Differences between rural and nonrural secondary science teachers: Evidence from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth

This paper describes rural/nonrural differences in the secondary science teaching work force, using data from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth. Relative to their nonruralcolleagues, rural teachers are less experienced, more likely to have taught subjects other than science, more likely to have majored in education, less likely to have majored in a science, and less likely to have a graduate degree. Rural teachers report having taken fewer science courses and fewer science methods courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We explore the interaction of ruralness, educational training, and state certification requirements on teachers using multivariate analysis. Some, but not all, of the ruraVnonrural difference is attributable to state-by-state differences in teachercertification requirements. For example, rural teachers report having taken fewer SUbject-mattercourses than their nonruralcolleagues, a difference that persists when the effects ofundergraduate major, graduate training, and state differences in certification policy are removed. Our analysis uses a 1988 national sample of 456 teachers from 93 schools, part of an ongoing longitudinal study of science and mathematics education