Conceptualizing “rural” for research in education: a sociological perspective

The lack of consensus on the denotation of "rural " in educational and social work research makes generalizability of findings problematic. This paper reviews definitional problems related to occupational, sociocultural, ecological and multi-dimensional conceptions of rurality. Multi-dimensional typologies developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Services and the Maine State Planning Office are described and recommended. From a sociological perspective, an overview of recent-ly published research on education in rural areas suggests the need for more precise conceptualization of what is meant by "rural. " The articles published in the inaugural issue of Research in Rural Education reflect several dif-ferent uses of the concept. Mathews and Winkle (19] and Holder [13] use the term in an undefined general sense. Drummond [9], Chu and Culbertson [5], Rider [24], and Sawyer and Sawyer [25] report research from settings that are, apparently, deemed obviously rural. Pladson and Lemon [23] employed a rural typology based on the dua