educational aspirations and social mobility
decisions. Notably, this study focuses some attention to both sides of the community

continuum (school and community) and seeks to describe causative factors of educational

36

aspirations and social reproduction. Third, this study expands the amount of qualitative
detail collected, making life histories and community histories an integral part of the
study design. This study attempts to describe the social, cultural and economic
inﬂuences that contribute to change, identity and survival in one rural Michigan
educational community. This study is not an anthropological investigation as much as it
is a specialized study of the social processes that underscore educational aspirations and
values in one rural community, using anthropological methods highlighting qualitative

ethnographic designs.

Social Processes of Rural Educational Aspirations and Behaviors

This study is not the ﬁrst to recognize that educational aspirations and behaviors
have a social, economic and class-related basis (Bourdieu, 1977; Coleman, 1988; Lareau,
2002; Macloed, I995; Howley, 2005; Willis, 1977). Many studies have explored and
documented the ways in which social processes reproduce class and this has received
considerable theoretical attention as well (Massey, 1987). Prior work has considered the
elements of social mobility and educational equality, mostly focusing on urban settings.
Several decades of urban quantitative sociological research have demonstrated that the
place, social class and poverty have a massive inﬂuence on educational outcomes,

aspirations and social mobility (MacLoed 1987; Willis 1977).
“Although mobility does take place between these classes, the overall structure of
class relations and educational attainment over generations remains largely

unchanged. Quantitative social mobility studies have documented a pattern of social
relationships but have difﬁculty documenting how the pattern of social reproduction

37

is developed and sustained. This is an issue of great complexity, and one that has
endured through time in sociological research” (MacLoad, 1987, pp. 4).

This study is not the ﬁrst to argue that leveled educational aspirations are powerful
mechanisms by which social class reproduced over generations (Willis, 1977; MacLoed,
1995: Lareau, 2002). It cannot be broken down and viewed as a single action, but as an

integrated complex of inﬂuences acting together to produce a particular outcome.

In this study, I argue that the development and sustained educational values in one
rural community are part of a dynamic, cumulative process governed by several
principals. A goal of this research is to illuminate and verify these principals. The
principals presented can be viewed judiciously from the existing theoretical and research

literature developed mostly from urban studies and from the results of this present study.

The ﬁrst principal is that educational aspiration and related behaviors originate as
a structural component of rural communities. In other words, local economic demands
serve as a barometer of educational aspirations. According to Massey, economists
typically view educational out-migration or a means of allocating workers between areas
of low and high wages, which they assume reﬂect the differences in productivity
(Massey, eta], 1987). The wage gap does a poor job of explaining trends in educational
attainment levels of rural poor, as vastly different numbers of students from rural areas
seek advanced schooling, although the numbers of those rural poor who seek to advance
themselves through alternative educational options including schooling remain relatively

low.

38

The second principal is that tightly nested social networks, often made up of close
association of kin, are a major part of the community social structure that enables or
disables educational aspirations and therefore, social movement. Individuals from the
same community, often kin, are bound together by reciprocal obligations upon which new
generations enter and become rooted. The bracketing of the individual to the
generational social structure reproduces educational aspirations and therefore, social

mobility over generations (Bourdieu, 1973; Duncan, 1987; Macloed, 1995).

The third principal, based on generalization from sociological research literature
and from the pilot study, is that social pressures described as “leveling” are powerful
mechanisms by which class related roles and behaviors are deﬁned and reproduced over
generations. They are seen as socially and structurally constructed systems of social
reproduction, which inﬂuence educational aspirations andeffect class structure and
therefore, social mobility (MacLoed, 1987). Schools, as social entities and conduits of
educational reform, have a tremendous impact on social reproduction, through the effects
of curriculum offerings, school related extra-curricular activities and the valuation of

educational attainment and outcomes within the community.

The fourth principal is that conforming to this social pressure to “level”
educational aspirations serves the functional purposes of both sustaining the community
and ensuring survival within the community. Individuals in the social hierarchy come to
accept and identify their own social position within the community and the broader
culture (Fitchen, 1981; MacLoed, 1987). Moreover, they accept the class based

inequalities within the culture as legitimate.

39

These, then, are the basic principals that shape the ensuing study: that educational
aspirations and behaviors originate as part of the social and structural components of the
community; that nested social networks, often made up of kin, contribute to enabling or
disabling social mobility; the social pressure described as “leveling” is a construct of the
school, community and familial structure; that these are powerful mechanisms by which
class is reproduced, and the social pressure to “level” serves the functional purpose of

both sustaining individual and community survival.

Pilot Study

The plan for this research was informed by a pilot study of rural community
members and school administration conducted in the spring of 2004. The focus of the
study centered on four variables: educational aspirations and behaviors, educational
experiences, social processes that underscored educational experiences, and educational
policy implications. For each of these variables, the question of how it affects behavior

was asked. Further, the interaction and interrelationship of these variables was pursued.

A single school district in a rural community was chosen for the study. Data
collected from artifacts, published reports from the Michigan Department of Education
(2002), the National Center for Educational Statistics and state and federal grant
applications provided baseline data from which to begin the development of questions
used in a semi-structured interview protocol and the descriptive questionairre. The
selection of volunteers was made in cooperation with the school administration. A list of

community members was generated from which a sample of seven, four male and three

40

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female, was selected. At the same time, permission was obtained to review school

records to help verify the data.

The pilot study used an interview-only method based upon a set of open-ended
questions written for each of the areas of investigation. Volunteers for the study were
interviewed in segments which ranged from one hour to three hours, with a maximum of
three interviews per subject. Prior to the ﬁrst interview, volunteers were read a consent
form detailing the purposes of the study, the potential risks and their right to withdraw

without penalty.

The interviews opened with an opportunity for each participant to review a list of
previously prepared and approved questions regarding the four areas of investigation.
Though notes were taken, all of the interviews in the pilot study were taped and
transcribed, then later edited. The notes and the transcriptions were later used to generate
follow-up questions for future interviews. They also served as a guide in the
development of questions for additional interviews used for this dissertation. In this
fashion these early interviews allowed me to pursue themes and patterns relevant to the
study. The interviews in the pilot study also served the purposes of gaining the
conﬁdence and trust of local participants. This was important because it later enabled me
to secure an honest pool of volunteers willing to share information with me. No small

task, in rural ethnographic work (F itchen, 1991; Schaffer, 2003).

A wide range of characteristics which appeared representative of studies of larger
populations (Howley, 2005) were found among the volunteers in this study. Both

administrators and the ﬁve community participants reported the following themes

41

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representative of community life: homogenous groupings made up mostly of kin, strong
connections to place, poverty, tightly nested social ties, a deep distrust of outsiders and
outside policies, a resistance to educational policy pressures from the state, and a process
of social reproduction that the school administration described as “leveling.” All of the
community members were from lower middle class to poverty level households. Two of
the subjects were rural pastors; one ran a food pantry and a summer school program.
Two parent volunteers were on the school board and worked in business administration
positions outside the community. One parent volunteer, a former factory worker, ran a
butcher shop out of her home. All participants described a disconnect between the goals
of the educational priorities of the state and the educational goals of community

members.

Despite a wide range of educational experiences revealed in these interviews, the
most consistent ﬁnding in the study was the pervasive inﬂuence of kin and community
(often the same thing) with respect to school goals. Patterns of low educational
attainment within the community coupled with a lack of local jobs demanding skilled
workers contributed to a pattern of low educational aspirations and attainment. One
parent indicated that college was not a viable option for many local families due to
tightened ﬁscal constraints and local economic demand. She stated that schools failed

students because of an increasingly academic and global focus. According to this parent:

I think the more emphasis should be put on trade schools, building trades. Functional
jobs. When kids are out of school, they should be able to be trained to do something.
Cuz with every, all these kids are coming out of high school, expecting to go to
Michigan State for the higher education is so much big business, it stinks. And there
are some jobs that deﬁnitely need the higher, higher education but there’s a lot of
average folks out there that need to learn how to make a living and start it when

42

they’re out of school. Not when they’re 24 or 25. There’s a, there’s a big gap in there
where people are accumulating a whole lot of debt and they don’t even know what
they wanta do.

Another participant, a pastor, reported the following:

The biggest issue in the education system is it’s not meeting the local needs. You
know, the MEAP tests a couple years ago, it was environmental something, was the
MEAP stuff. Well, what in the world value did that have to a bunch of kids, you
know, at third grade level? It had no value. How do I get that training? If I wanta
work in a trade, if I wanta be an automotive mechanic, you know what I gotta do? I
gotta get somebody to invest in me. I’ve gotta get a private employer to believe in me
and invest in me cuz I have nothing to offer. On the other hand, if I was in high
school and I was able to get a couple years of shop and mechanic, and auto
mechanics, basic stuff, you know that’d give me a real leg up with the employer. But,
no, the state has changed our priorities.

Based on the ﬁndings from the pilot study and with the support of several major
research studies, the decision was made to focus the following themes: The inﬂuence of
kin, poverty and the importance of community, distrust and the social processes that
inﬂuence educational aspirations, values and behaviors. Since it was found that
community members and school ofﬁcials were fairly open about the above, the decision
was made to continue the interviewing protocol. Finally, it was decided that interviews

would be transcribed, when feasible.

Study Design

The study of class-related educational attainment has been an issue drawing

attention by scholars, social scientists and others from a variety of disciplines (Willis,

43

1977; Wilson, 1987; MacLoed, 1995; Lareau, 2002). It has been examined widely using
different data sources and a range of methodological approaches. The study of rural
educational aspirations, values, behaviors and rural social mobility, perhaps resulting
from socioeconomic, sociopolitical and educational factors, is an area that has received
little scholarly attention. Most research that has been conducted along this vein has been
in the form of anthropological ethnographies collected with little attention to causative
factors related to rural social mobility (F itchen, 1991). Scholars cite the inﬂuences of
generational poverty, low parental educational attainment levels, employment
inadequacies, housing shortages and familial instability in rural communities as factors
that inﬂuence social mobility(Concoran 1987; Duncan 1987; McGranahan 1994). Taken
together, these trends describe the deteriorating community situation lived by some rural
individuals. Little rural educational research has been conducted regarding the
sociopolitical processes of educational aspirations, behaviors in response to educational
reform. Most of what has been done has focused on the issues of social reproduction and
social immobility of classes in urban communities ((Bourdieu I977; Bourdieu 1977;

MacLoed 1987; Wilson 1987).

Ethnography was employed as an “analytical description of social scenes and
groups that recreate for the reader the shared beliefs, practices, artifacts, folk knowledge,
and behaviors of those people” (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984, pp.2-3). What distinguishes
ethnography from other types of qualitative research is its explicit focus on the features

describing the relationship between culture and behavior.

44

Method of Data Collection

The process of data collection took many forms. It was an interactive approach
that required an extensive amount of time on-site systematically observing, interviewing
and recording processes as they occurred naturally in the location. This study employed
a variety of data collection strategies: participant observation, ethnographic interview,
descriptive surveys, stand alone case studies, artifacts and educational life histories. The
use of multiple methods, or triangulation, reﬂects an attempt to secure an in-depth
understanding. Triangulation is not a tool or a strategy of validation but an alternative to
validation (Flick, 2006). This combination of multiple methodological practices can be
best understood as a strategy to add richness and depth to this study (Denzin & Lincoln,

2005).

The primary method selected for the pilot study was the ethnographic interview,
described as “open-response questions to obtain data of participant meanings--how
individuals conceive the world and how they explain or make sense of the important
events in their lives” (McMillan & Schumacher, 1993, p.423). The speciﬁc interview
method selected for the primary study was a series of lengthy semi-structured guided and

tape-recorded interviews.

In this section the method is explained and strategies, techniques and tactics are
reviewed. The limitations of these are discussed, as well as issues of reliability and
validity. Using methods both anthropological and sociological, I conducted 28 semi-
structured interviews, which allowed me to construct oral histories of the families and

their community. Supplemental data focused on (1) educational characteristics as deﬁned

45

by local sources, and (2) structural aspects of the community. Also included were state

and national data sets providing descriptive statistics.

The explanation of the method is brief and fundamental. The reason for this is
logical. Field research is informed by proven methods and by reviewing the work of
experts (Oakey, 1990). Despite this, each ﬁeld study is a unique experience. To this end,
the researcher narrating the actual events may best capture an accurate understanding of
the ﬁeld method. Therefore, the speciﬁcs regarding preparation for entering the ﬁeld and
the strategies, techniques and protocols employed are presented in a separate section of

this chapter.

The interviews were semi-structured and initiated with a list of approved
interview questions and a protocol (Appendix A2). The semi-structured interview
format was conducted in 3 phases. First, the participants Were given the list of approved
questions and asked to review them and select one that they felt was important to this
study. The interviewee’s were both the informant and respondents, necessitating a
multiple-contract interview strategy. Initial interviews ranged from 20 minutes to 1 hour

and to a total of three interviews per interviewee.

Questionnaire Design and Interviewing

Two questionnaires were designed for use in this study: a questionnaire for the
semi-structured interview and a descriptive questionnaire. The questionnaire utilized for
the semi-structured interview was the primary source of data collection. The design of

the ethnographic design and semi-structured interview represents a balance between

46

interview research and ethnography in cultural studies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003). There
is extensive history of these ethnographic methods in education (Denzin & Lincoln,

2003; Ladson-Billings & Donner, 2003; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003). As a researcher
conducting a community study and working from a cultural studies perspective, I sought
to understand the data in terms of location within a historical moment marked by the
inﬂuences of place, economic standing and culture. This cultural studies use of
ethnographic methods intent is to bring together a set of cultural understandings to this
project. The ethnographic design and semi-structured interview protocol is a reﬂection of

this.

The second questionnaire was modeled after Douglas Massey’s Mexican
Migration Project ethnosurvey design (Massey 2007). This questionnaire followed a
semi-structured format and was used to catalogue and categorize data for this study and
for ﬁrture research (Appendix A.3). This protocol was used for local participants only
and was completed by the ﬁeldworker. Descriptive data collected using the descriptive
survey was not collected for participants living outside of the community. This

questionnaire was used to help categorize and catalogue data.

I sought a design that would yield a standard set of interpretive qualitative data in a
non-threatening, unobtrusive and informal way. The form used in the pilot study, a semi-
structured interview schedule, was implemented and improved upon; a series of tables
that included community members listed along the downside and variables listed in the
column headings. The goal was to solicit information in the way that the situation would
demand using judgment about precise wording and timing. Each table would correspond

to a different topic separated with more specialized questions in order to elaborate on a

47

theme. For example, in the pilot study one theme that reoccurred consistently among all
subjects was the inﬂuence of social networks on an aspect of educational behavior. This
was described as an intense pressure to “level” educational aspirations and behaviors
within schools and within the community. This pressure served as a tool of social
reproduction and limited social mobility. In this community, the regulation of aspirations
and educational behaviors by locals was perhaps the most signiﬁcant of all the
mechanisms that contributed to social reproduction. The questionnaire design allowed an
attempt to analyze the forces that contribute the conditions within the educational
community and the consequential behaviors, therein. While this questionnaire is only
used for categorizing data for the purposes of this dissertation, it also allowed for the

future tracking of demographic and other statistical data to investigate patterns.

The ethnographic description of the data would provide a means of overcoming
the limitations of the interview design by providing richness coupled with the historical
depth necessary to understand the complexities of social networks. The ethnographic
method allows us to understand the day to day regularities of these rural communities,
shedding light on cultural, historical traditions and insight into how these societal
enclaves maintain relations, ideology and function. Blending ethnography and survey
methods allows us to employ quantitative measures and qualitative measure,
supplemented by the richness of ethnography to study the social processes of rural

educational aspirations and behaviors.

48

Table 1: Semi-Structured Interview Outline

 

Semi-Structured Interview Interview Focus

 

Demographic data, life histories,
. . educational aspirations and behaviors,
F amily Intervrew
social networks inﬂuencing reproduction

and mobility, socioeconomic, social

systems analysis

School Faculty Interview Expectations, political, social and systems

constructs, policy implications

Demographic data, life histories,
. educational aspirations and behaviors,
Community Member Focus
social networks inﬂuencing reproduction

and mobility, socioeconomic, social and

systems analysis.

 

Sample Design

The questionnaires were applied to households and schools selected in simple
random samples in a high poverty educational community located in northern Michigan.

This community is a rurally isolated, high-poverty district far from urban hubs. The

49

school is undergoing educational reorganization in response to funding shortages;
Rutgers School District will soon take to the voters a proposal to consolidate or annex

with neighboring school districts.

Three criteria were employed in the selection. First, I chose a community in
which I had prior ethnographic experience. With an established unobtrusive presence
and a network of trusted informants, the threat to study these complex social processes
would be considerably reduced and the validity enhanced. Second, I sought a rural area
in which school reorganization was imposed due to state-initiated ﬁscal constraints. This
not only increased the likelihood of working in a high poverty rural region, but also
allowed the inquiry into the effects of such state and federally mandated educational
policies in one isolated rural social enclave. Lastly, a community that qualiﬁed for Title
VI Part B Subpart 2 Rural and Low-Income School Program was chosen, which allowed

me to document changes over time using federal data sets.

The unit of analysis in this study is “the community.” Participant sampling in the
community began with an initial ten to ﬁfteen families randomly selected from the pool
of parents within the school district. Departing from that, a snowball selection followed
to access willing community members and kin living in the school district but not
necessarily those with children currently enrolled. Finally and very importantly, ﬁfteen

school faculties participated in both the informational interviews and the surveys.

Detailed maps showing the location of dwellings in the rural communities relative
to the school providing demographic data assisted in providing sampling frames to code

and track data. Participants within the educational community were selected using these

50

maps and more often through informal networks. School ofﬁcials were surveyed and
interviewed, as well as community leaders. Because accessing the rural poor participants
is notoriously challenging (Schaffer, 2001) participants were offered a small stipend of
ﬁfteen dollars to participate for the initial informal interview. Because rural communities

are often small, a random sample of 28 total interviews was secured.

One of the goals of this sampling design was to produce four different kinds of
data to be combined in different ways for different purposes. The fundamental data are
the representative educational community samples. Also in this sample are interviews
and surveys from staff. These data are supplemented by other sources such as
ethnographic artifacts (such as school newspapers, local resources), the data from school
grant applications, Standard and Poors, Title VI subpart B Low Income and Rural School
Program data and data mined from the Michigan Department of Education (MDE).
Families and schools living in receiving communities will also be included in the sample
but coded differently for future research. While data from Standard and Poors provided
data on the efﬁciency of schools relative to other schools, mined from MDE and NCES

include:

o SES

0 Social Characteristics and Demographic Data
0 Enrollment Data

0 Educational Attainment

0 Student Families

0 Achievement

0 Finance

51

mi

6".

.15

In general, the strict community was used when the goal of analysis was to study
the state of affairs within that social enclave. When the purpose of the survey is to
examine the social and cultural reproduction of class, mobility and educational
aspirations in rural educational communities, the strict community samples will be
supplemented by data gathered. The community sample includes community members,

kin and school faculty.

Obviously, interviewing only community members who reside within the region
limited the validity of this study, as those that choose to out-migrate were under-
represented. Therefore, representative random sampling using “snowball” or chain
referral method helped access rural community members who were harder to reach.
Speciﬁcally, those that had chosen educational out-migration by way of homeschooling,
dis-enrollment and re-enrollment in another district or those choosing to attend college or

move to another location were sought out as informational sources.

Throughout the course of ﬁeldwork phases of this study, I devoted considerable
time to conduct a thorough search for historical data to supplement the ethnographic data.
I read historical documents in local archives, constructed genealogies of educational
family trees and conducted in-depth interviews, compiling a series of case studies that
have the potential to “stand alone” as an anthropological work. The study draws from
ethnographic data mined from the descriptive questionnaire and the semi-structured

interviews and supplemental data gathered through intensive ﬁeldwork.

