Defining Rural Literacies

 

The term “rural literacies” can conjure up a variety of images-that of a young woman teaching students of mixed ages and grades in the one-room schoolhouse, a farm wife mending socks or preparing meals by the fireside, the farmer working in bucolic fields, or the racism and bigotry of small-town rednecks.  Many of the images “rural literacies” bring to mind, positive and negative, are based on established stereotypes and inaccuracies about rural people and what counts as literacy or a misguided understanding of the “sameness” of rural populations (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Green & Corbett, 2015).  Understanding how rural literacies are defined and operationalized can offer an avenue for getting beyond stereotypical thinking about rural places and reconstructing new rural literacies to confront global change.

There is lack of scholarly work around rural education and literacy studies (Brooke, 2003; Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Green & Corbett, 2015).  In fact, researchers have long wrestled with whether examining education through a rural lens is of value (Biddle & Azano, 2016).  Modern literacy research is often skewed towards urban or suburban sites and participants (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007), and education policy largely reflects an urban or suburban bias where reformers and policy makers wrongly assume that what works in these places will work for rural schools as well ().  Many rural researchers are calling for an increased focus on the rural context of literacy studies (Azano, 2015; Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Edmondson, 2003; Green & Corbett, 2015).  Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) state, “…rural literacies are not something for only rural people to pay attention to; rural should not be seen in opposition to urban but as part of a complex global economic and social network” (p. xi).  They go on to suggest that in order to understand the connection of rural, urban, and suburban areas, we must examine rural lives and literacies and “…challenge the commonplace assumptions about rural people and rural places that deem them lacking in opportunities for literacy work and community engagement” (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, p. xi).  At this moment in history, scholarly insight into the role and significance of literacy practice in rural societies may be more important than ever.

The incipient story of rural America in the 21^st Century is one of change, challenge, promise, and uncertainty.  Multiple elements, including environmental, economic, and political factors, contribute to this story.  Globalization and technological advancements have transformed industries that traditionally characterize rural places (Edmondson, 2003; Green & Corbett, 2015; Schafft & Jackson, 2010) while simultaneously changing rural peoples’ connection to a global world (Bonanno & Constance, 2003).  Environmental factors, including fracking, strip mining, clear cutting, unsustainable hunting and fishing practices, and corporate farming, further alter rural landscapes (Tieken, 2014).  Population demographics are shifting as well, with 80% of nonmetropolitan growth between 2000 and 2010 resulting from an influx of racial and ethnic minorities (Johnson, 2012).  The proportion of white rural residents is dropping while the Hispanic population rises (Tieken, 2014).  Outmigration experienced in some rural communities as young people leave to seek perceived economic and social benefits (Carr & Kefalas, 2009; Corbett, 2007) and influx of “baby boomer” retirees (Cromartie & Nelson, 2009) further contributes to a changed rural America.

The question of how rural literacies are defined and operationalized in a globalized world is the focus of this paper.  Green and Corbett (2015) explain, “Rural literacies are multiple, mutable, and mobile, and ever relational.  They inevitably float in a global sea” (p. 12); yet little attention to date has been given to the distinctive features of literacy in rural contexts.  The phrase “rural literacies” is, however, used in rural research (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Edmondson, 2003; Eppley & Corrbett, 2012; Green & Corbett, 2015; Pyles, 2016; Sohn, 2006), but answers to questions of what the term means, how to go about researching rural literacies, and whether there is an actual relationship between literacy studies and rural education are ambiguous.  The purpose of this paper is to synthesize literature on rural literacies in an attempt to offer a description of how rural literacies are defined and operationalized and what role, if any, they play in literacy instruction.  I will describe the theoretical framework for rural literacies studies, the difficulties in defining rural literacies, and endeavor to synthesize proposed definitions of rural literacies.

Conceptual Framework for Rural Literacies

Guiding an understanding of the meanings of rural literacies are three strands of thinking: place-conscious pedagogy, New Literacy Studies, and rural studies.

Place-Conscious Pedagogy

While educators tend to understand the importance of context for learning, practices of standardization deemed more fair and equalizing have typically been more valued in schools.  Schafft and Jackson (2010) explain that standardization is a code for the erasure of difference and assimilation to a norm often set by the standards of urban, middle class life.  Federal mandates ignore the rural context and define for rural communities the literate practices needed to succeed.  Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) state that standardization movements take away the decision-making power of local communities for their schools.  They write that national standardization movements, “remove from local schools the possibility to define what constitutes literacy and how literacy should be valued in ways that could best integrate literacy practices into the needs and life of the local community” (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, p. 26).  At the root of place-conscious pedagogy, however, is the idea that the most powerful forms of learning provide relevance by engaging students in issues of importance in their local communities (Green & Corbett, 2015).

