The community function of schools in rural areas: normalising dominant cultural relations through the curriculum silencing local knowledge

Abstract

ABSTRACT Schools in rural places in European societies generally teach the same content and perform as well as other national schools do on national tests and international comparison assessments such as PISA. However, by doing this they may also marginalise local rural knowledge and expose rural populations to a (for them) culturally insensitive curriculum. Using a meta-ethnographic analysis this article identifies how rural educational ethnographic researchers working in Sweden have depicted this situation and the social and cultural interests in which it operates. It identifies how research articles often describe rural schools as fulfiling a local community function, but it also questions exactly what kind of function this is and whether we can really talk about rural schools operating in local community interests generally or even at all. Instead, it is rather more the case that schools in rural places contribute to some individual educational interests and possibilities along with a general cultural domination and marginalisation of rural consciousness and interests.