52

Participant Sample

The questionnaires were applied to community members and school ofﬁcials
through random sampling. The chain referral methods allowed access to key informants
and continue to build a trusted network from which to gain insider information.
Demographic, geographic and macro and micro historical information was compiled.
Household economic information and socioeconomic information was sought but could
only be accessed by national data sets. Information regarding the social organization of
the community was collected and analyzed. In particular, the behaviors and educational
aspirations of this rural community were investigated in light of recent educational
reform efforts. Speciﬁcally, the sociopolitical basis of educational behaviors and
aspirations of kin, community members and school ofﬁcials, highlighted against the
broader theoretical framework of social reproduction theory, informed the data and
ultimately informed theory. Finally, a detailed analysis of this information provided a

data against which other studies might be compared.

The sociocultural data mined from the pilot study has allowed me to anticipate
some key categories. And as is often the case in ethnographic work, the ﬁndings helped
me reconsider our guiding research questions and redirect our focus. The ﬁrst category
was the strong inﬂuence of kin as critical in virtually all aspects of behavior. Tightly
coupled social networks served to inform and regulate behavior and limit mobility within
these high poverty rural educational communities. In this way and according to social
reproduction theorists such as Max Weber, Emile Durkhiem and especially Pierre
Bourdieu, the rural communities “lived” social reproduction of class-related behaviors,

aspirations and values. According to data collected in the pilot study students, parents

53

and school faculty reported intense social pressure to “level” educational aspirations; a

form of social reproduction in high poverty groups (Fitchen, I987; MacLoad, 1987).

Attention was further directed to the ways in Which schools unintentionally
reinforced social inequalities. On one hand, educational leaders reported conﬂict over
recent educational reform efforts that push middle class notions of upward mobility onto
rural working class and poor families (Kirby, 2006). They pressed for curriculum
developed by “outsiders” and with an “outside focus,” thereby demoralizing the
community values. The students, families and community members resisted the
educational pressures for academic achievement and distanced themselves from the
school and the faculty. Displaying the working class values of kin and locality, they saw
these pressures as a threat to both individual and community survival. School leaders,
once known for softening policy, now found themselves essentially at odds with those

they served (Kirby, 2004).

In general, the ﬁndings helped guide the revision of the study design, to include a
broader approach that would represent a compromise between the exigencies of a
modiﬁed survey research and ethnography. This initial anthropological work took a
decidedly different turn. The pilot study data showed that the predominant issues in the
community were the social reproduction of class and class related aspirations and
behaviors within high poverty rural communities. Moreover, it was found that
educational policies such as school reorganization reinforce social inequalities, depreciate
local class and culture. The study design changed because the research required that it be
capable of securing valid and reliable data points over place and time. A mixed methods

approach was sought for categorization and descriptive purposes.

54

A modiﬁcation of the ethnosurvey method developed by Douglas Massey (1987)
was chosen because it provided a historic depth and interpretive richness coupled with
quantitative rigor. There is well-established literature on both the method (its conceptual
and theoretical underpinnings) and its application (The Mexican Migration Project).
Many of its articles have focused on the social processes (social networks and social
capital) and while the context is different the application is similar. It offers an
interdisciplinary analysis of a rather narrow subject: social reproduction in rural
educational communities in Michigan, and the inﬂuence of schools and of educational

policies on social mobility, on educational outmigration and the reproduction of class.

Community Profile

Rutgers Area Schools can be found 8 miles north of Elk Creek, off the l-75
expressway in an area known as “the Snow Belt.” The small, extremely rural one school
K-l2 district is located in a pocket of poverty in an otherwise modestly proﬁtable county.
Some lucky residents ﬁnd employment at the factory housed within the city limits, or at
the school; these are the area’s two largest employers. Many adults work two jobs to
make ends meet. Many hold jobs in extractive industries; logging, farming and seasonal
jobs such as snowplowing provide income for local residents. Hunting, mushrooming and
tapping sugar maple supplement family incomes and generate a small seasonal tourist
trade. Parental educational attainment levels reﬂect local economic demands, which are
extremely low. Compared to the national average of 25 percent, only 7.4 percent of the

adults in this community have some college experience (Standard & Poors, 2001).

Poverty rates are as high as 63 percent in this district (Standard & Poors, 2002).

Free and Reduced Lunch rates are over 50 percent compared to the national average of 25

55

percent. School administrators report that because of high poverty rates and low levels of
educational attaimnent, children come to school unprepared to learn (Learning Without

Limits Implementation Report, 2003).

The students in this district have a history of poor school attendance, poor student
achievement on standardized tests, with Michigan Educational Proﬁciency Test (MEAP)
scores well below the state average. The district scored below the 30’h percentile on the
MEAP in all subject areas, in both primary and secondary (MDE, 2001). Listed as one of
Michigan’s failing schools, the district has been receiving technical assistance from the

state ofﬁce of Field Services for several years.

As is often the case, school enrollment declines reﬂect the area’s economic
declines (Stern, 1994). The school district has declined by one third in the last three
years, (Kirby, 2004). Graduation rates also appear low bUt such rates can prove
deceiving for rural and small schools. Sandy Whipp, the district’s Superintendent,
explained that the low graduation rates and low-test scores had high variability because
the school was small. The district had only two girls drop out of high school in the 2004-
2005 school year, due to pregnancy, but because the numbers were small, it appeared as

if the declines were overwhelmingly large.

Many rural schools are small and report a greater risk of being labeled as “in need
of improvement” because of the volatile nature of school level reporting from year to
year (Figlio, 2002; Kane & Steiger, 2002). If grade levels are small, they are at greater
risks of considerable variation. One student’s scores are more likely to skew the results

for an entire grade level. Most rural elementary schools in the United States contain an

56

average of 68 students per grade level (Kane & Steiger, 2002). If fewer than 100 students
are tested in each grade, averages are likely to ﬂuctuate from year to year, thus yielding
unreliable scores. Thus, under NCLB, rural and small schools are subject to greater

scrutiny and are at risk for being labeled “non achieving.”

Compounding existing tensions, the district on the verge of bankruptcy is being
forced to reconﬁgure. The district faced a $200,000 shortfall last year, and faces up to a
$500,000 shortfall next year (McWhirter, 2005). Superintendent Whipp said that
“employee beneﬁts and salaries consume 98 percent of the district’s budgets, leaving just
enough to pay for utility bills. New textbooks and building repairs can only be paid
through grants.” Whipp herself has resigned from her position to relieve the district
from this debt and teaching staff has been out, leaving 16 teachers for the 194 student .
body. Moreover, the district special education position has been included in those cuts.

The current principal will take on the additional duties of the Superintendent, without

pay.

According to locals, this decision to bend to state pressures to reconﬁgure is a
difﬁcult and painful one. This is because the citizens of Rutgers live in rural isolation but
with strong and interwoven social networks. They draw clear and distinctive cultural
lines between themselves, the school faculty and neighboring districts. LaCroix County
is highly segregated by class. The county is divided into three areas with clear socio-
economic distinctions; the working class agrarian western portion, the more prosperous
south central portion which provides many of the “city jobs” in the county, and the poorer
non-agrarian northern section. Residents of Rutgers, in the rocky northern region of the

county, complained of “open discrimination” from the “city folks.” These were the

57

government ofﬁcials from the larger, more afﬂuent south central neighboring town of Elk
Creek. Residents shunned notions of a school merger, citing “bad blood” and the schools
ability to deliver on its promises, especially, if the school ofﬁcials making those promises

were not “from around here” (Kirby, 2004).

The outgoing Superintendent suggests that Rutgers’s potential school district
reorganization is likely to do more harm than good in terms of student attendance and
enrollment rates. Says Whipp, “We are likely so see more students and parents feeling
like they don’t ﬁt in, and they are likely to drop out and homeschool. They are more

likely to be at risk for high poverty and an even lower employability rate.

Meanwhile, Whipp leaders have discussed whether to annex their district of 194
students with rival LaCroix Community Schools, or to consolidate with Badger or
Hanson school districts. Recently, the latter two districtshave declined consolidation due
to their own ﬁnancial woes (Record Eagle, April 15, 2005). Rutgers ofﬁcials say that
they don’t know how they will reconﬁgure, but closing is not an option. “Rutgers

doesn’t quit,” says one school ofﬁcial (Record Eagle, February 18, 2005).

Data Coding and File Constructiog

The study design uses the Mexican Immigration Project (Massey, et. al., 1987) as
a model for encoding data and ﬁle construction but on a much smaller scale and for a
single site. The transcribed data was transferred to specially designed code sheets
(Appendix 82). Transcriptions done of audio-taped interviews was done by a hired
clerical worker and coding done by the researcher of this project, familiar with the

descriptive questionnaire used in this project. The information was organized into data

58

infon
from
ofthi
eomr

mm

prese

 

 

ﬁles and categorized to match the information needed in the design goals. Basic
information containing demographic and social data on the community (some drawn
from federal and state resources such as NCES and MDE) comprised a separate portion
of this data set. Geographic and socioeconomic data germane to these communities also
contributed to the ﬁndings of this study. Stand alone case study data was collected and
will be presented in narrative vignettes illustrating the ﬁndings. This information will be

presented in Chapter 111. Images in this thesis/dissertation are presented in color.

59

16.

SC!

501'

CHAPTER III

RESULTS

Introduction

The purpose of this study is threefold: ﬁrst, I investigate the educational
experience of rural community members and how it is reﬂected in their educational
aspirations, attitudes and behaviors. Second, I wanted to understand the community
values about education, the ways they become communal and how they enable or disable
social movement. Third, what do the members of the community, parents, teachers,
interested citizens do, in a behavioral sense, relative to education and how are these
behaviors enacted and reproduced? Moreover, what is the social process or ‘internal
logic” that has evolved to support and sustain these behaviors?

In this study eight themes emerged from the data in two main categories. The two
main categories were in the areas of family and education. In the category of family the
themes focused on family values along three lines; (1) traditions as educational tools, (2)
vital connections through reciprocity and, (3) rural identity and isolation. In the second
category, which focused on education the themes centered on perspectives and behaviors
related to education. The themes were (1) community perspectives on the purposes of
schooling, (2) the inﬂuence of kin on educational aspirations, (3) schools as vehicles of

social mobility, (4) distrust and, (5) survival in rural Rutgers.

6O

In the ﬁrst category which focuses on family, the interviews and observations
suggested that like Annette Lareau’s study of social class, race and childrearing, “crucial
aspects of family and community life cohered” (Lareau, 2002, pp, 752). They were
distinguished by three key themes. The ﬁrst theme was that family and community
traditions were valued educational tools that fulﬁlled multiple vital functions within the
community. Linked to the land and most often deﬁned by production, these traditions
supplemented limited family incomes and helped sustain the community in tangible
ways. Second, rural people in Rutgers maintained vital connections to each other that
were characterized by reciprocity. Families in the community, often inter-related, helped
each other in important ways. Primary relationships such as those within the family
gained importance over secondary relationships, thereby inﬂating their effects. Two
examples that are featured illuminate the rural culture and the important roles families
play in sustaining culture. These focus on rural household structures and economic

support.

In the second category which focuses on education, the interviews and
observations suggested that the people of Rutgers had strong views about education,
about schooling and about educational policy. From these, ﬁve themes emerged. First,
community members and school ofﬁcials reported a subaltem-like resistance over the
purposes and practices of schooling. This resistance took the form of speciﬁc behaviors,
detailed in the following section. Locals, who reported that they wanted the schools to
teach their children how to be good community members, were in conﬂict with the
school ofﬁcials whose educational ideals and practices mirrored the states. The result of

these educational attitudes is reﬂected in the next ﬁnding.

61

Second, family’s educational attitudes had a tremendous impact on educational
aspirations, values and behaviors. Most often, it was reported that the educational levels
of parents or grandparents combined with regional job-skill demands deﬁned educational
aspirations. Leveled educational aspirations, “a powerful mechanism by which class is
reproduced” (McLoed, 1987, p. 9), were a tool utilized mainly by kin to limit social
mobility. Leveling served the functional purposes of both sustaining the community and
ensuring survival (in the most literal sense) within the community. It structured overall

class relations and educational attainment over generations.

Third, schools were viewed as vehicles of upward mobility. Locals reported
concerns that schools pressured students to leave the community, thereby threatening
both individual and community survival. Fourth, locals reported a general distrust for
outsiders and outside institutions such as school, police and local governing bodies.
Formal, sanctioned, inﬂuential structures are considered suspect because they do not
follow local culture. Distrust of outsiders included both faculty and school
administration, all (but one) of whom live outside the district and commute to work.
Participants also reported distrust for educational policies and reforms developed by
distant state heads, citing that policymakers did not understand “what matters around
here.” Fifth, a dominant theme in this study was the focus of survival. This theme
underpins all behaviors related to education. For Rutgers, surviving economically and
socially, local will and determination are critical.

In this chapter I will present and analyze these themes as they related to the
community, experiences, behaviors and the social processes studied. The ﬁrst two

sections of the chapter describe the setting and introduce two major categories: (1) family

62

perspectives regarding beliefs, values and behaviors; (2) family perspective regarding
schooling. Within each category, key themes of the school, community and family are
detailed. In these sections the ﬁndings are described and analyzed according to theme.

This chapter is closed with a discussion of the community’s values regarding schooling.

The Setting

The semi-structured interviews, descriptive questionnaires, observations,
community forums and family visits which provided the bulk of the data for this study
were conducted between April of 2004 and spring of 2007. Beginning in April of 2004, I
began this study with a two hour meeting with the then Superintendent, Sandy Whipp,
who directed me to her administrative staff of one, Principal Mike Zerbe. These
administrators suggested I begin my study by meeting the community at a school board
meeting. There, wearing a suit, I was introduced to the attending community and school
faculty, clothed in considerably less formal attire; ﬂannel shirts, a combination of
camouﬂage and hunter orange and Carhardt’s. At break, I attempted to mix with
attendees but was completely shunned, an outsider to this community. Literally, no one
would talk to me or look at me. I resolved to gain anthropological ground and “make
sense of the local situation” (Denzin &Lincoln, 2003, pp. 17.)

I visited the community school several times in an effort to gain access to a pool
of participants. It took months to establish a presence for the pilot study. It took three
years to obtain sustentative data. I spent time at the gas station/coffee shop and ate
sandwiches at the Galley, the only restaurant in town. I bought beef jerky and bait at the

bait shop, shopped in the now defunct comer market and visited families in their homes

63

and at their camp sites. I brought milk and candy bars to the kitchens of local women, as
gifts for their children. I conducted interviews in churches, homeless shelters and soup
kitchens, at picnic tables over coffee and over the counter at a feed co-operative. I
conducted one brief interview with a farmer on his Ford tractor taking a break from
haying his ﬁeld, surrounded by giant fragrant round bales. Another interview, far less
fragrant but equally colorful, was conducted in a resident’s home/butcher shop during the
ﬁrst week of deer season. I left that interview with a ﬁst full of venison jerky and a
particularly memorable stand-alone educational life history. And ﬁnally, I spent a great
deal of time at the K-12 school meeting with faculty, parents and school board members.
Throughout rural northern Michigan I traveled north on the I-75 corridor passing
vast pine forests, potato ﬁelds, rolling hills dotted by great boulders and an occasional
cow. It seemed to me to be more sandy ﬁelds and rocky terrain than productive farm
land. An hour could pass by traversing a rural road and then a single town would
emerge—Badger or Atlanta. These are small indiscriminant towns housing little more
than a bar, a dollar store, a gas station and a post ofﬁce. These towns in varying stages of
economic decline slip into the distance of the rearview mirror. A more prosperous place,
often located next to the freeway may have franchise food chain to drawing a modest
tourist trade on their way to more glamorous locals. As a group, theses towns were

unmemorable except in their bleakness.

Similarly, the site of this study displays scraps of life'in a frozen rural landscape.
At the center of commerce in a town with a single blinking yellow light is a post ofﬁce, a
bait shop and gas station, a pizza parlor, a restaurant open only for lunch and a bar with a

parking lot full of tractors and pickup trucks with gun racks. Here, locals gather in the

64

morning at the gas station in the newly installed booths for coffee and gossip. It is the
watering hole. Here an idea for something can take ground and erupt exponentially

impacting the town and all its citizens.

In the distance beyond a line of decaying manufactured housing is a grouping of
skeletal trees in a small park near the town church. Across the intersection and further
north, a wood and brick store boarded up and layered with out-of—business signs and
grafﬁti signals and the decline of the town. This was the only market in the city limits.
For a time, local businesses took aim at a dwindling tourist trade when the land proved
too brittle and acidic to produce and the growing season too short. The town never
realized the growth to which it once aspired. These few businesses barely survived

serving the local clientele.

These boarded up buildings and decaying homes held the story of this place; how
a small rural isolated high poverty town became home to a small group of people, mostly
kin, and how this town seemed to raise a ﬁst against the outside world. The people who
live here now, the ones who have lived here for generations, try to make it through their
daily challenges: how to make the mortgage, how to make the truck payment, how to
keep gas in the truck, how to keep food on the table and how to keep their children from

moving away.

The township itself dates back to 1877, established by a former land baron and
university president as a long ago railroad and logging town. Rutgers is a general law
township consisting of approximately 108 sq. miles of land; equal to about 69,120 Acres.

Approximately 33,280 acres of that land is state land, which provides a modest economic

65

draw for tourists. There are several miles of rivers and steams that run through the
township feeding into small bodies of water, mostly mud lakes and swamps. The streams
are good for trout ﬁshing and the lakes are abundant with smaller pan ﬁsh types: crappy
and blue gill. The camping is good and the locals take advantage of this. The area is
known for its extractive industries: logging, ﬁshing, maple tapping, more] mushrooms
and elk hunting. Most local families supplement meager incomes by hunting and
gathering. Some set up roadside stands and sell maple syrup or more] mushrooms to

tourists.

Family life, a priority here, is tied to place and linked to cultural traditions tied to
the land and deﬁned by production. Deer blinds and hunting stands dot the rural
landscape. Hunting and gathering expeditions are a family affair recognized and
sanctioned by the school. Extractive family traditions have signiﬁcance in tying
generations of people to the art of living where they are and families take great care in
educating their youth to stay rooted to this place. This critical distinction between
inhabiting and residing, says David Orr in Haas and Natchigal (1997), is reﬂected in such
connections to the land. These scholars write that a resident is a temporary occupant,
putting down few roots and investing little, knowing little, and perhaps caring little for
the immediate locale beyond its ability to gratify. An inhabitant is one who bears the
marks of the land in their patterns of speech, dress and behaviors. Families from this
Northern Michigan area have been called “hick, not hillbilly,” a derogative term denoting
someone both rural and under-educated strongly tied to community. This, in fact, holds
some truth in that only 6.7 % of the community has some college experience (Kirby,

2006). In this setting, where everyone, including the children, is acutely aware of a lack

66

of money and exposure to outside resources designed to facilitate regional growth, the
families interviewed existed on limited resources. Teachers, who lived outside of the
school district and commuted in for work, observed that the depressed economic climate

was partly due to a resistance to industrial opportunities.

Both the community residents and the school faculty describe opportunities for
regional growth. For example, a tribe offered to build a casino within the city limits and
put in a greatly needed city sewer. Local people resisted this development, despite the
obvious economic gains, and the township voted the offer down. Locals who fought it
cited their desire to maintain their lifestyle. Research contends that economic well being
is linked to three factors: our ability to compete in a global economy, the ability to
incorporate global technology into our productive lives and the capacity to develop
knowledgeable and skilled workers to function in a complex work environment (Judy
D’Amico, 1997). To that end, the local economic environment, lacking a pool of skilled

workers, has struggled to sustain a healthy climate; one that invites businesses to the area.