Place-conscious pedagogy is an approach intended to “ground learning in local phenomenon and students’ lived experiences” (Smith, 2002, p. 586).  Woodhouse and Knapp (2000) identified five characteristics of place-conscious learning: 1) learning emerges from characteristics of place, 2) learning is multidisciplinary, 3) learning is experiential, 4) learning connects place with individuals and their communities, and 5) learning is designed to educate, and potentially offer solutions to, problems in their communities.  Place-conscious pedagogy in relation to rural literacies allows for a valuing of rural literacies that simultaneously foster a deep connection to place and identify those aspects that may require action for local sustainability.

Considering rural literacies with regard to place-conscious pedagogy allows for viewing rural literacies with an eye towards sustainability and relevance rather than seeing rural literacies from a deficit perspective.  For more than a century, the common public perception regarding rural literacy was one of lack-rural people lacked the same mental fortitude and valued education less than their urban and suburban counterparts (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Schafft & Jackson, 2010; Tieken, 2014).  Considering how the rural is depicted in literature and the literacies used “in place” in rural communities helps to define and understand various rural literacies.

New Literacy Studies

The New Literacy Studies viewed literacy as not just a cognitive act, but a sociocultural one as well (Gee, 2010b).  People learn a given way of reading and writing by participating in the distinct practices of a social or cultural group.  Two main premises underlie the New Literacy Studies.  First is the understanding that literacy has changed from that of the past and will continue to change in the future.  These changes happen because of social, cultural, and technological changes meaning that literacy is always situated in a context.  Second, understanding how people use literacies in their everyday life can provide insight into how to improve formal literacy learning in school (Gee, 2004).

The New Literacy Studies position literacy as a social act and examine how people use situated literacy skills in practicing multiple forms of literacy (Gee, 2010b).  Literacy as a social practice means that what “counts” as literacy is expanded to include reading, writing, speaking, and listening and is not limited to printed text on a page.  The ways literacies are read and written by the individual are guided by the values of their social or cultural group (Gee, 2010a).  The New Literacy Studies, then, offer a guide for studying rural literacies by examining the ways rural people participate in social and cultural groups.  Gee (2010a) writes, “… follow the social, cultural, institutional, and historical organization of people (whatever you call them) first and then see how literacy is taken up and used in these organizations, along with action, interaction, values, and tools and technologies” (p. 5).  The sustainability of rural life requires a variety of literate behaviors from rural residents revolving around how to make decisions about growth and change in rural communities (Collins & Blot, 2003), and examining these literacies can guide educators in understanding to what extent the texts produced in rural settings are representative of rural cultures.

“Rural” as a Field of Study

Rurality as a field of study has been debated throughout United States history, and a recent literature review of the “rural school problem” by Biddle and Azano (2016) documents, in part, the evolution of thinking around rurality as a field of study.  These authors found that researchers, educators, and reformers have fluctuated in their focus on rurality as a field of study over the past 100 years.  Green and Corbett (2015) argue for the current imperative for rural studies, writing, “The question of (dis)advantage is crucial here.  Thinking through the relations between space and equity, education and poverty, literacy and social justice, is clearly a matter of some urgency.  Addressing the rural in these terms is crucial” (p. 5).

Rurality is often characterized as the other, different from the norm.  This characterization stems from a long history of stereotyping and stigmatizing of rural peoples.  Beginning in the 19^th Century, publications spoke of the “backwardness” of rural life and people while advocating for the sophistication of city life (Theobold & Wood, 2010).  This idea of rural people as lacking education and sophistication continues to be seen in modern television shows like My Big Fat Redneck Wedding or My Name is Earl.  Recognizing the complexity of rurality, confronting and critically examining stereotypes, and conceptualizing rural literacies in a globalized world is important for the sustainability of rural places and for rurality as a field of study.

Difficulties in Defining Rural Literacies

Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) explain that, in their attempts to define rural literacies for their book of the same name, they could not find a specific definition in literacy research.  Part of the difficulty in defining rural literacies arises from the complex, differing, and broad definitions of their component parts.  Because the words “rural” and “literacy” are loaded terms with multiple definitions offered, it becomes challenging to concretely define “rural literacies”.  The following sections describe the complications in defining the terms “rural” and “literacy” and thereby the difficulty in defining “rural literacies”.

Defining “Rural”

Many people can offer definitions for the term “rural”; however, these definitions are usually vague and varied from person to person.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) acknowledges this incongruity, stating, “For some, rural is a state of mind. For others, rural is an objective quantitative measure.” (Reynnells, 2016, para. 1).  Quantitatively, “rural” is defined by what it is not-namely, anything that is not urban or suburban is rural.  The United States General Accounting Office Fact Sheet for Congressional Requesters (1993) states, “Metro/urban areas can be defined using several criteria. Once this is done, nonmetro/rural is then defined by exclusion — any area that is not metro/urban is nonmetro/rural” (para. 1).  In general, “rural” is determined quantitatively by using population numbers and/or analysis of amount of open countryside (Reynnells, 2016).  The most common Federal definitions of “rural” come from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau on the Census, the White House’s Office of Budget and Management, and the USDA’s Economic Research Service.  In choosing a particular definition, the USDA advises selecting based on the purpose of the activity on which the definition is based (Reynnells, 2016).

Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2012) suggest that these demographic methods of defining rural as anything not urban lead to the homogenization of rural people as “the other” while elevating urban and suburban to the norm.  It is a mistake to regard rural America as homogeneous as “the myth of rural homogeneity masks underlying diversity among the people who have historically lived in the American countryside” (Davis & Marema, 2008, para. 9).  While many people may think of rural America as made up of primarily white, working and middle class individuals, the proportion of white rural residents is decreasing while minority populations, particularly the Hispanic population, are growing (Housing Assistance Council, 2012).  Definitions of rurality should acknowledge the complexity and diversity of rural populations.

Rural can also be understood as a way of identifying oneself or a group.  People may identify themselves or others as rural regardless of their current location.  In other words, someone can live outside of a rural area and still identify themselves as rural.  Howley (2009) relates that it is the meanings associated with rural life and community, not geography or demographics, that qualifies rurality.  It is, therefore, important to define rural not only geographically and demographically, but culturally as well (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, 2012; Tieken, 2014).

Defining “Literacy”

Like the term “rural”, the term “literacy” also conjures up a variety of definitions from the basic, functional skills required for reading and writing to knowledge in a specified area, i.e. digital literacy or country music literacy.  The literacy valued in today’s schools is typically constrained to a “back to basics” mentality advocating systematic reading instruction (Edmondson, 2006).  Cook-Gumperz (1986) suggests that a standardized notion of literacy tied to schooling leads to a belief that what “counts” as literacy is that which can be assessed, measured, and compared to the norm.  This version of standardized, systematic literacy, it is argued, ignores the context in which literacy occurs.  Others argue for broader definitions of literacy which encompass more than grapho-phonic relationships and traditional texts (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009; Gee, 2004; Lankshear and Knobel, 2007; New London Group, 1996).  Green and Corbett (2013) suggest that a range in what constitutes literacy is to be welcomed as it “conjures up possibilities for new realizations and articulations of literacy, rurality, and education” and “helps in rethinking the […] literacy practices of the school, and thereby in enriching both praxis and inquiry” (p. 4).

Defining Rural Literacies

The broad and differing definitions of the terms “rural” and “literacy” help to explain the difficulty in defining rural literacies.  Any definition of rural literacies should elucidate the role and significance of literacy practices for (and perhaps unique to) rural communities while also acknowledging the diversity of different ruralities and the complex nature of a globalized society.  Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) propose a definition for rural literacies that takes into account the rural context and has as its goal the sustainability of rural areas when they define rural literacies as “the particular kinds of literate skills needed to achieve the goal of sustaining life in rural areas” (p. 4).  Their concept of “sustainability” stems from the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development definition, which defined sustainability as “the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, p. 4).  This definition has guided how rural literacies have been operationalized, which will be discussed next.

Conceptualizations of Rural Literacies

In reviewing literature on rural literacies, it became evident that no fixed qualities exemplify rural literacies.  In part, this is because the diversity and breadth of rural areas precludes a concrete definition.  The particular literacy practices valued in one rural area may not be those valued in another area.  Three broad conceptualizations of rural literacies, however, have been offered by scholars (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007; Edmondson, 2003; Eppley, 2013).  Although scholars have not referred to these conceptualizations by the same terms, they can be synthesized under the categories: traditional rural literacies, neoliberal or modern rural literacies, and new or postmodern rural literacies (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007; Edmondson, 2003; Eppley, 2013).

Traditional Rural Literacies

Both Edmondson (2003) and Eppely (2010) refer to their first category of rural literacies as traditional literacies.  Traditional rural literacies reflect a nostalgia for the past that is read in opposition to the conditions of today’s modern life.  Often idealized, traditional rural literacies envision a simpler, more moral life strongly connected to place and attached to the land (Edmondson, 2003).  These literacies advocate a return to so-called “glory days” as a way to solve the problems of modern rural life.  Dominant traditional rural literacies are based on the ideal of the family farm- rural families making their living off the land and stoic farmers characterized by a belief in taking care of their own (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, Edmondson, 2003; Eppely, 2013).  In traditional literacies, the farm and its land are symbolic of “the very best way to be American”; yet this dominant understanding of traditional rural literacies is misguided and ignores the fact that not all traditional rural literacies are agrarian (Eppely, 2013, p. 81).  In fact, small farms have been radically changed due to globalization.  Of the 60 million people who reside in rural areas, less than 2% earn their primary living through farming (USDA, 2012); yet, for many people, the ideal of the farm still exemplifies rural America.

