Abstract
Due to the ever-growing teacher shortage, attention to the retention of teachers, in particular within rural settings, is important. While teacher retention studies have been conducted in lower grades and upper grade level teachers, particular focus on kindergarten through12 grade music teachers has yet to be done. The overarching objective of this qualitative study was to discover the stories of rural Missouri tenured music teachers and why they chose to remain in their rural place, guided by the conceptual underpinnings of rural education, rural music education, and rural teacher retention. Data collection included interviews with teachers, interviews with administrators, analyzed documents, and analyzed field notes collected from the six different school district building sites employing the participants. Two themes emerged through the six rural teachers’ stories: (a) administration and (b) culture. Transparent and bilateral administration communication with administration was coupled with continual student rapport building as overarching subthemes. Recommendations for rural administrators and professors of pre-service music teachers at institutions of higher education and implications for future research relevant in rural music education settings were included. Keywords : Rural music education, Teacher retention, School culture DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-24-04 Publication date: August 31 st 2021
Highlights
2.1 Rural Education Rural education has a broad definition (Valentine et al, 2021; DESE, 2019; MSHSAA, 2019)
Retaining a rural K-12 music teacher has been found to be problematic without supportive cultures (Ingersoll, 2001)
For the established K-12 music teachers, rapport building grew with students from one year to the (Boyd et al, 2011)
Summary
2.1 Rural Education Rural education has a broad definition (Valentine et al, 2021; DESE, 2019; MSHSAA, 2019). According to Williams and Nierengarten (2011), travel time is a distinct source of frustration for rural staff who have long distances to drive for trainings and professional development opportunities, while people working in suburban and urban schools have many close-to-home opportunities for such trainings This example illustrates the geographic isolation that exists within many rural schools. Two examples are athletes and college preparatory students (Abril & Gault, 2008) These students can have time conflicts with their personally desired schedules and the band and choir course times (Isbell, 2005). For the established K-12 music teachers, rapport building grew with students from one year to the (Boyd et al, 2011)
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