Geographic conditions and harsh climates contribute to social isolation and social
inter-dependence. This study is located in a remote northern Michigan area,
approximately 60 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan’s upper
and lower peninsulas. The area is known for its large herds of roaming elk and an
occasional black bear. The geography is rolling and rocky and the soil sandy and acidic
from an excess of pine trees. The “snow belt” climate is harsh, with temperatures
regularly dipping down below zero. In fact, the state's lowest temperature on record was
reported here on Feb. 9, 1934, at -51 degrees (Epodunk, 2007). With long winters and

short growing seasons, not many farms are able to survive in this area, yet like many farm

67

 

families in more forgiving environments, locals here are strongly connected to production
and to the land.

Light industry plays a minor yet signiﬁcant role, followed by a number of small
livestock farms from acreage dairy, poultry and pig farms. Most residents reported
commuting to neighboring, more prosperous towns to work in low skilled trades or the
fast food industry. A small manufacturing company remains the areas largest employer
and source of stable income for a handful of residents. The school, which is the
community’s largest employer, employs faculty from outside of the community. All of
the school teachers (with one exception) and the school Principal and Superintendent live

outside of the district.

The recessions of the 19703 and 19803 and the continued weakening ﬁscal
environment in northern Michigan have had a powerful impact on this area, resulting in a
declining population. The surrounding rural villages and small towns have also suffered
due to the loss of industrial jobs in this region. Several of the regions manufacturing
plants located in this region have shut down. Unemployment is rampant. And the
region’s surrounding farm community has fallen victim to the global agricultural market
and the over supply of non-local farm goods and products. Many farms have been forced
into debt and dependency of government programs. The plight is evidenced by the
rundown appearance of barns, fences and outbuildings. Those that stay and try to make a
living often replace collapsed family homes with manufactured housing and mobile
homes. However, current transfer tax laws make it difﬁcult for landowners to pass land
on to their children. Thus, farms owned by families for generations, are put up of sale, for

sale to wealthier outsiders at the higher, re-appraised values.

68

Participants

The entire study was conducted over a three-year period with a sample of 28
participants in a single rurally isolated high poverty community of 587 people.
According to the 2000 census, 241 households and 148 families reside in Rutgers. This
is a homogeneous community. Of the 587 residents, 97.8 percent are white and of
German ancestry, .2 percent is African American and 1.7 percent is Native American. As
a group, they are white two-parent households living below the poverty line, with a 2000
per capita income of $1 1,973, compared with $21,587 nationally (Epodunk, 2007).
Collectively under-educated, only 3.2% of Rutgers residents age 25 and older have a

bachelor's or advanced college degree.

Thirteen of the 28 participants included in the study lived in this rural community.
Of these, eight lived communally with kin on large family plots of land. Others lived on
family roads and, as a group, shared the responsibility of day to day life with family
members. The remaining 15 participants in this study, the school personnel, lived outside

the community and commuted in for work.

The interviews and observations suggested that critical aspects of family life
bound the often inter-related social groups. Within the cultivation of these social
relationships, key dimensions may be distinguished. These dimensions do not capture all
important aspects of community and family life, but they do incorporate core themes
presented in the investigation (Table 1). The organization of family traditions and values

and the insular quality of the community served to cohere existing relationships and

69

social relationships, while furthering an innate distrust for things outside of the

community. Moreover, the ﬁeld observations revealed behavioral activity related to

these themes which dominated the patterns of daily life. Conceptually, it is important to

consider the inﬂuences of rural isolation coupled with a lack of exposure to outside

opportunity as crucial dimensions inﬂuencing the social processes underpinning

community life, family life and schooling.

Table 2: Summary of Findings

 

Emerging Themes

Behaviors or Views

Social Process

Purpose or
Effect

 

Category I: Family

 

Traditions as
Educational Tools

Extraction, production

Taught by kin,
deﬁnes role within
family

Supplement
income, foster
solidarity, skills
for daily rural
living

 

 

Mutual
. Mutual inter- Kin provide . interdependence
Connections and . economic, socral , foster
, , dependence , multiple . . .
Recrprocrty . . and psychological solidarity,
obligations
support strong extended
family ties
Rural Identity and Inﬂated primary Solidarity
I l t' Social distancing, relationships, . ’ .
so a ‘0“ . . . . companionship,
highlighting multiplex roles . .
. . . . strained primary
distinguishing features heterogeneous . .
, relationships
groupings

 

Category 11: Education

 

7O

 

Resistance to

 

 

 

 

Locals press for local . CODﬂICt
. educational
need to be reﬂected in . . between
. objectives, .
the curriculum, , ct' n of Educational
. re e 10
Purpose of Schooling schools should attend J . purposes at
. . educational
to local immediate . . home 3119 at the
objectives
needs and educate to SChOOI
developed by
that end. .
outsrders
. . . ' Leveled
. Limit educational Restrict through ,
Inﬂuence of Kin on . . . mutual need and educational
. aspirations to regional , . .
Educational . recrprocal aspirations and
. , economic demand. _ .
Aspirations relations. Focus attainment
on family survrval.
Crrtrcrsms and Limit educational Leveled
Schools and Socral interventions on behalf . . educational
. . aspirations to local . .
Mobility of the youth over . aspirations and
. . economic demand .
objectives attainment
Social distancin , Inﬂated rima
. . g . p. ry Sense of
susprcron, of relationships,
. . powerlessness
government and strong ties to kin .
. . . . and frustration,
Distrust of Outsrders school, View and community, solidarit
inﬂuences as coming general acceptance . y
,, . ,, . against the
from high class of community “ ,,
. . other
outsrders Views
Conﬂict between Rejection of
. outsrde institutions “outsrde”
Underpins all . .
that are Viewed as inﬂuences,

Survival in Rutgers

behaviors related to
education.

threatening to
community
survival

dependence on
current
practices

 

The Family

This section analyzes the structures and processes of family life in a community

featuring a high poverty rural school district. This analysis includes a description of the

71

characteristic themes and a delineation of the underlying values. This section seeks to
identify key themes that have emerged from the analysis of both the pilot study and the
dissertation study related to family life and education in Rutgers. The analysis is based on
interview data, observations, ﬁeld notes and artifacts collected over three years.
Whenever quantitative proﬁles are used, the goal is to provide detailed information about

the community or to illuminate a condition found within similar communities.

The purpose of this study is threefold: ﬁrst, I investigate the educational
experience of rural community members and how it is reﬂected in their educational
aspirations, attitudes and behaviors. Second, I wanted to understand the community
values about education, the ways they become communal and how they enable or disable
social movement. Third, what do the members of the community, parents, teachers,
interested citizens do, in a behavioral sense, relative to education and how are these
behaviors enacted and reproduced? Moreover, what is the social process or ‘internal
logic” that has evolved to support and sustain these behaviors? In light of the focus of
the study, three themes underscore educational values and aspirations related to family.
They are: the family value of cultural traditions tied to the land, the family value of
sustaining vital connections to kin and community, and the family focuses; kin, rural

identity and survival.

Family Values: Traditions and Educational Tools

A basic theme of family life in this community is its uniformity of the nuclear

family grounded in tradition. In the 28 interviews conducted between spring of 2004 and

72

 

5pm
10 11
reg
con
ex;

sch

cul

 

 

spring of 2007, twenty-seven described patterns and behaviors of cultural traditions tied
to the land. Only one school faculty member who resided outside of the community
negated the inﬂuence of these traditions on family life. These traditions were part of the
community structure and holidays were scheduled around them. For example, hunting
expeditions are a family affair recognized and sanctioned by the school. There is no
school on November 15, the opening day of deer hunting season. On the occasion that
school is held that day, no one shows up for class. The superintendent acknowledges this

cultural tradition:

The teachers said, “Gee, let’s go to school on ﬁre-arms opener. Let’s change the
calendar. You know, other places, you’ll go to school on November 15, we
should, too. You don’t have very many people who hunt anymore.” The board
and I all said, “Wait a minute. That’s a family day here. Even if daughter isn’t
hunting, she’s preparing the meal for the hunters who are going out. You know,
and there’s that family aspect to it.” And (when we changed the calendar and held
school) we didn’t have average attendance on November 15. It cost the district
$5,000 to bring them back another day.

Families reported choosing a camping site on state land in early spring before the
thaw. Moving a trailer and setting up camp, usually with kin, they move their families
from their winter homes to these camps to live before school lets out. Thus, small clans
of kin reside in the wilderness, hunting, tapping maple (which they called “sugar
shacking”), gathering berries and more] mushrooms, ﬁshing and two-tracking. The
former superintendent attends traditional family functions because her husband has ties to

the community. She describes atypical community outing:

73

My husband was out at a sugar shack last night and it’s like of like a spring time
version of hunting camp. Family clans, there is at least 30 different families that
come to this one family piece of land every year and they bring everything from
dinner to the 30 cases of beer. And, you know, they were like Jim, why did you
bring your own beer? We’ve got 30 cases! And you know, you don’t have to bring
your own beer. Yeah, stay for supper. And you know, everybody goes out and taps
the trees and brings in the buckets of sap and there’s the boiling shack and there is
this and that. It’s the entertainment of hunting camp, whether you carry a gun or
not. And a piece of that is always gossip about somebody. This is very important
to our community.

One teacher described the family values associated with hunting and ﬁshing in
this rural community. In his opinion, the family stresses the importance of family

traditions tied to the land. They value these traditions over many other activities.

We’re a small, tight knit, family oriented community. A lot of our activities are
outdoor, hunting particularly. We probably have 70 percent of our high school
students who hunted. I mean boys and girls. The outdoor things tend to be within
the ﬁnancial means. Production related stuff. Tapping maple; that sort of thing.
Parents and students do this together. Grandfathers, fathers, sons and grandsons,
the whole group of them head out for trout camp or deer camp. They spend the
whole weekend. This is what we do.

74

Figure 1: Fish Camp

 

 

A former Superintendent describes similar settings of the family dynamics of the
working class and rural poor who make up the bulk of the school’s population. They
work together, live close to one another, help each and depend on one another for support
and entertainment. These descriptions point to a nested social situation of interconnected

family and community life.

Families tend to come together every night; large, large extended family stuff.
And it’s kind of the entertainment. And because everybody’s not taking off for
this music lesson or that soccer practice or whatever, and they gather. And at that
gathering, there’s gossip. And at that gathering, there’s problem solving. And at
that, and people tend to be pretty rambunctious. Conﬂict resolution is very old
style and only family can be trusted.

75

Figure 2: Smoking Catﬁsh

 

Hunting and gathering, family traditions sanctioned by the school, were important
elements of social fabric of Rutgers. The social network of extended kin contributes
greatly towards cultivating values. The family dynamics described by the former
Superintendent described the inﬂuences that place and tradition has in the lives of
community members. In this community, as in other working class and poor
communities, extended family networks are deemed important and trustworthy (Lareau,

2003). They have strong family ties built over generations.

76

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Family Values: Vital Connections through Reciprocity

A second predominant theme underscores the vital connections to kin and
community. Relationships served multiplex and functional purposes that perpetuate the
community culture and sustain life. Individuals, families and community members
described the necessity of these relationships along two categories: household structure

and economic support.

Household Structures

In this rural place, families often live communally. Families may be taken
in and drift back to other family residences, living temporarily in a series of shifting
households. At any one time, and more often in the cold season they report, families can
expand with some extra people in addition to the primary nuclear family. These extended
families may live on large patches of family land, setting up a series of neighboring,
trailers that offer permanent or temporary homes, depending on the harshness of the
season and the durability of the structures. Families are expanded at one time and tend to

be nuclear at other times. One man offered to take me to a family plot of land.

I could take you in the winter to places where there are two mobile homes duct
taped together and 25 people living in them.

77

Figure 3: Extended Families Living on Family Land

 

Some families who live communally will share a single structure for meals, heat
and utilities, while other adjoining structures remain for sleeping. One participant, a
pastor who runs a local food pantry, describes some of the housing challenges faced by

local families that foster communal living for rural poor:

We have people living in places you wouldn’t believe. I mean, I’ve had to send
my son down to a widow’s house to kill the possums that were crawling through
the holes in the wall, eating the food off her table. But... it’s just, that’s part of
the deal here.
A common theme in Rutgers, neighbors share reciprocal obligations that serve as
mechanisms for survival. Locals who are the most poor share a sense of struggle

characteristic of this community. They observe that many of their kin, falling on hard

times, struggle against government regulations to “grub out a living.”

78

Figure 4: Family Home in Rutger School District

 

Counterbalancing the familial solidarity that sustains family is the frustration for those

trying to improve their lot.

The other thing, in rural America, poor areas, you and your husband, you’re both
20, you get married, you know. Your family says, okay, kids, we’re gonna help
you put up a 1 bedroom little house and we’ll add onto it when you have your ﬁrst
baby. That ain’t happening no more. You gotta have permits and you gotta have
codes and you gotta have minimum square footages and... you know, and again,
it’s a daunting thing. And some may not read well. I’m not opposed to building
codes. I mean, I work in the construction industry but, but it’s getting tougher and
tougher for poor people to build housing. You can’t do it. It’s just getting harder
and harder.

Problems of daily living frustrate these rural residents. Between one instance of
mutual assistance to the next, kin tend to act as shock absorbers against housing
regulation. They provide a buffer against harsh housing policies that undermine rural
self-sufficiency. Another interview provided insight into how locals decide to live

communally.

79

Lake County now has a new code, 720 square foot minimum, you know, to build
anything. If you were my daughter and you got married and said, Dad, you
know, would you mind if we went down the road here on your property and put
up a cabin a one room deal and it’ll be really nice and we can have the baby
there... Can’t do it under the govemment’s standards. It’s too small. You know,
it’s substandard housing and it’s gonna ruin the economy of our county and it’s
gonna lower our real estate rates. And yet on the other hand, if you own
property and you put some skunky, nasty old trailer on there that meets the
minimum codes, you can charge four people four to ﬁve hundred dollars a month
and pay their own utilities while the possums crawling in and out. Why, because
you don’t charge security deposits or anything so people will rent from you. And
not much will be done. So we live together; put up another trailer, side by
each. It’s cheaper and there is less government involvement.

The most frequent form of family expansion followed this route; putting up a
trailer on an existing family plot of land. Occasionally, expansion would include family
relative or husband and child living on parental land. This living situation allowed kin to
share transportation and other expenses. Distant families residing in remote areas
commuted together to town for work, school and necessities, reducing costs. Money
management in high poverty rural regions requires creativity, constant maneuvering and a

strong supportive social network.

Figure 5: Extended Family Living Communally on Homestead

 

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Economic Support

Another common theme that underscores the vital connections to kin and
community is along the lines of economic support. A challenging economic climate
makes it difﬁcult for chronically poor rural families to manage resources and meet the
needs of their families. A basic assumption in rural research is that poverty is a much
more complex and far-reaching phenomenon than is indicated by income levels or district

free and reduced lunch numbers. Janet Fitchen explains:

Poverty is not just an income below a federal guideline: it is an economic
situation, an economic niche, and, often, an economic forecast. And poverty has
social, psychological and cultural concomitants as well (1991, pp. 61.)

A predominant assumption is that economic actions of high poverty rural groups
should be examined against the beliefs and assumptions of the dominant culture.
Speciﬁcally, the assumptions that the rural poor remain in poverty due to a lack of work
ethic, foolish spending and low aspirations dominate explanations of these stereotypes.

The data from this study challenges these assumptions.

The rural families in this study can be called the “working poor” in that most
families had two-parent working households gainfully employed in more than one job. In
the previous section, it was noted that incomes were supplemented with traditions tied to
the land. Families hunted and ﬁshed, collected and forested, tapped sugar maple and
canned. These community members took pride in such traditions and the self-sufﬁciency

it offered.

81

Figure 6: Ice Fishing

 

There is very little employment in Rutgers, with most community members
commuting at least 8 miles each way down the interstate to work. Extractive industries
and the service and tourist trade dominate regional employment markets. One
manufacturing company offers a modest wage for a lucky few. Other jobs are created by

setting up bait shops or roadside booths.

Figure 7: Local Employment

 

82

Unskilled labor in the food industry was the most frequent second job reported.
Despite being low-wage and unskilled, these jobs were highly valued due to a lack of
employment opportunities. Like other rural researchers (F itchen, 1991; F itchen, 1992) I
found a network of kin and neighbors served as informal employment agencies, often

remitted through barter and trade.

The bonds of friendship, kin and community provide the necessary connections
that sustain people and impart wisdom from one generation to the next (Haas &
Natchi gal, 1997.) For the rural poor, this is especially true. A parent describes the

importance of family, church and community:

I’m poor now, but have hope that a lot of others don’t have due to my spiritual
connection with Jesus. “Stuff” just doesn’t have the appeal it used to. One of
your questions was what are some values of the poor. Most I think would say to
get rich. In truth though, I think values aren’t established or talked about, as a
rule, because existing is using all their energy. Every action is based on a reaction
of something beyond their control. Be it medical expenses, heating expenses,
transportation expenses, court costs of some kind-you name it. If and when one
or more of these things occur they have to be taken care of some how with
seemingly nothing. There is no 3-month savings account for emergencies; there
usually isn’t some other family member able to take care of these ﬁnancial
things. It is a bleak existence.

A parent comments that life is difﬁcult for rural people; it’s hard to remain self-
sufﬁcient. Local economic conditions remain depressed as corpoiate owners buy out
neighboring farms for housing developments, marketed to “down-state buyers.” With
the emergence of multi-national corporations and the search for the cheapest labor, many
manufacturing jobs have moved to less developed nations. Here, living well depends

largely on hard work, traditional values and on the connections people have with one

83

another and their surroundings. These connections are a conscious choice and are vital to

sustaining the community.

The community values local business staying local. Keeping Mom & Pop
grocery stores open. Being able to give credit when needed, possibly even using
the barter system to help each other out. Traditional family and community
values. And the community values churches and the support they can give.
Churches give youth attention and nurturing & guidance. Churches help feed
people. Churches help people heat their homes when no other resources are
available. This is a very real problem in our area. Churches provide recreation
that only requires participation-not out of pocket expenses. Pot lucks, small study
groups, Sunday school for all ages. Churches can be a welcoming family when
you don't have one of your own or an extended family if you do.

People get by here with shopping at the thrift stores, not eating out, buying
bread at the bakery outlet in bulk and freezing it. Shopping at yard sales in the
summer. Some people only have cell phones~not land lines in the house.
Growing their own animals for food. Hunting for food. Mothers get their young
and sometimes themselves on WIC, a program where they get milk, eggs, cereal.
cheese, peanut butter, juice. Health insurance comes from government programs
for children. Parents go without here if it's not part of their employment package.
We depend on each other for everything. This is how we make it.

Figure 8: Downtown Rutgers

 

84

Families cut comers and help each other when help is needed. They pay in cash
because it is at hand and credit cards create a threat of debt, which threatens the survival
of the family. They rely on each other for barter and trade, reducing the need for civic
institutions such as banks. Their household ﬁnancial strategies center on keeping cash

liquid, solvent, accessible.

We value simplicity-using cash-paying in person or by mail versus intemet or
direct deposit. That other kind of lifestyle is scary to simple people.

The local demand for employment compounds the problem for rural poor, failing
working poor families in many ways. Financial rewards for work are low. Because the
work is often outside of town, often in a neighboring more afﬂuent town, social
connections and social status are minimal. The existing social connections through kin
and community then gain greater importance. In a broader sense, work provides an
avenue for placement in the social ladder. It is important in not only providing an income
but affects their thoughts and behaviors, as well. The low skill jobs equate to a
diminished social status in neighboring communities. In Rutgers, any sort of work is
seen as respectable. A pastor comments on the effects of poverty and lack of work on the

Rutgers community:

There’s a real lack of community spirit or fragmentation of the community, sense
of community due to a lack of local jobs. People here need to work hard to gain
employment; that means a position in the community. What effect do they have
on families and social relationships? The impoverishment, partly because of the
dysfunctionality of families, I see as morale- spiritual issues. It’s not just money.
These families lose their self esteem. Their social context diminishes and as a
result, there’s more tendency for breakdown because they don’t have the social or
other supports around them.

