Mathematics education in rural australia: issues for equity and success

In writing this paper, we have taken a somewhat different approach to the usual research paper. This is intentional as we recognise the great diversity of what constitutes ‘rural’ mathematics education internationally. Australia has been known as the ‘lucky country’ and this is very true when it is considered in terms of what constitutes rural education in this country in comparison with what is called “rural education” in other countries, and what is called “field education” in Brazil. As such, our first intent is to provide a description of rural education in Australia. Despite this appearance of being lucky in terms of education provision, we also note that students living in rural areas are less likely than their urban peers to do well in mathematics. Drawing on national testing data, which is our empirical data, we illuminate this status quo and this forms the basis for the remainder of the paper. In order to understand the differential success between urban and rural students in mathematics, we draw on the relevant literature as a means to explain the phenomenon. To do this, we offer a theoretical model to frame the differences in mathematics outcomes between urban and rural students. We do this as we want to make a unique contribution to understanding the situation within Australia, ponder the reasons for the inequity in outcomes for rural learners