85

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In Rutgers, a strong connection to community, innate resourcefulness and creative
bartering allow community members to remain self-sufﬁcient, despite a family income
bracket well below the poverty line. Yet families are tied to one another through
reciprocity. One parent of preschool children explains that cultural norms guide social

behaviors related to economic factors in Rutgers:

You had to support each other, you were a community, and you wouldn't survive
if you didn't do bartering, trading, I'll do this for you, you do this for me. And
that, I think that kinda still goes on. My husband does that a lot. Rather than pay
somebody for work, they still do that bartering kinda system . You know, I will
help you on dump day, if you help me.

This issue of survival is validated through the necessary social connections to
community. Cultural traditions tied to the land reeducate generations of kin and reinforce
self~sufﬁciency. Recognition is gained by locals by those who do it well, and by those

who feed the culture through trade, bartering and hard work.

Family Values: Rural Identity and Rural Isolation

A third theme of life in Rutgers strongly relates to the aforementioned themes.
With only 587 community residents, the population is sparse and spatial qualities create
physical and conceptual distances between “the outside world,” and locals, creating a
sense of solidarity. Locals indentify themselves as rural and distinguish themselves from

other rural places through conversations about themselves and the land that surrounds

86

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them, the people who have lived there for generations and the social relationships that

ground them to place.

Figure 9: Family Living Year Round in Travel Trailer

 

People in high poverty areas may be especially tied to necessary descriptions that
characterize their lot (Fitchen, I988). The primary descriptors are the qualities or
characteristics that describe their uniqueness in terms that are not always clear to
“outsiders” but they are very clear to the people who live locally. The common
expression that “we are different around here” is usually coupled with the phrase “we
stick together.” Although there is no clear reference point for comparison, it can be
presumed that these phrases reﬂect individual and group identities against a threatening

“other.”

They distinguish themselves from their more afﬂuent neighboring towns,
describing themselves as “tough rednecks” and “backwoods”. One resident expressed

that “We are hick, not hillbilly.” Such distinctions serve to acknowledge their poverty,

87

 

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but claim it as a quality that can be viewed positively. Speciﬁcally, the underlying
meaning of this phrase qualiﬁes their rural identity and illuminates how they distinguish
themselves. The deeper meaning is that they are locally connected by choice with a self-
sustaining social structure. The bravado that underscores this term reafﬁrms

relationships and proclaims solidarity. One resident explains:

You see it in the animosity between the folks in Rutgers and the Elk Creek
community. Some of it is the Rutgers bravado. You know, we’re rough and
tough. We’re low income. We’re out mudding in our trucks. You know, and so
we wear that as a little bit of a badge of honor. The reality is the community is
very gentle. The community is very law abiding as a group, but they are not
viewed that way from neighboring towns. The Rutgers community used to be
known for having a lot of logging and farming families whose children knew how
to work. I’ve had people, business owners in Elk Creek tell me, you know, look,
you know, 30 years ago, we would hire a kid from Rutgers any day of the week
because they knew how to work. They knew how to do physical labor. They
might look down their noses at us but there is also a little bit of fear there, too.

A local community leader makes a similar observation:

People from Elk Creek refer to us as Rutgertucky. Sort of a poor step sister of
the county. And Rutgers partly would be a resentment because the more afﬂuent
our education level, etc., that they see in the greater Elk Creek area. There are
things that contribute to this; as our businesses close down people here have to
shop in the greater Elk Creek area. They have to, but, they prefer to buy locally
but the stores here are all closing.

This rural identity is deﬁned in terms of spatial qualities and in terms of
community ties. In Rutgers, as it is in other rural places, people construct community
symbolically in terms of locality. It is easy to deﬁne the village and neighboring hamlets

of kin. One faculty member describes a particularly well known family plot:

88

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I could take you out to a little area known as Demonville and it seems to be...
family groupings... It’s very clannish. Extended families living within the same
geographic location. There is a good deal of repairing cars and trading parts
there. Kids here can’t do fractions but they can ﬁx just about anything.

Community is also constructed through a repository of communal resources that
replace the need for civic institutions. Residents can describe physical boundaries,
distribution and consumption, socialization, social governance and mutual support. A
grandmother serves as the family baby-sitter, the bus driver, the cook and the
Laundromat. Because families often live communally, it is likely that family members
assume functional roles. These roles help sustain this community, which lacks civic
institutions such as libraries and public transportation. According to one School Board

member:

I think they call that multi-clutch relationships and a lot of times, people who
are local fulﬁll multiple roles in the community; like they do lots of different
things for the group. That’s how you survive. But it can also be how you don’t
survive if you don’t get along and do what everybody does around here. You
have to ﬁt in and be a part of one of us.

Rural low income neighbors function as a social unit in Rutgers and the residents
express a clear understanding of how they ﬁt into the broader community. “The deeper
meaning of community, while locality-connected, is of the mind: the ideational or
symbolic sense of community, of belonging not only to place but in its institutions and
with its people” (F itchen, 1991, p. 253). Residents frequently mention the uniqueness of
their community and the necessity to protect it from outside entities inﬂuencing change,

which they view as threatening their rural way of life. This quality represents the rural

89

values written about in the “Springdale” study (Vidich & Bensman, 1958). In this study,
residents described the “smallness” and “family atmosphere” in an upstate New York
village. One parent comments on how a family atmosphere in the community and the

help that they offer each other contributes to a feeling of solidarity:

You know, every time there’s a need in the community, the community pulls
together. But when there’s not a need everybody just goes about their lives. You
know, there’s never been a time that I can think of when this community wasn’t
together. You know, or pulled apart. I can’t think of a time where they were
separated on any issue. Everyone pretty much pulls together on everything.

Similarly, Vidich & Bensman report that in their classic study of a rural town,
borrowing and lending back and forth is a widespread act (p. 33). Such traits are
characteristic of the Rutgers community where, “residents claim to know everybody,

speak to each other at the gas station and know when a helping hand is needed.”

For years, farmland and hardwood forests have provided a buffer of space and
geography for local residents. This buffer is physical and conceptual, in that it reduces
outside inﬂuences and protects locals from things that make them feel uncomfortable
(Fitchen, 1991). It furthers their rural identity as individuals and as an inter-related
community. The abundance of state land, parks and wildlife refuges combined with the
wilderness provides a symbolic representation (Johnson, 2003) that “we are protected
from outside inﬂuences and can live our life our own way.” This separation between
“down stater’s” and “country folk” further embeds existing social patterns held by

community members that serve to support and separate a rural identity (Fitchen, 1991).

90

Another anchor to community identity is the connection between kin and
community. The people who live here are a homogenous lot. Residents are more likely
to talk about a group of people with whom they shared coffee that morning at the town
gas station than to describe a club or a civic group. This is partly because the spatial and
social planes of the community are often aligned. They are similar along many lines in

that they share a collection of like characteristics. One school board member explains:

People around here hang with the same people, talk to the same people all the
time. They get opinions and become role models that look alike. They stay here,
help each other out or don’t help each other out. But it’s the same relationship
over generations.

Most residents report that they are distantly related to their neighbors, increasing the
homogeneity of the district. Many relationships are built over generations. A parent

illustrates:

One of the people that I worked with, she sent me down to the high school to talk
to somebody and I was talking about, they called themselves the hen party and
they were talking about their friendships and sorts of things they were doing, so I
was teasing her and she said I’m not really a very good friend. I’ve only been
friends with her for 18 years.

A School Board member and parent added that these tightly nested relationships can

create challenges for those attempting to introduce new ideas into the school community:

You have to watch what you say because everybody and anybody is kinda related
to one another. You know, we’ve got shirt tail cousins all the way around.

91

 

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Neighbors are part of a functional social unit where people share similar ideas, social

stigma, similar goals, values and aspirations.

A small town comprised mainly of recognizable generational families, locals
express that “this is a family town.” This conceptualization points to three things. First,
Rutgers is literally a family town, full of “shirt tail cousins” where everybody is
interrelated. Second, it identiﬁes Rutgers as composed of families steeped in rural
agrarian traditions tied to the land. Third, it makes the point that family, as a social
organization, is a priority here and fulﬁlls roles necessary for survival. A local pastor,
who runs a community food, pantry, makes a similar observation about importance of
family for rural people. According to this pastor, it is very difficult to survive in this

rural place without the beneﬁt of kin, so the importance of maintaining family ties is a

priority.

You can face anything... If you’re not alone, if you’re not going home alone, you
know... If the husband’s got a wife that he can depend on, the wife has a husband
she can depend on... You know, there’s a family structure, a larger structure
there. Where there is an extended family, there is a safe situation. You can
survive this.

Rural isolation is a factor that contributes to the how rural people see themselves
in the community and within the global world. A former superintendent explains that in
Rutgers, tightly woven families live in isolation and have very little experience or
connection to the outside world. Rural isolation furthers a collective vision of community

as a close-knit, homogeneous place (Greenhouse, 1986, p. 131). The spatial isolation

92

contributes to community identity, but creates discomfort with unfamiliar elements.
Poverty and rural isolation are two factors that contribute to a lack of social experiences

outside of the community.

They can’t afford to travel outside of the community, so they don’t go. We talk to
children from this area and thinking how easy it is. .. I mean, here we’ve got
proximity to I—75. You hop in the car and you go. These children haven’t been
south of Grayling and haven’t been north of Indian River. So geographically, you
know, entire generations are living within a 60 mile radius.

Distancing oneself of “unwanted or unfamiliar things from outside the local community
allows long-term residents to continue make claim to the traditions and customs that

everyone in the community knows” (Fitchen, 1991, p. 256). Unknown people, customs
and ideas from outside the community become victims of social distancing. In Rutgers,
the community is small and made up of an inter-related population. The superintendent

shares her observations:

Figure 10 Extended Family on Rural Homestead

 

93

You know, every day I’m amazed at which family is related to what other
families and how interconnected they are. And how very few have had any
college experience at all in the extended family. It’s very clannish; extended
families living within the same geographic location. It’s like on a piece of
property or on the same dirt roads where large family clans live together. They
may put a lot of money into their cars but they don’t put money into their
children’s clothing or into extra experiences. They don’t leave the community
very often. They don’t mix with the outside world.

The complex and interweaving qualities of rural identity, rural isolation and the
overarching inﬂuence of kin and community are some of the forces inﬂuencing values in
Rutgers. A hard won reputation for “holing up” and resisting outside elements such as
school and governance in such a community may cause the community to be viewed by
others as “dysfunctional”. Geographic boundaries and spatial inﬂuences distance locals
both physically and ideologically, furthering these perceptions and furthering the existing

experiential divide.

Figure 11: Home Bordering School Grounds

 

94

Locals experience the “outside world” with tiers of distrust. In a sense the whole
community maintains a separate identity grounded in a resistance against imposed
regulations or experiences from outside the community. Family life is the priority here,
and the schools, as agencies of the state, are viewed with suspicion--a potential threat to

“family ways.” One teacher explains:

The family is extremely important in Rutgers. I think that's part of the thing with
keeping their kids close and not encouraging them to go out. If they go to college
and get more education, they might ﬁnd a job someplace else and then that
separates them from their family.

Because schools are seen as agencies of the state, they are “outsiders pushing
outsider ideas.” They are viewed as threatening to local families. Locals express or
exhibit some degree of disdain or aloofness regarding the school. They express concern
about education aspirations driving their children away. When asked, they are very clear
about their rejection of educational initiatives that will take their children to distant places
for advanced education. Consequently, they develop strategies to keep educational

aspirations in check and maintain their families and communities.

95

Education

Figure 12: The School

 

Introduction to the Family Perspectives on Schooling

For most adults in rural depressed areas formal schooling is limited (Fitchen,
1988; Duncan, Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberly, 2003) and educational attainment levels are
lower. The greatest gap is seen at higher levels of education (Lichter, 1993). As of 2001,
more than 26 percent of metropolitan residents possess as least a college degree,
compared to only 15 percent of those living in nonmetropolitan areas (ERS 2003). This
disparity is especially notable in Rutgers, where only 6.7 percent of the adult population
has some college experience and only 3.2 percent hold a bachelors degree (Table 2).
Despite major social trends to improve educational access to high poverty groups,
compensatory education reinforces inequality because children must compete with
unequal resources (Connel, 1994). Keen observers of educational policy, the rural
residents of Rutgers deﬁne formal civic institutions like education, employment and
government as organized activities provided by urban-based controls (Fitchen, 1988;

Maeroff, 1998).

96

Inferior achievement levels in Rutgers are said to be linked to a number of factors
(Table 2). These factors include a large pool of teachers teaching outside of the school
district, disproportionately high transportation expenses, high special education numbers,
limited availability of specialized and advanced curricular coursework, low parental
educational attainment and a sizable number of low-income students. The majority of
participants in this study from the community had limited formal educational experience.
All but one had graduated from high school. Two women had interrupted formal

education, but resumed their studies after the teenage birth of their children.

Figure 13: Average of Educational Attainment

Percentage of Adults Aged 25 and Older with Degrees, 2000

 

- Best State
- Michigan
National Ave
[:1 Site of Study

  

 

Some College Badielors Degree or Post Baccalaureate
Hidier

Note. Data from US. Census Bureau and the 2004 Cherry Report

97

The inﬂuence of the family on the perceptions of social institutions that locals
view as entities from the “outside world” is great. Rural isolation, homogeneity, a lack of
experiences outside of the community and poverty, all contributors to perceptions, is
furthered by the nested social system made up of kin that pushes for class solidarity.
Thus, those that are different than “us” may be perceived as a threat to the social group.
That threat is in the form of educational indicatives designed to encourage students to
pursue advanced education. Education, as a form of social mobility, is seen as a threat to

kin, community and survival.

In this section, I detail such educational values, behaviors and experiences of the
locals in Rutgers. The themes emerge along several lines. First, I explore the clash over
the purposes of schooling. Second, I explore the inﬂuence of family on educational
aspirations and behaviors in the following section whosee schools as vehicles for social
mobility, and third, the family resistance to social mobility in the form of social
reproduction. Fourth, distrust for outsiders and education as a threat to the family and
community in the areas of schools, governance structures and educational policy.
Finally, I present the underlying threat that schools impose on rural identity and survival

in Rutgers.

Table 2: Demographic Comparison Data

 

Michigan National Rutgers

 

Percentage of rural students qualifying for Free
and Reduced Lunch

Rural per capita income $30,439 $43.317 $1 1,973

33.7% 43% 52%

Educational Attainment Level

98

Some College

Bachelor’s degree
Median household income
Cost of Living
Unemployment

Violent Crime

22.1%
21.8%

$49,350
88%
7%
2

66 %
31%
$44,350
100%
5%

3

6.7%
3.2%

$31,923
79%
7%
3

 

Note. Data from Rural Matters 2003 and NCES

The Purposes of Schooling

For many adults in Rutgers, education is limited. The majority made it through

high school but may not have obtain skills commensurate with their ﬁnal year in school.

This is perhaps because of a resistance by locals to accept the curricular objectives

pressed by the state and imposed by school administration and faculty. Although the

school resides within the community, people in Rutgers refer to the school as something

from “the outside world.” This is a term that indicates an attitude that reﬂects a set of

behaviors, and one that reﬂects their personal identity. Locals report a suspicion of

teachers and educational objectives. A minister comment:

The attitudes of the community about the school negatively impact the student’s
ability to learn. There is a lack of pushing. Pushing is not the word. Lack of
support in doing homework. A neutral or negative view of the school. Social
relationships with the school can be tenuous. Yeah, people don’t, aren’t able to
communicate or interact with the school. They get mad. They blow people off,
then they blame, you know, we don’t need that superintendent? What does she do
up there? They become angry with the system because of their own losses.

99

Locals and faculty members expressed a disconnect between the values and
educational goals pressed by the school and those of the community. The Superintendent

explains that the school can sometimes be seen as a threat to local ways:

One of the things that I have faced here at Rutgers is the gap between what our
predominantly middle class background faculty view as important and valued
versus what our predominantly lower middle to upper low class working poor in
Rutgers want for their children. It’s hard to get to those folks to open up to you
and to tell you what they are thinking. But when they do, they say to me “Sandy,
what the hell are you teaching my children?” So when you ask me what the
values of the community are about schooling, I think that that the schooling
separates them from their family.

A teacher in the district makes a similar observation:

The family is extremely important in Rutgers. I think that's part of the thing with
keeping their kids close and not encouraging them to go out. If they go to college
and get more education, they might ﬁnd a job someplace else and then that
separates them from their family. But family is very important here.

A faculty member suggests that many local parents expect schools to encourage a local

focus in their curriculum and in educational expectations.

What, what do parents want for the children in regard to education? The higher
the people, the kids who are going to college, their parents want them to get as
much as they can out of school, so that when they get to college, they'll be able to
compete and have a fair shot at things. But a lot of them just want their kids to
have enough education so that they can go out into the community and be
productive members and make a living, raise a family. Just the basics.

The Superintendent makes a similar observation:

What role does schooling play in the lives of real folks? I think for some of them,
it shows them opportunity but, but I think the attitude of the community would be

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more of schooling separates them from the value systems of their household or
home.

Residents are pragmatic in their focus and expressed frustration that the
educational system did not reﬂect community local values and community need. When
asked about the functionality of education to this region one rural farmer, a Korean war
veteran with a 6th grade education, explained dryly that education was a luxury he could

not afford. According to him:

In rural America we are focusing on putting food on the table and being able to
stay warm, have a place to live.

Some families expressed frustration over the focus of the curriculum. A high rate
of unemployment contributes to local perceptions about educational objectives. Because
local jobs in the community are sparse and labor unskilled, some perceive that
educational objectives do not reﬂect local needs. According to them, the school should
focus on providing the skills necessary to build the community and gain local

employment. One father explains:

The biggest issue in the education system is it’s not meeting the local needs. You
know, the MEAP tests a couple years ago, it was environmental something, was
the MEAP stuff. Well, what in the world value did that have to a bunch of kids,

you know, at third grade level. It had no value.

Another parent explained the schools should focus on training the community’s

children for jobs within the community. According to this parent, schools failed the

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community by not providing training necessary to survive within the community and be

attractive to potential employers:

How do I get that training? The school, if I wanta work in a trade, if I wanta be
an automotive mechanic, you know what I gotta do? I gotta get somebody to
invest in me. I’ve gotta get a private employer to believe in me and invest in me
cuz I have nothing to offer. On the other hand, if I was in high school and I was
able to get a couple years of shop and mechanic, and auto mechanics, basic stuff,
you know that’d give me a real leg up with the employer. Might say you’re worth
investing. But the school has changed our priorities.

Another parent makes a similar statement:

I think the more emphasis should be put on trade schools, building trades.
Functional jobs. When kids are out of school, they should be able to be trained to
do something.

A grandparent suggests that the community’s children be educated towards speciﬁc

skilled jobs:

I think the armed forces should be utilized more. Right now, right now, they only
want the top, the people that, which is probably good for them. Hi ghly-educated.
a lot of people aren’t in the trenches like they used to be but there’s a lot of
training that could go on there with kids that are in between, they don’t know
what they wanta do. So put them in the service jobs. They don’t need to go to
college to learn how to drink and smoke more. They need to, they need to be
functional. A lot of kids don’t wanta do that either.

According to another parent, the school fails the community by encouraging
students to seek advanced education and acquire more debt. This overwhelmed parents
already living below the poverty line. One parent in the district also worked in a food

pantry observed:

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The majority of the people we work with are working poor so ﬁrst of all, they
have very limited timeframes. We have people who simply cannot handle their
money. They can’t do the simple math. A lot of these people can’t balance a
checkbook. Many of the parents wanted education, they wanted their kids to
do better, but their kids weren’t doing better and they didn’t know what to do
about it. Most of them are not educated themselves. They feel very
intimidated by the school system. So usually they just become angry with the
school.

According to these parents, the world of education fails them in tangible ways: education

does not translate into income or into local jobs.

I think school should be one of the main focuses of life for every child and
teenager. Every effort should be made to keep teens in school for the basic living
standards needed to function in their own local environment. City life is not a
priority for a small country community as country life isn’t for an urban
community. For the rural community school, classes in building trades, farming
methods, nursing, etc. should be stressed instead of being pushed to the rear or
dropped from the curriculum.

But teachers as a group disagree with the observation a parent makes on the value of
schooling in Rutgers. School faculty report a lack of experience with educational

systems and a lack of exposure to higher levels of education.

The biggest challenge that I have is that the parents don't really value education.
It’s reﬂected through their children, the motivation and the desire to achieve just
is really low.

Because schools encourage advanced education, something viewed as frivolous, they are
seen as distrustful. This tension creates friction between the school and the local people.

A mother states:

All these kids are coming out of high school, expecting to go to Michigan State
for the higher education is so much big business, it stinks. And there are some

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jobs that deﬁnitely need the higher education but there’s a lot of average folks
out there that need to learn how to make a living and start it when they’re out of
school. Not when they’re 24 or 25. There’s a big gap in there where people
are accumulating a whole lot of debt and they don’t even know what they want to
do. Schools shouldn’t push it.

Thus, many of the locals indicated that the school did not prepare students to live
locally, nor were they responsive to local need. There were observations that the bottom
line for a lack of educational receptivity to regional needs was ﬁnancial. Distrust for the

school system and the push for state curricular objectives were the result.

If someone died and made me king, I would split the education system. When I
was going to school, we had the college track, you had the skilled trades track;
that doesn’t exist anymore. And I’ve talked to administrators and the bottom line
is it’s money. It’s much cheaper to educate a kid in math and physics and
chemistry than it is to educate a kid in workshop or automotive mechanic or any
of those. It’s a lot cheaper to have a classroom where you just come in and sit
down at a desk and work out of the book, than have all that expensive equipment
and all the space it takes for the expensive equipment, the maintenance for that
expensive equipment. So by and large, those things, they’re gone because the
state has changed our priorities.

The perception of being victimized by the schools was counterbalanced by
suspicion, distrust and a rejection of educational inﬂuences. Locals shared a sense of
struggle and a rejection of educational initiatives that pressed for goals that they viewed

were unreasonable and unobtainable.

The point I’m trying to make is that so much is in excess about higher education.
So much wasted time, high cost, basic curriculum class requirements that mean
nothing to be functional in a given ﬁeld.

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There is a clear feeling of protectiveness to the social order in Rutgers, which
translates into actions within the social group against the forces, such as education, that

threaten the family.

So we have all those issues but it boils back to that, that whole thing. People want
relationships. In the end, the education, you know, the diploma, if you get one, is
a pretty, pretty cold companion.

The Influence of Kin on the Perceptions of Schooling

As noted, kin have a tremendous inﬂuence on educational aspirations, values and
behaviors in Rutgers. The evidence described by participants that supported the research
on inﬂuence of this social group on educational behaviors, values and aspirations was
overwhelming. A striking fact about this community is the dense and overlapping
kinship ties, the secondary relationships and. the limited social pool that inﬂuences

virtually all behaviors.

Educational aspirations seem to reﬂect local economic demand and the
educational attainment levels of parents. People are bound together by a common
experience and common social problems. Families share an awareness of struggle and of
rejection by “the outside world.” They saw that a commitment to each other and to
maintaining common elements as symbols of solidarity bound them together against

outside inﬂuences that threatened their ways of being.

A high school education was good enough for me. I’ve worked in a factory and
I’ve kept a roof over your head and I’ve gotten this and I’ve gotten that for all of
us and, you know, we live comfortably. If it was good enough for me, it should
be good enough for you.

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A local pastor makes a strong point that familial inﬂuences act to counterbalance the

inﬂuence or pressures that schools impose:

Let’s say that you have Sally over here and Sally’s not married and she has three
kids and she’s trying to raise those kids and grandma and grandpa are
involved... there’s a good chance grandma and grandpa didn’t ﬁnish high school.
So in their mind education is not that big a deal-~look at us, we’re surviving
and we didn’t go to school. And so they’re more interested in helping Sally and
her kids have a place to live, food on the table, get a job. In their mind
education is not that big of an issue. It doesn’t matter.

On the other hand, they want them to have a good education so that they can learn
to do something so that they can be something, not just to have a degree so that
they can say “we are so smart.” They want there children to be something and to
have a usable skill.

Local’s educational experiences are reﬂected in their attitudes about schooling. A
lack of educational attainment coupled with high poverty and a depressed job market
feed existing attitudes. Social ties, built on kinship and solidarity risk severing if

mutually built resistance is discarded.

None of these people went to school and graduated. It may be some of the
changes, you know, there’s just a lot more required and the paperwork
requirements for schools to do. The society’s faster paced life is not as simple as
it was 30 years ago, 15 years ago, when they were in school. Now they’re trying
to raise kids. It’s a whole different ballgame and the school is not what it once
was. They don’t like it and won’t buy into it.

Social ties, built on kinship and solidarity, risk severing if mutually-built resistance is
discarded. Social connections by jobs, kin, residence, and friends and the expectations

they hold inﬂuence education related behaviors. One school ofﬁcial comments:

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Our kids generally don’t do real well when they leave here, when they’ve been
isolated but they do very well within the university center at Elk Creek. What’s
part of the reason for that? They don’t lose their family support system. They
don’t go away to the larger, four year entity. Now, after a few years, for instance,
getting their _ done, but they can do their whole program now through the
university center, but after a few years, they seem to be more successful if they go
away to say Central or to MSU. But at ﬁrst, our kids have a real hard time
leaving home. And part of that is just there’s that family pull, that family draw.

The family plays an important role in educational outcomes in Rutgers. Despite ability,
strong preference for living locally with kin often takes precedence over educational

goals.

Leveling

Mechanisms of leveling educational aspirations exist and more or less help
maintain a uniform existence, maintain solidarity and ensure mutual reciprocity. A
limited social ﬁeld and a lack of social participation in the broader culture greatly
contribute to this social process. There are no clear social designations but very clear

limitations on educational aspirations and attainment in Rutgers.

Social status within the community is often based on longevity, heredity and the
ability to ﬁt in. Such cultural adaptions are described as leveling by those within the
community. One of the most shocking ﬁndings was that locals acknowledged this

phenomenon as an internal form of governance and a way to maintain community.

Leveling was reported to occur from three sources. First, the parents leveled the
educational aspirations of their children. Parents ensured their families’ place within the
community and furthering generational ties, which furthered their position or social status

within the community. Second, leveling is imposed by the community, as a whole.

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Third, leveling is a social process that students employ with each other, and especially
new transfer students. The Principal describes a situation that demonstrates parental

leveling:

We make an effort to show them how their kids shine by displaying student work.
They love to see it you know, but it’s kinda weird because they don’t necessarily want
their children to be super successful. ... They’re like any other parent, they’re proud of
them. ... Just don’t get too good because I don’t want you to move away.

The Superintendent describes leveling imposed by parents and the community, as a whole.
These efforts were more or less similar in helping maintain a uniformity of value systems, of
educational behaviors and of educational aspirations. Locals highlighted the importance of
kin and community, of ﬁtting in and maintaining solidarity. This was especially important
because there was no other social ﬁeld in which to participate. The small community of

Rutgers is all important in the social realm.

Leveling that takes place doesn’t seem to depend on a socio-economic status.
And I don’t think it differs whether or not they’re churched or not. The value is
family. And there seems to be a value for the average. That being above average
is not something you really shoot for. You know, because that is kinda like, you
know, it’s almost like that Japanese notion of the nail that sticks up above the
others needs to be pounded down. But it’s not quite that. It’s not that the group is
the important. It’s... you know, we don’t wanta stick up or stick out or be singled
out.

The third leveling mechanism was initiated by youth aimed at new students whose
aspirations were too high. Students, keenly aware of the regional social order, resent
over-ambitious “newbies” whose actions violate community standards and change the

playing ﬁeld for existing students. The Principal notes:

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They’re very hard, these kids, and I believe the parents as well, are very difﬁcult
on newcomers. They again don’t trust outsiders when they ﬁrst come in. They
won’t really pick on that student if they’re passive. But if they’re, you know, a
go-getter or a little bit more aggressive in nature, the students will quickly shut
them down. If you come in being aggressive, they’re gonna resent you and they will
shut you down. They will almost gang up on you. They will just pick and pick and
pick. There is a lot of peer pressure.

These leveling mechanisms establish a social pecking order and maintain the dominant
reference group. Students aggressively counterbalance social acts and educational aspirations

to match parental expectations and bond the existing group.

If they’re too aggressive ... whether that be academically, people are gonna put peer
pressure on them to say hey, listen, you know, you might be an A student there and
you might, you know, be this whiz kid but here we don’t want that. You better back
off . .. it’s not cool to get As.

The social process of leveling is not without its consequences in Rutgers. School
teachers were reluctant to discuss leveling but school administration conﬁded that “class”
and “leveling” deterred them from moving into the district and raising families here.

According to the Superintendent:

One of the problems in our district is that every single one of our faculty
members and our principal live outside of the district boundaries and their
children have all attended different schools. None of their children have attended
Rutger School. One of the brand new teachers had her son here for kindergarten
and then placed him in St. Mary’s in Elk Creek the following year. But you
know, what message has that sent the community? We’ve got people that drive in
and drive out. You know, and the community is really distrusting of them as
people because number one, there’s that fundamental distrust of outsiders.
Number two, the teachers are all from a different socio-economic background.
And the teachers themselves will tell you I don’t want my child going to school
here. Not because it’s bad teachers. The teachers are fabulous. It’s just because of
the kids they’re sitting next to. I don’t want them to have those values. I want
them to have middle class or upper middle class values.

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These various leveling mechanisms help maintain the community culture in
Rutgers. Residents know that they must conform to the cultural norms, values and that
guide behavior in this small town. Being successful at ﬁtting in translates into survival
within the community. Those that are shunned are caught in a bind, unable to make ends
meet without the help of their neighbors. So families work diligently to conform to social
expectations and maintain the paradoxical, lest they become too successful and leave the
community; they weed out those that do not choose to conform. This threat of social
mobility for generational families is great and structures social interactions and

aspirations.

Schools as Vehicles for Social Mobility

A major reason for the frustration that undermines the relationship between the
school and the community lies in the difﬁcult circumstances that local community
members live. Many of the locals are burdened with problems they see as imposed on
them ﬁom institutions and policies outside the community and struggle to make ends
meet by trade, barter, self-sacriﬁce and a mutual interdependence. Education, as a
vehicle for social mobility, is seen as a threat to an already tenuous way of life. The

Superintendent comments:

But what I hear like when I’m down at the bar they say things like, yes, but
you know, Sandy, if our children do what you and those teachers at that damn
school want my children to do, my children will go away to school somewhere
and they’re going to learn to disrespect our family and our ways and they’re going
to get a job somewhere other than here and we’ll never see our grandchildren.
And so then when I ask them if the school could do one thing for you, and for

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your children, what would you like? Well, we want them to be good people and
we want them to have, you know, enough to get by and we want them to choose,
you know, their single wide trailer on our family property and we want, we want
them to be able to keep a job like at Haggins, which is one of our local
manufacturing places here.

Kin gage educational attainment levels and direct aspirations locally. They
encounter frustration with the outside world and try to protect their families against
further difﬁcult circumstances. They seek to keep their children within the social group
where they are safe and can be a productive part of the community. Many participants
remarked that the social pressure to stay within the community keeps families intact and
solidiﬁes the group, providing the mutual assistance necessary for survival in Rutgers.

As one parent said:

People who have been born here and live here and this is the only life they’ve
ever known, they’ve watched their parents struggle, they struggle, you know, to
them, that’s just the way life is and, you know, for them, they don’t know any
different. They’re afraid of their children getting a better education and
moving away.

A teacher makes a similar observation:

I think just as people go out and try to get jobs and ﬁnd a good paying job in the
community and try to raise families and stuff there, and they end up going back
and living with mom and dad in a while because they can't afford it and then
they're seeing that the base entry level positions don't pay enough people are
beginning to say okay, maybe we do need to encourage our kids to do something
so they can start at a higher paying job, like truck driving, mechanic, skilled
trades.

A parent describes the generational aspect of leveling:

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They value honesty; you won’t ﬁnd more honest people. They value family--they
grub out a living to raise their family. They want their kids to be able to ﬁnd jobs
here when they ﬁnish school. To be able to watch their grandkids grow up. To
be part of their lives. In turn, when it comes to being the ones to be cared for
that’s when families step up again--generations taking care of generations locally.

A rural Pastor observes the importance of family:

I think the crux of the whole issue is this: the family structure has the potential to
completely disintegrate. Extended family has to stay here. I hate to say this
because I am from here, but the other factor in this is, is the people who are left in
rural communities, young people, probably their IQ rate is lower because the kids
who can get out of the community go.

School faculty makes similar observations. Teachers and administrators
described the conﬂict that exists between the schools and parents as being one of
conﬂicting values. On the one hand, teachers were implementers of curriculum for a
universal job market. According to teachers, faculty and school board members, parents

equated educational aspirations with mobility. A teacher comments:

One of the biggest challenges in this community is how to get the kids and
parents to see schooling as necessary training; necessary opportunities for them
that will help them ﬁnd good jobs. This, and still be able to have their children
close enough to them. Because that is part of what is valued by the culture here.
A lot of parents want their children to stay here. A lot of them are in conﬂict
because they see that their children need to leave to get better paying jobs, more
opportunities. But they don’t want them to.

A second grade teacher makes a similar observation:

I think they do value the school. They are working very hard. There are a lot of
them that have two jobs and they don't have the time to donate extra hours and
things like that to the school. I think a lot of them want their children to be able to

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go out and ﬁnd a job real close here so that they have close contact with their kids
and their grandchildren.

A high school teacher discusses the results of an informal survey conduct by teachers:

A few years ago, they kinda did a survey, a study about why we were losing
students, especially in high school and one of the comments that came out of that
was a parent said I don't want my children to do better than I did and move away
from me. And I found that to be very revealing. And just a sad, strange
comment. But I think that some of the community feels that way. They really
want to come here and just be left alone and not have to face changes. The
thought of college is pretty scary for them

Despite the difﬁculties, people do not seem to move away. Ancestral roots and
generational ties are the reason people stay and “grub out a living.” Although
relationships with kin may be at times difficult, the fear and distrust of things from
outside of the community provide further reasons to foster social compatibility.
Insecurity about dealing with unknown social situations, unfamiliar civic institutions and
a lack of social networks to buffer these unknowns further a reluctance to move to a new

location.

Distrust

A common theme in the ﬁndings was distrust for things outside of the
community. A real bind occurs for local people that lack the experience or the tools to
interact with the outside world. They “feel scorned by it, and at the same time are forced

to interact with it because the broader society is an inextricable part of culture” (Fitchen,

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1988, pp. 181). Outside culture is carried in on the backs of schools who ofﬁciatte

matters involving their most precious commodity--their children.

People in Rutgers sometimes refer to their more afﬂuent neighbors, the urban
world or the broader society as “the outside world.” Nearly all of the participants in the
community described a general distrust for things outside of their social ﬁeld. As
indicated earlier in this chapter, the polarity between “us” and “them” is rooted in
inexperience. These factors coupled with geographic isolation and a limited income
limits spheres of participation for rural people in Rutgers. Locals who lack structural
opportunities for integration are further disadvantaged by the attitudinal and

psychological barriers that result.

For many rural residents, educational experiences are difﬁcult and poverty is
often a central theme. Yet they are tied to school because it is one civic institution that
links them together and does in fact offer them more family time. A faculty member
comments on the social value of family and its substantive impacts on isolationism and

solidarity against disdainful outsiders:

What’s important here? Family loyalty is what matters here. You listen to some of
the oral histories of the families and it’s pretty amazing. The old timers will tell
you about when they used to have pride in the village and pride in their family
groups, and that pride doesn’t exist now. I think that leads to further
isolationism. You know, because we can’t hold ourselves out there with pride, we
need to put a wall up between ourselves and others. So that, you know, we’re not
subject to that continual wounding. We can’t trust them (outsiders) and we have
to wall up.

The “wall” that one faculty member described served the social purpose of
solidifying the existing community while keeping potentially “bad people” out.

Residents spoke of a concern over a growing population of “down-staters” moving into

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the area and changing traditional ways. Within the community, this attitude serves the
purpose of weeding people out to determine trustworthiness, which is based on longevity

in the community or kinship ties.

In the local region, in the families that are local, they have generational roots
here. We also have a growing population of rural poor who are people who are
leaving the cities. Taking the chance, I’m going to a place where I know nobody
but I want to get my kids out of the mess I’m in. And that’s a visibly growing
segment of our population. And they’ve got strikes against them because they’re
not locals, they’re not trusted. You know, the locals are afraid their kids will
bring in more bad things into the community. And plus when they get in trouble,
you know they need help, they’re not sure where to turn and they’re not used to
the idea of a family structure. You know. . .if you’re not local and you come up
here and you’re having problems, you’re really in trouble because chances are
you won’t be able to survive unless you buy into the culture.

Figure 14: Rental Property

 

We have had people move in the past who didn't stay very long. They didn't ﬁt in
and they move on. We have a lot of people moving into our community that are
in the welfare system and it seems like they're trying to stay a step ahead, you
know, of the, of the court system, things with their kids and things. But I don't, I
think as adults, I have the impression that they‘re accepted okay in the

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community. The kids here at school, they do have a hard time. Sometimes our
kids take pride in chasing them off, too. They think that's cool that somebody
didn't stay long.

School faculty reported that the pride in rejecting students who transferred in
allowed their marginal positions in the social order to be reversed. It shows an intense

sociological awareness of their social position.

Distrust of Teachers as Outsiders

The residents of Rutgers described a distrust for the teachers. All but one lived
outside of the community. All of the school administration also lived outside of the
community in wealthier communities and commuted in for work. With a lack of roots
within the community, residents view teachers and administrators with distrust. The

Superintendent comments:

One of the things that I have faced here at Rutgers is the gap between what are
predominantly middle class background faculty View as important and valued
versus what our predominantly lower middle to upper low class working poor in
Rutgers want for their children.

Parents are aware of a social distancing that occurs by community members towards
educational faculty. Rather than subject themselves to educational relationships that
create difﬁcult feelings, some locals reject teachers and administrators. The bottom line
is that because they reside outside of the community, they are outsiders and therefore

suspect. One school board member comments:

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I guess our community doesn’t realize that just because outsiders are teaching our
kids, that it’s a good... You know, they don’t appreciate that. It’s because they’re
outsiders that they’re not appreciated.

This gap is described as one that impacts how community members receive
teachers and school initiatives. Administrators observed that teachers’ attitudes toward
the community also lacked what could be interpreted as a rootedness or solidarity.
Teachers observed that they were viewed as public authorities and administrators of
outside policies. They are conduits of educational initiatives and enforcers of state
policy. They attend to numerous educational tasks such as testing and reporting,
comfortable in their role and the state accountability. Parents are unfamiliar and
uncomfortable with these levels of accountability and with outside institutions.

Moreover, faculty reported that locals resented the salary and beneﬁts of teaching faculty.

I think parents in our community think that the teachers feel that they're better
than they are because they know things that other parents don't know. Because I
test their students. Cuz I've got a college education. Cuz I have a job. Because I
can make twice the money they're making. And they will take a defensive
posture. Even though I don't think that. I don't, you know, I don't care. They
probably feel uncomfortable. I think your question was why are they a little
nervous in coming, talking.

Other teachers described social and attitudinal barriers that limited interaction in
the school and in the community. Some of it was a result of local attitudes, while others

identiﬁed it as a phenomenon driven from within the community. All acknowledged a

cultural barrier between faculty and the local community. A teacher comments:

I'm really an outsider. Even though I taught here all these years, I'm not a
member of the community and that is really how people look at us. I think quite a
few people see the teachers here as more, we take money out, we don't spend it
here. And so what sometimes happens is that they feel that we are, you know,

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trying to impose our standards, our morals, our values on their children. And that
can create some resentment.

A school board member makes a similar observation:

My thing is faculty are educated people who have ﬁrrthered their education to a
level where they are in a profession and you know, they deserve to have some
appreciation for that. And you don’t get that in our district.

The social distancing that is characteristic of this community is also a quality observed in
the school faculty. Some of the teachers explain that social participation is limited to

school related functions. An elementary teacher explains:

I don't know much about the parents because I just work here. You know, until
4:30. Most days I'm here at 7:30 most mornings. When I'm done here, I like to
go home. No, I don't stop at the community haunts and talk with parents. But I
see them at the conferences and I see them at other functions.

These comments and many others like them were spoken with softened voices,
confusion and bitterness. The perceptions of the faculty and the locals aligned, and

limited their ability to participate in voluntary activities in productive ways.

Distrust of Government

Kinship and generational ties in the community impact local politics in Rutgers.
In many rural regions politics are often a family affair. In high poverty rural regions, the
political dynamics are sometimes quite different. The politics are often characterized by
longevity, stability and community ties. Locals describe the challenges of working

within the system:

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Well, when there's complaints and stuff, people go to the village meetings once a
month. And even that is so... it's, I don't know, just so slow as far as the progress
of what you were looking for. My father-in-law had a complaint about the, the
speed that people were driving, they just put in that street by his house that never
used to be there, they put in a whole new street and it wasn't paved and he had a
complaint and it just takes forever. You don't, you don't seem to get the answers
from the village council. Yeah, because the village, the hours for the township
clerk is like Tuesday from 9 to 1, one day a week. Well, come on here, you know.
I want some answers now. Well, you can't. They're only available on Tuesdays.
So how are they supposed to help me?

In Rutgers, the political environment is also characterized by distrust; this is
especially true for systems governed by the county or state. Locals, both lifelong
residents and school personnel, describe a deep distrust of government structures and
organizations because they view them as something as imposed upon them from outside
of the community. They described ways in which housing laws imposed fees and
regulations that governed their household structures and the ways in which families

communed.

The state tries to impose a middle class, afﬂuent lifestyle and expectations on
somebody, you know... who doesn’t... At one conference where I was speaking,
you know, I said, look, I know people who live on dirt ﬂoors. And one worker
said, well, who are they? I said I’m not gonna tell you because in your mind,
that’s neglect. You know, and I said I don’t live on dirt ﬂoors and I really would
never want to have to do that but Abraham Lincoln made it on dirt ﬂoors. I said,
it’s not like, it’s not like these children are being neglected. Their parents are
doing the best they can. And you know, we work with people who feel that
electricity is not the biggest necessity in life. They get by. They have outdoor
plumbing, that’s okay. So I think part of the problem is we try to impose
something on people that they don’t necessarily want. In rural America we are
focusing on putting food on the table and being able to stay warm, having a place
to live.

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Families are being forced out by government, by economics, by regulation by the
state. I don’t wanta come across as, you know, anti-govemment, militia thing.
But we have too much regulation.

This lack of governmental participation and support is reﬂective of the distrust for
the dominant culture; those with more money and more power and inﬂuence. Locals
describe ways in which government is inﬂuenced by “high class people” and

marginalizes the poor.

I believe the community values families free from a lot of regulations from
big government. Free from the inﬂuence of a few "high class" people who come
into the area and impart their ordinances on the simple life that is here; noise
laws, how many cars you can have in the yard or property. Some people have
several "parts" cars to keep one running. When one car goes to hell you can't
trade it in because a lot of times it's not paid for yet. You keep it and use parts
from it to get another one going. It costs to have the junk cars hauled away.

Some locals reported that schools were seen as “Big Government.” This phrase is used to
describe the extent of the gap between the people who reside in Rutgers and those that

implement what they view as urban-based policy.

By and large, most of these families can give you a negative story (about schools
and government) and if they don’t have a personal negative story, they can give
you a dozen from their friends. You know, so they view them as the enemy and
to a certain degree, the school because it’s government funded, it’s also viewed as
the enemy.

I think the community at large here, they’re threatened by the government and they
see the school a big government. It’s hard for them to give up their social security
number for our records. They don’t want to ﬁll out forms for free and reduced
lunch. I thought in the beginning it might be partly embarrassment, they don’t want to
ﬁll that out. But I think sometimes people are afraid that they don’t want the

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government to know how much money they make, that type of thing. So they’re very
protective of that.

Rural Education and Survival in Rutgers

A dominant and emerging theme in this study has been identiﬁed: the will to
survive underpins all behaviors related to education. For Rutgers, surviving
economically and socially, local will and determination are critical. It requires ingenuity,
creativity and a commitment to community. Broad scale political forces are seen as a
threat to kin, community and survival. Education, a tool often seen as a vehicle to lift
social groups out of poverty, is viewed as something that endangers this community. One

parent comments that:

Everything is about survival. Family in the lives of the people that you work with
because they help in the survival mode. Does family help with educational goals?
I don’t think so because education is not that big of an issue. What matters here is
surviving. You know, having a place to live, food on the table and a job.

Here is my point about the education system. If you’re in the rural area and you
get done, the diploma on the wall doesn’t mean anything because it doesn’t mean
self-sufﬁciency. You know, it doesn’t mean, it doesn’t mean food on the table. It
doesn’t make my truck payment. You know, it doesn’t put gas in the tank, unless,
you know, unless I have a job where those skills do that for me. Then it’s a whole
different ballgame. What matters around here is relationships and survival.
Relationships mean survival. Because in the end, the education, you know, the
diploma, if you get one, is a pretty, pretty cold companion.

Surviving in rural northern Michigan can be difﬁcult. The depressed economy
and a dying tourist trade, geographic isolation, limited access to social institutions and

weakened educational funding, declining enrollments and redistricted boundaries, low

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wage and low skilled employment all interact with each other; and they affect individuals
and community members in Rutgers. Despite the combined efforts of the local people,
they will not remain insulated from the effects and changes imposed by the dominant

culture.

The social processes that underscore educational aspirations, values and behaviors
in Rutgers are constructed to wage a war against the outside world. And despite local
ingenuity, creativity and solidarity the broader society is seeping in. Seen as a threat to
rural families and lifestyles, political reforms are changing traditional life in Rutgers.
Local wisdom aside, current educational reforms that press for increasing accountability

and sanctions for “failing schools” threaten local norms.

Chapter Summary

The research was presented and analyzed the data regarding the educational
aspirations, values and experiences of community members and the social processes that
underpin them. School personnel also participated for a total of twenty-eight semi-
structured interviews, sixteen secondary interviews and four individual educational life
histories. Unstructured interviews and participant observation supplemented the
transcribed interviews. The data was broken down into four sections. The ﬁrst section
described the setting and reintroduced the participants. The second section introduced

the family values that included three themes: traditions, connections and reciprocity,

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household support, economic support and ﬁnally, rural identity and isolation. The second
category presented and analyzed data regarding education. The subcategories included
family perspectives on the purposes of schooling, the inﬂuence of kin over the purposes

of schooling, leveling, social mobility, distrust and survival.

It was found that rural families in this community value education on their own
terms. In local belief and practice, locals resisted educational initiatives pressed by the
state and implemented by the teachers and administrators. Locals, in conﬂict with
teachers over the purposes of schooling, observed that schools failed them as a
community and as families by offering educational and social entry points of social
mobility. The school, seen as a carrier of the broader culture, is resented for an education
focusing on a global economy and a universal job market. Teachers, all of whom lived
outside of the district, were seen as outsiders pushing outsider policy: something that

threatened the survival of this community.

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CHAPTER IV

GENERALIZATION, IMPLICATIONS, REVIEW OF LITERATURE,

CONTRIBUTION, CONCLUSION

Central Focus of the Study

This chapter will synthesize the educational, social, economic and familial aspects
that are the foundation of this study. This synthesis revolves around three research
questions: (1) how do rural poor experience education, and how does their experience
become reﬂected in their aspirations and beliefs about education? (2) What is the
community values regarding education and in what ways do community social networks
enable or disable social movement? (3) What is the social process or “internal logic” that
supports and sustains these behaviors? These questions were answered and analyzed in
chapter three. They naturally led to another basic question: What are the basic
contributors to educational aspirations, values and behaviors in Rutgers? I argue that
there are four likely contributors to educational aspirations, values and behaviors. These
are not all inclusive but provide a basis for understanding the educational aspirations,
values and behaviors in one Michigan community, generation after generation. These
contributions will be discussed in this chapter. First however, the four principles of this

study originally introduced in Chapter II should be restated.

l. The ﬁrst principle is that educational aspirations and related behaviors originate as
a socio-structural component of rural communities. In other words, local

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economic demands and community need serve as a barometer of educational
aspirations.

The second principle is that tightly nested social networks are a major part of the
critical social structure that enables or disables educational aspirations and
therefore, social movement. Individuals from the same community are bound by
reciprocal obligations upon which new generations continually enter and establish
social roots (MacLoed, 1987). The bracketing of the individual to generational
social structures reproduces educational aspirations and in turn, social mobility.

The third principle is the social pressure described as “leveling” is one powerful
mechanism by which social class is deﬁned and reproduced over generations
(MacLoed, 1987). This is one element of the socially and structurally constructed
entity of social reproduction in Rutgers. It inﬂuences educational aspirations and
has independent effects on class structure.

The fourth principle is that conforming to this social pressure to “level”
educational aspirations serves the functional purposes of both sustaining the
community and ensuring survival within the community. Individuals in the social
order come to accept their own position and the inequalities therein, as legitimate.

Kg Findings

Educational Aspirations, Values and Behaviors in Rutgers

The analysis of the data consistently supported the conclusion that the educational

values and aspirations of the people in the Rutgers community are balanced by two

factors: they are reﬂective of (1) their perceptions of regional economic demand and, (2)

familial expectations. Familial educational expectations followed generational patterns.

The youth of Rutgers were expected to follow in a similar path. The most powerful

conclusion is that the family culture transmits an instrumental view as a mediator of adult

educational status (Oakey, 1993). The socio cultural characteristics and educational

aspirations of the community conﬂicted with those of the schools. The conclusion is that

kin play a critical role in educational experiences, aspirations and values, in social

mobility and in creating the “internal logic” that sustains them.

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To the rural poor of Rutgers, education serves multiple functions. From a
structural standpoint, the school is the newest and certainly the most ofﬁcial building in
the city. It provides a sense of pride and citizen identity. The community gathers and
holds important events at the school, which are announced in the small local paper. It is a
place of venison dinners, sporting events and fundraisers. People living in Rutgers use
the school for functions one might not expect to see in a more metropolitan area. For
example, the community recently experienced a great loss when a beloved student
suddenly passed away. The funeral took place in the school gymnasium during school
hours. Participants described the important role the school played during this time of
community loss. The school, as a structural entity, is at the town center and supports the

community in many ways.

From an educational standpoint, the school touches the lives of most of the
citizens of Rutgers. It is a fact of life that most everyone living in Rutgers attended
Rutgers schools. An extremely homogeneous group, most people have resided here for
generations. Rural poverty in Rutgers inﬂuences educational experiences and aspirations.
Parents with lower educational attainment working in low wage jobs cannot afford to
take the ﬁnancial risks with their limited incomes. The (educational) goals are too distant
and unfamiliar and the ﬁnancial needs are immediate (F itchen, 1981). The school offers
opportunities that the rural poor cannot afford to try. So the rural poor of Rutgers
withholds psychological support in the educational arena. Some consciously attempt to
keep educational aspirations and values in check by restricting them. The school

Principal provides an example:

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We make an effort to show them how their kids shine by displaying student work.
They love to see it you know, but it’s kind of weird because they don’t necessarily
want their children to be super successful. But they really love to see what their kids
can do. They’re like any other parent, they’re proud of them. So it’s like they’re proud
of what their students or children are doing. Just don’t get too good because I don’t
want you to move away.

The restrictions placed on educational aspirations and attainment in Rutgers is warranted
by overwhelming immediate needs, limited incomes and a way of life that demands a
cormnunal investment. Janet Fitchen’s 1981 anthropological case study of rural poverty
illuminated barriers to upward mobility for the rural poor. Among the barriers described are
they ways social systems perpetuate and reinforce poverty in rural areas. Rural poor lack
opportunity to practice the necessary skills for educational advancement, they lack opportunity
to deﬁne themselves within the broader culture and they are aware of how they are perceived
by the dominant culture. They justify their life conditions and distance themselves ﬁom the
dominant culture, further perpetuating social distancing through “attitudinal separation”
(Fitchen, 1981, p. 188). Similarly, the rural poor of Rutgers try to reduce their worries about
low educational aspirations by stressing the value of what is important to them, rather than

what they don’t have. A grandparent states:

What will more school get you but more stuff. I see the world as a material
world and everybody tries to keep up with everyone else. And advertising is all
about me, me, me, with it’s just put in your head that you have to have everything
that everyone else has, bigger and better. And you have to have it now. You can’t,
you can’t wait, save, or earn it. You have to have everything right now and that’s
not how it should work. We should have some, some sort of value and know
there’s limits. I don’t see where that’s gonna ever change, or how it will change.
Cuz you don’t have to have a lot of stuff to have a quality.

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What matters to me? Love, grounded love. Knowing that I belong with my
partner, with my family, with my church. That I’m appreciated for who I am and
not what I can give someone else in their eyes. I don’t like to think that
someone’s gonna buy me. And they like me for me.

Outside observers might interpret local strategies of modifying goals to meet
regional demands as a lack of motivation. The restriction of educational aspirations
might be interpreted as being a consequence of apathy, due to “laziness” or a “lack of
ambition.” The strategies that mold educational aspirations and achievement are in fact,
meant to preserve the individual and the community. The underlying internal logic is
this: conforming to this social pressure which essentially levels educational aspirations
serves the functional purposes of both sustaining the community and ensuring individual
survival within the community. Poor rural people cannot afford to take economic or
social risks with their restricted incomes to commit to a diStant goal (Fitchen, 1981).
When asked about educational aspirations, one parent in the community summed it up by

adding “Everything is about survival.”

Managing the difﬁcult balance to survive in Rutgers is made easier by solidifying
factors that distance outside pressures to achieve. One solidifying factor was a pattern of
distrust for all things outside of the community. Educational reforms were suspect
because they were initiated outside of the community and generally did not reﬂect local
need. Teachers, all (but one) of whom lived outside of the district were seen as both
outsiders and conduits of educational policy and were therefore, untrustworthy. Finally,
civic institutions such as schools were seen as untrustworthy because they were seen as

“big government.” The Principal adds:

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They don’t like government. They want to be free of it. They’re afraid of big
government and they see the school as big government.

It is a fact that the educational aspirations of people in Rutgers are offset by
regional economic conditions. Kin play a conscious inﬂuential role regulating education
aspirations and values. The data consistently supported the conclusion that the
educational aspirations in Rutgers are balanced by regional economic demand and
familial inﬂuences which are in turn, tempered by spatial inﬂuences. According to the

school Superintendent:

Our kids generally don’t do real well when they leave here, when they’ve been
isolated but they do very well within the university center. What’s part of the
reason for that? They don’t lose their family support system. They don’t go away
to the larger, four year entity. Our kids have a real hard time leaving home. And
part of that is just there’s that family pull, that family draw.

Educational aspirations, values and behaviors are aimed at attainable goals
targeting regional jobs. Regional, social and familial factors play important roles in
restricting and regulating educational aspirations, values and behaviors for the people of
Rutgers. The people who participated in this study see educational outmigration as a
threat to individual and community survival. Education as it is presented by the formal
organization is seen as a vehicle for social mobility, a phenomenon that threatens their
way of life. Their attitudes are warranted. They often experience limited incomes,
limited resources and immediate needs. These needs are often met by kin. The
conclusion is that community social networks made up mostly of kin enable or disable

social movement and mitigate the internal logic that sustains those related behaviors.

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Meanwhile, the gap between educational aspirations, behaviors and achievement
continue to perpetuate poverty because of the long term damage it does to family
relationships, educational goals and outcomes and long term day to day living. The
community’s values, the reliance on family, kin and the focus on day to day survival is

such that it limits educational aspirations.

Contributors

Primary Contrilpitors of Low Educational Aspirations

The primary causes of low educational aspirations and values in Rutgers are
conditions “embedded in the economic and social structure of the community” (Fitchen,
1981, p.185). Speciﬁcally, there are economic and structural elements in the Rutgers
society that lead to low educational aspirations. Rural isolation coupled with a lack of
access to public institutions such as universities, libraries and civic centers limit
opportunities to learn skills that can be seen as valuable capital in the broader culture.
These are conditions that work systematically and purposefully, perpetuating poverty,
class, community and educational culture in Rutgers. Using the same example, a lack of
opportunity to access skills seen as valuable in the broader culture translates into
limitations in transferable social and cultural capital. Moreover, with fewer opportunities
to learn the skills base of the dominant culture, the primary relationships within the rural

community will likely suffer.

Historicaﬁrnd Socio-structural Contributors

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An important recapitulation of both the historical literature review and of the
study culminates in two observations. First, state directed educational policies send the
message that communities, such as Rutgers are inferior. As an example, educational
reform policies such as the Cherry Report make it an “economic imperative” to change
educational aspirations and achievement levels, metaphorically alluding to the

achievement lag in rural places. It suggests that:

Michigan residents, businesses and governments can either move forward to a
future of prosperity and growth fueled by the knowledge and skills of the nation’s
best-educated population or they can drift backward to a future characterized by
ever diminishing economic opportunity, decaying cities and population ﬂight- a
stagnant backwater in a dynamic world economy (Cherry Report, 2004, p. 3).

The implication is that rural communities, as stagnant backwaters of educational reform,
should become more like enlightened industrialist and show willingness towards
educational transformations. One participant of the study, a grandparent, comments on

the disconnect between policy makers and their rural poor constituents:

In the introduction it states that “Michigan’s economic position has changed, and
the state will have to travel new roads to reach a brighter economic future.” The
state will have to travel the back roads ﬁrst to ﬁnd how the economic position has
and is affecting the extreme poor of this state.

The sublimation of rural educational communities through increased powers of
the state invariably has sent a strong message; rural communities are inadequate, inferior
to more industrialized societies, as indicated by distribution of funds and by attention
from policy makers. These inadequacies have placed them on a lower rung on the social
ladder. They are destined to be controlled by bureaucracies using policies developed

outside the community.

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Second, poor rural communities lack organized regional social connections and
structural bridges that connect them to people in the broader more industrialized culture
(Fitchen, 1981). Speciﬁcally, due to place, rural isolation, social class and other
structural factors the rural poor have limited experience or access to outside social,
organizational and structural entities that develop cultural capital. Cultural capital is the
knowledge and skills that award participants with some value or advantage (Bourdieu,
1973; Howley, 2005). Bourdieu argues that the educational system reproduces the
structure of power relationships between classes and the symbolic relationships between
classes. In other words, schools reproduce class because they award academic success
because it mirrors the ideals of the dominant elite. Moreover, he suggests that social
mobility is, in essence, controlled by the structural dynamics of class relations. Schools
then, are part of the social structure that awards power and privileges. They contribute to
the reproduction of the structure of class relations by awarding value to cultural goods or
symbolic goods that represent wealth. According to Bourdieu, theatre, concerts and
museums are examples of cultural capital or symbolic wealth valued by educational

systems.

The majority of research indicates that rural people have fewer opportunities to
participate in activities that award cultural capital (Fitchen, 1981; Howley, 2005).
According to these scholars, urban and suburban people, by virtue of locality, have
greater access to universities, theater, libraries and other social systems through which the
currency of cultural capital is exchanged. One implication is that due to rural isolation
and factors related to place, the rural poor experience limited access to public libraries,

ballet classes, and theater and other culturally rich opportunities that would allow them to

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bank cultural capital. Moreover, they are less likely to accrue the social rewards
associated with amassing cultural capital afforded those living in more metropolitan
areas. This combination of factors limits opportunity for the people of Rutgers who live
in rural poverty. According to Bourdieu (1973) cultural transmission for cultural capital
valued by schools is reproduced as worthy of being sought and certainly a sign of higher
positions within the social order. Alternatively, lower positions in the social order, often
occupied by agricultural professions, “are excluded from participation in the ‘high’

culture” (Bourdieu, 1.971, p. 73).

Another implication to the social and structural limitations of rural life means that
the existing social groupings are more likely to be intimately interconnected. This is
especially true in Rutgers where “almost every one here is related.” The density of local
ties spans generations. They have fewer social connections with outsiders because they
have fewer opportunities to swim in alternative social pools. Therefore, they are more
likely to have more contact with the same social group, which reinforce and inﬂate their

effects.

Janet Fitchen (1991) suggests that there are four negative effects of what she calls
inadequate social structures in high poverty regions. First, people living in rural areas
have no opportunities for practicing and learning secondary social roles. Alternatively,
people in urban areas have many opportunities to practice secondary social roles. They
come into contact with a large variety of individuals each day, many whom they will not
share a relationship with outside of the original social exchange. Because rural people
lack these important practice- arenas, interactions with the broader culture suffer.

Second, social relationships in the primary group are endangered. Relationships within

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the community (most often with kin) are inﬂated because they fulﬁll multiple roles and
provide social and economic supports often found in secondary social environments.
Third and according to Fitchen, people living in rural poverty have difﬁculty deﬁning
themselves outside of the family structure. Fourth, a separation is maintained and
reinforced by the dominant culture. The negative stereotypes held by outsiders feed this

attitudinal separation, making it more difﬁcult to existing bridge social barriers.

These processes serve to perpetuate the social structure in Rutgers. The structural
inadequacies not only perpetuate poverty, but also perpetuate educational attitudes,
values and aspirations. They restrict and reduce local’s ability to function in the broader
arena and limit important social connections necessary to bridge the urban/suburban/rural
cultural differences. As a system, these forces facilitate low educational attainment and
aspirations over generations. As a socio-structural component, regional economic
demand, an existing inadequacy of resources and immediate needs reinforce a vicious

cycle of poverty and low educational goals.
Economic Contributors

Everyday living can be challenging, in Rutgers. By most measures, many of the
people that participated in this study are impoverished. They face challenges toward
every day self-sufﬁciency. Their lives hang in a tenuous balance of social
interdependence on kin, perpetually restricted incomes, multiple low-wage jobs and
constant ﬁnancial insufﬁciencies (Table 3). A lack of local employment opportunities
translates into long commutes to work. A lack of housing sometimes translates into

communal living on family land. A lack of economic stability translates into inﬂated

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social relationships with kin, who provide limited social, economic and psychological

supports essential for survival. For the rural poor:

Existing is using all their energy. Every action is based on a reaction of
something beyond their control. There usually isn’t some other family member
able to take care of these ﬁnancial things. It is a bleak existence.

One effect of rural poverty is the inability to gain acceptance from the broader
culture. Difﬁcult local ﬁnancial conditions further ﬁnancial woes for poor districts
because mileages, often used to offset minimal per pupil funding are rarely passed.
Expenditures, already limited, are carefully budgeted to cover basic educational costs.
For districts low achievement scores, the effects of poverty compound existing challenges

of meeting successful educational outcomes. The Superintendent explains:

We’re ﬁghting for our economic survival and we’re not doing well. And every
indicator that the state has for success is generally not one that we can meet.

The economic conditions impact many aspects of rural life and compound over
time and generations. For the most part, people who stay in Rutgers do so because they
view themselves as having limited options or the pull for a higher wage is eclipsed by the

need to stay close to kin and community.

The experience here is that if you become successful, the way the educated folks
view success, then you leave. You might come back once you retire but for your
working life, you leave the area. And so our little area here in Lake County has
become this little pocket of poverty. We’re the working class poor or those who
are disabled and what I mean by that is, you know, the folks that are working
minimum wage jobs. Some of them have more than one minimum wage job. Or it
seems that we have a disproportionate number of people on disability incomes.

The socioeconomic capacity of rural school districts has lagged behind many

urban and suburban ones. Few existing local jobs are often lower skilled, lower paying

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production or service jobs while managerial or technical jobs often accumulate around
urban or suburban areas (Jensen & McLaughlin, 1995). As a “low capacity” town,
educational attainment, income levels and educational aspirations also lag (Table 2).
Advanced education becomes unrealistic to rural poor because they observe a disconnect
between educational attainment and local wage earnings. A parent comments on recent

state initiatives linking higher education to economic gains:

The state can’t fund the elementary and secondary schools that are in
existence now; how can it possibly suggest to offer higher education to all Michigan
residents? I’m sure many poor residents would take full advantage of gaining training
and education that served to bring them employment and a higher wage. I won’t say
salary because salary usually implies a career whereas a wage is earned or “grubbed
out”. If you don’t work you don’t get paid.

The schools, who are challenged to increase educational achievement and who
face sanctions for failing to improve are expected to foster educational success with a

population whose motivation reﬂects regional economic capacity. One parent suggested:

The people who are left in rural communities, young people, probably their IQ
rate is lower because the kids who can get out of the community go.

For those that stay, the economic condition is a part of living over generations. Children
who grow up in economic poverty in rural areas like Rutgers are more likely to fall into a

similar condition (Jensen, McLaughlin & Slack, 2003).

Contributors to Limited Mobility

Social mobility is a theme that emerged often in conversations with locals and

school ofﬁcials in Rutgers. Many parents with low educational attainment themselves

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described the desire to “make a better life for our children,” as long as “a better life”

could be realized within the community.

Parents that either dropped out of school are those that have not excelled
themselves. They’re staying within the community. They’re not pushing their
kids to look beyond the local job market. You know, beyond what is in the

county.

The fact is there is very little social mobility, educational or otherwise. There are
few instances available to serve as role models for others. Those that do move upward

often do so by moving out of the area, therefore demonstrating that successﬁil individuals

become successful, in part, by relocating.

People around here hang with the same people, talk to the same people all the
time. They get opinions, become role models. Stay here, help each other out or
don’t help each other out. But it’s the same relationship over generations.

People that live in Rutgers believe in the potential for upward mobility but do not
believe that a traditional college education is a necessary to achieve that end. The
mobility they seek is along a modest narrow margin aimed at reducing their current
economic and social condition in tangible and immediate ways. Educational

advancement is not necessarily a part of that strategy.

The rural poor would be hard pressed to leave their communities to become a
student of a higher education facility. There would still be the need to take care of
things at home; putting food on the table, cutting wood for winter heating, and any

number of family issues to take care of.

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It is important to note that people believe that education is desirable for their
children, but not necessarily for social or economic advancement. It is seen as a way to
create relationships and foster a sense of community. One example of this is the schools
popular “reading buddies program.” Older students are paired with younger ones,
spending time during the day to help them in their reading. This is a highly valued
educational program because it fosters relationships, 3 quality highly valued within the
community. Moreover, it reﬂects the community priority of mutual assistance. In
Rutgers, theses educational objectives take precedence over recent state mandates for

increased curricular rigor with a global focus.

According to some scholars, public education at the local, state and federal level
has done a poor job with helping intergenerational poor people out of poverty (F itchen,
1991). Important gains being made in improving the quality of education by reducing
tracking and increasing educational options such as distance-leaming, advance placement
classes and dual-enrollment. However, disparities still exist in equal access to
educational opportunities, such as advance placement classes or a greater range of
educational offerings. The stigma of poverty makes it less likely that children will access
these classes in neighboring more afﬂuent school districts. In the educational institutions
themselves, structural discrimination occurs against lower class pupils in public
education (Bourdieu, 1973; Wilson, 1987; Leacock, 1971). Among the barriers that
community members face are the negative stereotypes and attitudinal separation held by

others, including the faculty themselves.

In summary, the participants of this study provide evidence that the causes of

educational aspirations, values and behaviors are complex and the social processes that

138

perpetuate them are complex. There are no clear-cut answers, no single cause or
scapegoat. Nor is there a silver bullet that could be effectively charged to improve
educational aspirations, values and behaviors. It involves a cluster of problems that result

form a set of interacting variables.

The four causes of educational aspirations I have discussed work together in an
interacting fashion. They provide an explanation for the fact that education in this poor
rural community is a challenging process in Rutgers. They provide an explanation for the
fact that rural poverty here is linked to low educational aspirations which has persisted
over generations in this community. The socio-structural and social mobility contributors
continue to have an exaggerated effect in part because of the inﬂating inﬂuences of the
other factors (economic and historical). A self-fulﬁlling prophecy, they continue to

reinforce each other with derivative effects.

Implications
Introduction

It is clear from the evidence of this study that rural educational aspirations in the
Rutgers community are strongly inﬂuenced by kin and locale. Educational aspirations
and outcomes in Rutgers lag behind their non rural peers (Graph 1). These ﬁndings are
similar to other studies suggest that rural educational values and aspirations are weaker
than non rural citizens (Breen 1989; McIntire & Pratt 1989; McGranahan, 1994; Howley,

2005). It is also clear from evidence of this study that a combination of social and

139

systems structures contribute to educational aspirations, values and behaviors. These

include economic, educational, historical, socio-cultural and familial contributors.

Policy Implications

In 2004, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm established the Commission on Higher
Education and Economic Growth under the leadership of Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry, Jr. As
indicated in the policy brief itself, the goal of this commission is threefold; To build a
highly skilled and a highly educated workforce so that it can compete in the 218’ century
workforce; To double the number of Michigan residents who obtain college degree’s,
linking them to successful and productive Michigan jobs, and; To successfully bolster
Michigan’s economy and job outlook by aligning Michigan’s institutions of higher

education with emerging employment opportunities within the state.

In light of this ambitious state directive and the results of this study, several
implications can be drawn. First, if the data from this and other studies focusing rural
educational aspirations can be generalized than it can be concluded that place,
community and family appear to be important factors in the structure of educational
aspirations and values, despite educational initiatives designed to alter such outcomes.
The ﬁndings from the present study suggest that these ﬁndings operate in an integrated
and mutually reinforcing way. This is counter to the argument made in the Cherry Report
(2004) that such transformations in educational aspirations may be motivated solely by

economic gain and post secondary educational opportunity.

140

Second, the Cherry Report suggests that a highly educated population has an
immediate beneﬁt: work can be located anywhere in the global village, economic growth
and jobs can be created in regions that have those key ingredients. A theoretical
implication of this investigation is that rural people are unlikely to see the beneﬁt of
higher education because it is not directly linked to local jobs currently available within
the community. Moreover, according to some scholars (Bourdieu, 1971) they are less
likely to have the cultural capital or advantage to link education to entrepreneurial jobs in
a global market. The majority of rural people in this study, after all, reside in generations
of rural poverty. Their aspirations are limited; a response to actual immediate living

situations.

Third, this study suggests that one strategy that rural people use to mediate such
tensions as unobtainable aspirations is the inﬂated engagement with kin and community.
A limited social pool coupled with inexperience and distrust for outsiders limits the
chances that their children will leave the area to achieve higher educational goals. Rural
people in this study are not entirely trusting of outside ideals in the shape of educational

pohcy.

Fourth, other research suggests that rural people face multiple challenges that
necessitate an ‘every hand on deck” approach to daily living. Household employment
contributes to family economic survival in rural areas and strengthens family
commitment (Howley, 2005). Some researchers (DeYoung, 1990; Elder & Conger
2000; Howley, 2005; Peskin 1983; Salamon & MacTavish 2003) suggests that as the
economic conditions of rural communities decline, rural people may increasingly

consider migrating to the city for employment. They face the difﬁcult decision of

141

choosing between economic survival and leaving to pursue education or jobs in urban
areas. Along a similar vein, the report by the Cherry Commission is aimed at increasing
in post secondary participation, an act that will likely send rural students to the city
pursuing educational opportunities. The results of this study and the others cited suggest
that rural communities are unlikely to participate in such educational indicatives because
of the increasing and immediate tension it places on family and survival within the
community. Rural communities are places where youth are signiﬁcantly involved in day-
to-day living, participating in activities that contribute to their survival within the
community (Howley, 2005). The self perpetuating factors of poverty in rural

communities such as Rutgers cannot be underestimated (F itchen, 1981).

Fifth, according to this and other studies, local place is a signiﬁcant contributor to
rural family’s educational outcomes (Howley, 2005). According to researchers, rural
families “are more likely to refuse jobs” (Howley, 2005, pp. 166) elsewhere and are less
likely to create plans to move. Taken together, the ﬁndings suggest that rural people are
less likely to seek educational opportunities outside of the community. Remaining within
the community is important to rural families. The Cherry Reports proposal to facilitate
growth of university centers and create new learning environments is likely to be met
with some modest success if ﬁnancial pathways are cleared for high poverty groups. As
suggested, small schools and contextualized learning environments will likely be met
with success if linked to jobs within the local job markets. Rural youth may adjust
educational priorities to ﬁt regional economic demand, especially if it means staying

close to kin and community.

142

Another implication of this study is that rural places that might be interpreted as
“backwoods,” unsophisticated and without structure. I argue that they are in fact, very
socially sophisticated places with a strong nested social system and internal governance
structure. According to this and other studies, the social sphere that intensively sustains
social units at the local level, while limiting access to the broader culture providing an
arena for successful participation in a social group. For example, the intimate social units
that currently provides minimal opportunity to learn outside the community force people
to be incredibly hardworking and creative within the community. They can be
interpreted as broad-scale social roles played in a small arena. The skills are transferable
and highly valuable. This successful participation, however fragmented and nested, can
be viewed as practice; a potential bridge into the broader culture. Problematic are the
lack of social and cultural entry points linking them to the broader society. This dilemma

presents challenges for actual policy implementation, such as the Cherry Report.

Theoretical Implication

Several theoretical implications from this study may be drawn. These ﬁndings
suggest a theoretical implication about motivation. Howley (2005) suggests that
economic motivators are being considered by schools as an acceptable educational
motivator. According to Howley (2005), economic conditions play an inﬂuential role in
the development of rural educational aspirations. She argues that as rural America
continues to be faced with social and educational inequalities, people will continue to be
motivated towards softening those differences (Falk & Laboa, 2003). Moreover, she

suggests that rational choice theorists, for example, argue that most social decisions are

143

driven by ﬁscal considerations (Homans in Howley, 2005). Economic conditions such as
those presented continue to play an inﬂuential role in the development of educational

aspirations in Rutgers.

Recent educational policies such as the 2004 Cherry Report are built on these
assertions. Similarly in high poverty rural communities, socioeconomic ability plays a
leading role in educational aspirations and achievement (Cobb, McIntire & Pratt, 1989;
Smith et al. 1995). Still, other researchers contend that rural children and adults may be
motivated to remain close to families and maximize their economic options, therein
(Howley, 2005). This study suggests that a lack of experience with outside institutions
coupled with a lack of ﬁnancial resources and inﬂated primary relationships motivates
high poverty rural families to remain in their social situation. Thus, the theoretical
contribution of this study is that it draws attention to the question of rural educational

motivation and the roles that kin play in their development.

Another theoretical implication of this investigation is that rural people have
strong social networks and relationships that shape opportunities from which they might
accumulate into social capital (Flora, 2003). Researchers suggest that a range of social
capital features of both the school and the community play important roles in educational
aspirations and achievement (Beaulieu, Isreal & Wimberley, 2003). They suggest that
for rural people, the social capital of the school has modest effects on student
performance while kin are the most important conduits of educational success.
According to these researchers, kin play primary role in educational outcomes in the
broader society. The present study supports these ﬁndings that kin play an inﬂuential

role in rural educational aspirations.

144

A ﬁnal theoretical implication of this study is that spatial features also play a
prominent role in the ways high poverty rural people interact with schools. Residents
living in the sparsely populated areas face more challenges in maintaining social
networks, especially the weaker ties that can be characteristic of secondary relationships
such as schools (Granovetter 1973; Fitchen 1981). Conversely, proximity increases
opportunities for interaction and networks among individuals (Ti gges, Brown and Green,
1998). These actions are necessary for building community bonds among community
members (Wilkinson, 1991 ). Such bonds reduce divisions among marginalized
populations (Blau, 1994) and increase solidarity against “powerful local elites” (Beaulieu,
Isreal & Wimberley, 2003, p. 282). Still, others add that the spatial features of rural
isolation contribute to the social and psychological distancing of outside inﬂuences
(Fitchen 1991; Melbourne 2002). Taken together, these ﬁnding suggest that context
continues to inﬂuence the ways the rural poor interact with schools. This studies
contribution lies in the suggestion that the spatial features such as geographic isolation,

density and locality magnify the effects of social interactions.

Summary

This community study presents the family and faculty perspectives on schooling,
their educational attitudes, behaviors and aspirations and the social processes that under-
pin them have been analyzed in terms of a conﬂict of cultures between the family and
school. Kin play a critical role in the construction and restriction of educational
aspirations. Consciously or unconsciously, they regulate familial aspirations and

achievement levels to meet regional economic demand. The pressure to stay within the

145

community is great. Household labor contributes to family and community economic
survival in rural communities. The educational goals of the school, whose state directive
is to “instill in youth the “aspirations for education beyond high school, developing their
ability to achieve postsecondary success, and providing them with access to a wide
variety of learning institutions” (Cherry Report 2004, pp. 1) conﬂict with the goals of kin

and community.

Limitations

The limitations of this study should be considered. There are several limitations
to this study. First, this study does not directly assess educational values, aspirations and
behaviors in a quantiﬁable way. Although the semi-structured interviews included items
asking participants about their educational values, behaviOrs and the social processes that
surround schooling and community, there are no items asking children about their
educational plans. There are no items asking children about their plans to remain in the
community. Instead, proxies were utilized from data obtained by adults within the
community and themes categorized in order of their signiﬁcance. This method was used
in documenting all categories or themes, but was particularly true in the category of
attachment to place and aspirations. The data are suggestive that rural place and
community is very important to the people of Rutgers. The data also suggest that place
inﬂuences educational aspirations. However, the measures used to obtain these data are

not quantiﬁable or without ﬂaw.

The second limitation is in construction of the participant sample. This study

focuses on data from the adult community. No school age children were interviewed.

146

This limitation offers a one-sided view of community life in Rutgers. It doesn’t take into
account processes by which rural children develop educational aspirations. Although I
would argue that these processes were provided by faculty, parents and community
members the present study can only describe these aspirations, values, behaviors and

processes as reported by adult participants.

Moreover, the qualitative focus of this study does not provide any concrete
evidence of the educational, social and economic processes by which educational
aspirations, values and behaviors are based. Although the qualitative analysis used in this
study provides an ethnographic examination of these factors, it does not offer any
quantiﬁable descriptive power that would allow researchers to generalize the ﬁndings.
Thus, the data from this study offers the reader a descriptive qualitative study designed to
show the processes by which community members experience and react to their
educational contexts and environments, how they develop ideologies and how those

ideologies are shared in their social environments.

One way to improve this study would be redesign it using a (1) multiple sites with
similar demographic data and, (2) a mixed methods approach using some of the existing
categorical tables. The mixed method would allow for the generalizability and
quantitative rigor while maintaining the richness and descriptive power of ethnographic
design. The combination of these methods and the addition of multiple sites remains a

goal for future research.

This study contributes very little understanding of the variables contributing to
rural educational aspirations, values and behaviors outside of the immediate community.

While some of these variables associated with the broader society are addressed

147

conceptually, there inﬂuences are still unclear. This may be a function of sample size
and the limits of censuring, the effects of social class, social reproduction and the ways
that schools and other social institutions reproduce class remain unclear an are a goal for

future research.

Theoretical Review

 

Ferdinand Tonnies (1955), a German sociologist, presented a fundamental
distinction between two different kinds of communities. His distinction may be
particularly relevant to this study in terms of understanding the fundamental differences
between the people of Rutgers and “the outside world.” These differences are made clear

in deﬁnition:

0 The term gessellschaft is based on the term that describes an association of people
whose primary interests are grounded “in the members a rational pursuit of their
own self-interests” (Conway, 1994, p. 4).

o The term gemienshcaft is based on the term that describes a community of people
whose primary interests are founded in a sense of “shared purposes, personal
loyalties and common sentiments” (Conway, 1994, p. 4).

The concepts Tonnies developed to understand the differences between social groups
helps to provide a framework to understand (1) the primary interests of the people of
Rutgers and (2) the relationship that exists between Rutgers and the broader society. The
social and psychological distinctions that characterize the gemienschaft nature of the

Rutgers community also separate them from the broader culture. And they are quite at

148

odds with the school that, despite their best efforts to connect with local people, represent
the broader culture and are therefore “outsiders.” The phrase “outsiders” is a term that
helps local people distance themselves from gessellshaft agendas and institutions. It
indicates the isolation and the solidarity of the people of Rutgers in terms of the
fundamental differences in community priority. Moreover, it provides a social and

psychological buffer that shields them from impositions that threaten their way of life.

Recent policies such as No Child Left Behind and Michigan’s Cherry Commission on
K-16 schooling reﬂect a gesselschaft way of thinking. These policies stress achievement
for economic gains, upward mobility, a global job market; goals that are in conﬂict with
the values of the Rutgers community because they are based primarily on a rational
pursuit of individual self-interests. They do not reﬂect the sentiments or interests of
community, family and quality of life. At the heart of the matter is that what matters
locally is vastly different than what matters to policymakers. These are the problems at
the interface between the people of Rutgers and the educational system. Tonnies’ work

provides a framework from which to deconstruct these intertwined, yet opposing goals.

Review of Literature

Through the review of literature detailed in the ﬁrst chapter, I provided evidence
that living can be difﬁcult in poor rural places. The causes for rural poverty and the
factors that perpetuate it are complex and far-reaching. The literature suggests that one
of the causes of rural poverty lies in rural educational aspirations and attainment. Rural

educational attainment levels lag behind their urban counterparts. Moreover, educational

149

behaviors and values of rural poor reﬂect generational patterns of educational

ambivalence.

The ﬁrst body of research presented in the literature review focused on the role
that families play in rural communities. According to the literature, rural families fulﬁll
multiple roles. Bound by reciprocal relationships and mutual assistance, they are the
primary and most inﬂuential source of social interactions. Research highlights three
salient factors underlying the dynamics of family. First, they are dependent on each other
for social interaction and identity. Second, rural people are economically dependent on
each other, in part due to factors of poverty, isolation and identity. Third, these factors
result from a marginal integration into the broader culture. One of the consequences of

this is that rural families have a tremendous inﬂuence on behaviors and aspirations.

The second body of literature focused on educational features of high poverty
rural communities. The research suggests that poverty and family impact many areas of
rural family life including educational outcomes. Rural poor children’s educational
trajectories are shaped by parental educational achievement and familial aspirations.
Community culture also plays an important role in the shaping the educational
trajectories of rural youth. Rural youth face structural inadequacies that challenge
educational outcomes. Spatial features that distance them from learning opportunities
such as limited course offerings, deteriorating buildings and high incidence of poverty
affect educational outcomes. The research indicates that social capital features are a
strong determinant of educational outcomes. The combined inﬂuences of poverty, place,
community and kin all play a role in rural cognitive development, aspirations and

academic attainment.

150

Contribution of this study

 

The purpose of this community study is to explore the educational attitudes,
values and behaviors of rural poor community members and the social process that
sustains them. Several themes emerged in this study that supported the research of other

scholars.

Families played critical roles through reciprocal relationships and mutual
assistance. When local labor markets fail them in tangible ways, families provide
economic, psychological and social support. Because this rural area is extremely
homogeneous, they receive support from kin, furthering reliance on the existing social
structure. A lack of experience with outside agencies and institutions and a natural
resistance and distrust of them as government institutions serves to reinforce the powers
of the community and family social structure. This distrust for social institutions extends

to the teachers and the school.

The people of Rutgers are rooted in long standing relationships with kin and
community necessary for survival. Residents living in socially isolated rural
communities experience local economic conditions that facilitate a greater reliance on
each other for survival. Rural isolation inﬂates the importance of these relationships with
kin because they make up the bulk of the social pool. One striking feature of this
community is the fact that it is made up of overlapping and generational networks of kin.

A second striking feature is the affect that this social pool has on its members.

151

Locals have a strong sense of identity that distinguishes them from “outsiders”
and makes them recognizable within the community. These combined qualities solidify
internal relationships and distance them from the outside world. This social distancing
creates a disparity for the people of Rutgers. They lack experience with things from
outside of the community. This results in distrust for outsiders and outside inﬂuences.
The disparity occurs because they are bound to the outside world, yet they feel rejected
by it (F icthen, 1981) . Moreover, they are tied to social institutions that require their
participation, such as the school; a place where they want their children to be successful,
but in accordance with local standards and objectives. And what matters around here is
family, traditions and survival. Local educational values are in conﬂict of the far-

reaching educational goals of the school and the state.

The family and community inﬂuence educational outcomes and the ways that the
people of Rutgers view education. I found that that the community and families have an
important impact in the social processes that sustain and reproduce educational
aspirations, values and behaviors. The people of Rutgers restrict educational aspirations
and behaviors in accordance with local need and family priority. They distrust outside
inﬂuences including the school, which encourages children to commit to a distant goal to
obtain a costly degree at distant four-year university. They fear their children will move
away, breaking social ties and risking survival. These tensions contribute to the

educational aspirations, values and behaviors of the rural poor living in Rutgers.

In sum, I did a study in account with a body of work in the areas of educational
aspirations, poverty and the social processes that sustain them. The contribution of this

study to the existing body of literature lies in the rural voice. This study offers the reader

152

an opportunity to understand the working logic that sustains one rural poor educational
community. From this perspective it seems evident that further consideration must be
given to the cultural inﬂuences of educational aspirations, values and behaviors. At the
heart of the issue is that the rural people of Rutgers have been invited to participate in “a
in which they have no way of winning” (Lareau, 2003, p. 747). Submerged in an
urbanized institution that lacks the social-structural links to give them access, they
maintain a social distance and resist educational reform as “something developed by
outsiders” To their way of thinking, schooling does not offer them any tangible

advantage.

Conclusion

From this presentation of the data, two conclusions can be made. First, this is not
a study of educational policy. But may I suggest in conclusion recent policies, No Child
Left Behind, Michigan’s Cherry Commission on K-l6 schooling, and Michigan’s new
there new High School Graduation requirements, reﬂect a line of thinking that is at odds
with Rutgers’s line of thinking. That is, while the state and federal policies stress
students' individual achievement for economic purposes, social upward mobility,
international competition, and -- as always -- attention to equality -- the people of Rutgers
prefer to think of education as contributing to family survival; improving one's "place" in
the Rutgers community, and staying in Rutgers and helping one's kin and one's
community. And whereas, those policies reﬂect education as more technical and

internationally competitive, the people in Rutgers are more concerned with what they

153

deﬁne as a "quality of life" quite at odds with notions of individual economic and social

upward mobility.

Second, the observed disparity between the people of Rutgers and the
outside world appears in part, to be based on an awareness of their social status within the
broader more urbanized culture. As marginal participants in a global world (F itchen,
1981) the people of Rutgers are categorized, treated and acknowledged as the “rural
poor” from “Rutgertucky.” Skilled at social discernment, they are aware of how they are
perceived. And so patterns of reciprocal social distancing between the educational
community and the community at large create a self-fulﬁlling prophecy. Because the
community’s educational attainment lags behind other more afﬂuent districts, teachers
“don’t want my children going to school here.” In turn, local people are conﬁrmed in the
belief that education, brought in on the backs of teachers and developed and delivered by
outsiders, is of little help to them because it does not take into account local voice. More
to the point, it is not “what matters around here.” At the same time, teachers are
conﬁrmed in their belief that local people will not invest in the educational goals of the
state. These are critical problems at the forefront experienced by the people of Rutgers

and the educational system that perpetuate low educational aspirations.

In the end, the people of Rutgers marginally participate with the “outside world”
and feel rejected by it. Not knowing how to break into the dominant culture, they
withdraw into their own, and gain acceptance within the network of kin. The social
distancing or detachment toward educational pressures is less a community preference

than it is a fair response to a difﬁcult social condition.

154

APPENDICES

155

APPENDIX A

INFORMED CONSENT LETTER

UCRIHS MATERIALS

156

A.l Informed Consent Letter

Informed Consent

A Community Sti_i_dy of Rural Education and Povem

You are being asked to participate in a research study involving graduate research on the
topic of rural education at Michigan State University. The results of this research will be
used to explore and inform rural educators, policy makers and community members
about issues related to rural education in regions experiencing similar economic decline.

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze and assess strategies for understanding
rural community’s educational experiences and attitudes in rural regions of economic
decline. Data collected for this study will include interviews of adult community
members, audiotapes of interviews (with consent), participant observations, ﬁeld notes,
artifacts and surveys. Audiotapes will be transcribed for analysis. Some subjects will be
asked to participate in one hour-long interview. You are asked to participate in one hour-
long interview. If you volunteer for additional interview sessions, the secondary
investigator will arrange to meet according to the scheduling needs of the participants
involved.

If you do not consent to being audiotaped for this study but agree to be interviewed, the
secondary investigator will script the interview. Consenting to be audiotaped is
voluntary, and will not effect your ability to participate in the study.

All data collected will be stored in a locked cabinet in the principal investigator’s ofﬁce
at Michigan State University, and will be saved for three years. The principal
investigator will keep the audiotapes after data has been collected and analyzed, and may
use the tapes for future analysis and presentations.

As participants collectively study and document the work, all data results will be treated
with strict conﬁdence, and neither subject names or school names will be identiﬁed in
any report of research ﬁndings. Participant’s privacy will be protected to maximum
extent allowable by law. The data collection period for this study will take place from
April 2004 to May 11, 2007.

157

 

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Participants in this study are voluntary and open to all community members provided
they are over the age of 18. You are being asked to participate in one interview/survey
that will last approximately one to one-half hour. After the interview/survey you may be
asked if you would agree to be further interviewed. If you are willing, a time and place
acceptable to you will be determined. You are under no obligation to agree to further
interviews. There are no known risks to participating in this study. You will not beneﬁt
from participating in this study. Your participation in this study will contribute to the
understanding of the rural sociology, rural education and educational policy.

If you have any questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, please
feel free to contact Dr. Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Head of Human Subjects Protection
Programs at MSU, by phone (517)255-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503 or email
ucrihs@msu.edu or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824.

 

Angela Kirby Dr. Phil Cusick

Doctoral Candidate, Michigan State University Advisor, Michigan State University
8596 Church St. 418 Erickson Hall

Williamsburg, MI. 49690 Michigan State University

(231) 649-7390 East Lansing, MI 48824
kirbyang@msu.edu pacusick@msu.edu

 

 

General Agreement: Your signature below indicates your voluntary agreement to
participate in this study.

Print Name: Date:

~

Signature:

 

158

 

Your signature indicates your voluntary agreement to allow the researcher to audio tape
the interviews.

Signature:

 

159

APPENDIX B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND PROTOCOL

160

 

8.1 Research Questions for Semi-Structured Interview

A Community Study of Rural Poverty and Education
Research Questions for Summer Pilot Study

Principal Investigator: Dorothea Anagnostopoulos

Secondary Investigator: Angela M. Kirby

The purpose of this study is to investigate the educational attitudes and values of adults in
a poor rural community, and to explore how rural environments (density, isolation and
degree of poverty) impacts schemes about education, place and community. The research
is guided by a series of questions:

1. How do rural poor experience education and how does their experience become
reﬂected in their attitudes, values and beliefs about education?

2. What are the communities values regarding education?

3. What do rural community members do, in a behavioral sense, relative to education?

For the purposes of this summer pilot study, we will begin asking a series of interview
questions related to our third question in our series of guiding questions, related to
community behavior. Speciﬁcally, we want to learn “what place means” to rural
community members residing in an impoverished region. Speciﬁcally, we want to know
about what place means in relation to (1) their social interdependencies, (2) their
relationships to the land, and (3) how these rural adults imagine how the school ﬁts into
their notions about them. The following questions will be asked of consenting
participants:

Questions about social interactions and place:

How long have you lived in this town?
Who do you talk to?
What relationship do you have with the community?
Tell me about yourself.
Tell me a story about when you felt really connected to this community.
Tell me a story about when the community has overcome and obstacle.
What are some of the biggest challenges faced by this community?
What affect do they have on families and social relationships?
What affect do they have on school?

. Describe how your community is different than other communities.

. Tell me about your social relationships within the community.

. How often do you meet with ﬁiends, family, work associates?

. Where is the common meeting places and what do people do there?

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Qpestions abopt schooling and place
Tell me about your experiences in school.
Did you go to school locally?
How long were you in school?
What did you think of the educational system when you were a student?
What did you hope to get from the school at that time?
Do you have children in the school system?
Do you have thoughts about this school system?
What do you think schools should do?
Have you seen any changes in schooling over the years?

. What are the trends you are seeing?

. What kinds of interactions do you have with the school?

. Who do you talk to about school?

. How often do you talk to people about the school?

. How do you think school responds to what matters around here?

. Tell me about some of the things that your school does really well.

. Describe some things that would improve your community.

. Tell me a story or give me an example of something unique to your school and/or

community.

. Tell me the ways in which your school, community or region is different than others.

162

B.2 ETHNOSURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

EthnoSurvey
What Matters Around Here:
A Community Study of Rural Education and Poverty

 

Date:—

 

Survey ID Number:

Community:

 

Observations:

Table 1 Household Member Information

 

House

hold
Name Fam. sex memb DOB Place Home Marit Spec
Role er of al iﬁcat

Birth status Ed: JOb ion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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IO

 

ll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2 Labor History of Household

 

Year

Age

Place

Occupati
on

Speciﬁc
ation

Duration

_ Reason
for
Leaving

Other
Jobs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

164

 

 

Table 3 Household Experience of Family and Extended Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Role in Family How many have lived /live outside of How many currently live
community? within community?
Purpose
Uncles
Aunts
Cousins
Nieces/Nephews
Siblings
Children
Parent
Table 4 Land Ownership
Land Number Type of Number Shared With
of Acres Land of Property Whom
Cultivate Tenancy Family Use
(1 Acres Land

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 5: Household Services Check List

165

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 ser_vic_e

{Water Phone-Land Line
Electric Phone-Cell
Sewer Computer
Stove Internet
Refrigerator Television
Washing Machine Radio
Sewing Machine Cable

 

 

 

 

Table 6: Use of Public Services

 

Types of Services Accessed Answers

 

Public or private schools

 

Libraries (other than school)

 

Civic institutions (Bussing, Sports-plex)

 

Hospitals

 

Sporting Events (types)

 

Unemployment Compensation

 

Welfare

 

AFDC

 

WIC

 

SSI

 

General

 

 

 

 

166

Table: 7 Community Values List

 

Value Why

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Ethnosurvey Design modeled after MMP household questionnaire

167

 

APPENDIX C

METHODOLOGY TABLES

168

 

 

C. l INTERVIEW PROTOCAL

Table 1: Semi-Structured Interview Outline

 

Semi-Structured Interview Interview Focus

 

Demographic data, life histories,
. . educational aspirations and behaviors,
Family lntervrew
social networks inﬂuencing reproduction

and mobility, socioeconomic, social

systems analysis

School Faculty Interview Expectations, political, social and systems

constructs, policy implications

Demographic data, life histories,
' educational aspirations and behaviors,
Community Member Focus
social networks inﬂuencing reproduction

and mobility, socioeconomic, social and

systems analysis.

 

169

 

C.2 RESULTS TABLE

Table 2: Summary of Findings

 

Emerging Themes

 

Behaviors or Views

 

Social Process

 

Purpose or Effect

 

Category I: Family

 

Traditions as Educational
Tools

Extraction, production,

Taught by kin, deﬁnes
role within family.

Supplement
income, foster
solidarity, skills
for daily rural
living

 

Connections and
Reciprocity

Mutual inter-dependence,
multiple obligations

Kin provide economic,
social and psychological
support,

Mutual
interdependence,
foster solidarity,
strong extended
family ties

 

Rural Identity and
Isolation

 

Social distancing,
highlighting distinguishing
features,

 

Inﬂated primary
relationships, multiplex
roles heterogeneous
groupings

 

Solidarity,
companionship,
strained primary
relationships

 

Category II: Education

 

Purpose of Schooling

Locals press for local need to
be reﬂected in the
curriculum, schools should
attend to local immediate
needs and educate to that
end.

Resistance to educational
objectives, rejection of
educational objectives
developed by outsiders,

Conﬂict between
educational

purposes at home
and at the school

 

Inﬂuence of Kin on
Educational Aspirations

Limit educational aspirations
to regional economic
demand.

Restrict through mutual
need and reciprocal
relations. Focus on
family survival.

Leveled
educational
aspirations and
attainment

 

Schools and Social
Mobility

 

Criticisms and interventions
on behalf of the youth over
objectives

 

Limit educational
aspirations to local
economic demand

 

Leveled
educational
aspirations and
attainment

 

170

 

Distrust of Outsiders

Social distancing, suspicion,
of government and school,
view inﬂuences as coming
from “high class” outsiders

Inﬂated primary
relationships, strong ties
to kin and community,
general acceptance of
community views

 

Sense of L
powerlessness ' i
and frustration,

solidarity against

the “other”

 

Survival in Rutgers

 

Underpins all behaviors
related to education.

 

Conﬂict between outside
institutions that are
viewed as threatening to
community survival

 

Rejection of
“outside”
inﬂuences,
dependence on
current practices

 

171

C .3 DEMOGRAPHIC TABLE

Table 2: Demographic Comparison Data

 

 

Michigan National Rutgers

Esc;:t;g:e(ojf1r3:laclhstudents qualifying for Free 3 3.7% 43% 52%
Rural per capita income $30,439 $43.31 7 $1 1,973
Educational Attainment Level

Some College 22.1% 66 % 6.7%

Bachelor’s degree 21 .8% 31% 3.2%
Median household income $49,350 $44,350 $31,923
Cost of Living 88% 100% 79%
Unemployment 7% 5% 7%
Violent Crime * 2 3 3

 

Note. Data from Rural Matters 2003 and NCES

172

APPENDIX D

FIGURES

173

 

D.I FIGURE 1

Figure 1: Fish Camp

 

174

 

D.2. FIGURE 2

Figure 2: Smoking Catﬁsh

 

D.3 FIGURE 3

Figure 3: Extended Families Living on Family Land

 

175

D.4. FIGURE 4

Figure 4: Family Home in Rutgers School District

 

176

D.5. FIGURE 5

Figure 4: Extended Family Living Communally on Homestead

 

D.6. FIGURE 6

Figure 6: Ice Fishing

 

177

D.7 FIGURE 7

Figure 7: Local Employment

 

D.8 FIGURE 8

Figure 8: Downtown Rutgers

 

178

D.9 FIGURE 9

Figure 9: Family Living Year Round in Travel Trailer

 

D.10 FIGURE 10

Figure 10: Extended Family on Rural Homestead

 

179

D.ll FIGURE 11

Figure 11: Home Bordering School Grounds

 

D.12: FIGURE 12

Figure 12: The School

 

180

D.13 FIGURE 13

Figure 12: Average of Educational Attainment

Percentage of Adults Aged 25 and Older with Degrees, 2000

 

40%
35% I Best State
30% ,1 ... ...... .. ,, .Mldiigaii
" " ,1 ’ NationalAve
DSite ofSturly

  

 

i ~. I ‘
a 4;-

Bachelors Degree or Post Baccalaureate
Higher

Note. Data from US. Census Bureau

181

D.14 FIGURE 14

Figure 14: Rental Property

 

182

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