Preservation of rural culture is typically offered as the solution to modern rural problems by those who envision rural literacies as primarily traditional.  Preservationists recognize rural culture as something apart from urban life and see the need to preserve its difference (Shapiro, 1978).  In schools, oral history projects and other preservation projects which isolate the particularities of rurality are often used as a way to educate students concerning traditional rural literacies and as a way to preserve the past (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007).  While these types of projects which educate students about traditional rural literacies can be beneficial, Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) caution teaching traditional literacies with an eye only toward preservation.  They write,

We must interrogate the source of our desires to preserve rural places and be ever-conscious of the danger that lies in preservationist models that seek to make of rural places a monolithic symbol of a collective American heritage for those who live in urban and suburban areas, rather than vital and diverse communities that can adapt to economic and demographic shifts.  Preservationist projects that seek to turn rural communities into museums essentially ensure that those communities cease to exist, as no one actually lives in a museum.  (p. 44)

Giroux (2004) advocates using public memory not as a museum to cultural perfection but as an opportunity to critique and debate the complexities of that memory.

Modern or Neoliberal Rural Literacies

Another way to conceptualize rural literacies is what Edmondson (2003) terms neoliberal rural literacies and Eppely (2010) describes as modern rural literacies.  Modern/Neoliberal literacies see a rural way of life as ill-equipped to meet the needs of people in a global economy (Edmondson, 2003; Eppely, 2010).  Mass production, efficiency, and neoliberal principles should characterize rural life where rural communities are seen as vehicles for reducing production costs.  Agribusiness, free market logic, and capitalism are king while literacy is reduced to a “generalizable set of practical skills necessary for economic participation as employee or consumer” (Eppely, 2010, p. 85).

Neoliberalism/modernism, then, insinuates that education for life in place is not sufficient for rural students, and the solution to the inadequacy of rural communities is to modernize rural education (Edmondson, 2003; Shapiro, 1978).  Local literacies are disregarded in the face of standardization, and the purpose of public education is narrowed to ensure American economic success in a global economy (Eppely, 2010).  Shafft and Jackson (2015) write, “…public education serves the economic imperative of capitalism by severing attachment to place and producing mobile, adaptable youth flexibly responsive to changing labor market conditions” (p. 2).  Green (2013) writes that the idea that location plays no part in the delivery of instruction leads to “contemporary arguments that introducing new digital technology into schooling overcomes many of the difficulties and disadvantages of rural education” (p. 20).  Technology is seen as a way to solve many of the inadequacies of rural schools despite strong assertions that place matters.  Standardization removes from local school systems the ability to define what constitutes as literacy for their communities, and neoliberal/modern interpretations of rural literacies do not allow the opportunity for local places to determine how rural literacies can best be enacted to sustain local communities.

New or Postmodern Rural Literacies

The inadequacies of traditional and modern or neoliberal rural literacies in encapsulating  contemporary rural literacies necessitates a third conceptualization of rural literacies in a globalized world.  A new conceptualization, termed new (Edmondson, 2003) or postmodern (Eppely, 2010) rural literacies, has been suggested that proposes ways of understanding literacy “as a resource for democratic citizenship that shapes the potential for rural communities to experience the economic prosperity, environmental protection, and social equity desired to make rural communities sustainable places” (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007, p. 12).  The key to this conceptualization is the idea of sustaining rural places rather than preserving an ideal rural culture or modernizing rural places so they resemble urban and suburban areas.  An important understanding of sustainability is that economic systems are interlinked-the consumer practices of urban and suburban people affect rural communities (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007).  Postmodern rural literacy practices enable people to critically examine their communities, including taken for granted truths about rural people and life, and communicate with others both their potential and limitations (Eppely, 2010).

Postmodern rural literacies also allow for critique of modern assumptions that new is always better (Edmondson, 2003).  Rural literacies become a tool for citizens to deconstruct and critique their own literacy practices to determine how they want to live together.  Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) write, “…rural people can and do make conscious, informed choices among different alternatives for practicing and valuing reading and writing, acknowledging literacy’s important functions in navigating the complex economic and social realities of rural life” (p. 68).  Defining and understanding new or postmodern rural literacies is essential in shaping relationships both inside rural communities and with the outside world.

This conceptualization acknowledges multiple forms of rural literacies and encourages Add more here about Prairie Town identification among rural, urban, and suburban citizens. In Prairie Town, Edmondson (2003) advocate for a critical public pedagogy that “questions and renegotiates the relationships among rural, urban, and suburban people” in order to sustain rural communities (__). Instead of placing rural, suburban, and urban communities in opposition to one another, new rural literacies enable examining the ways literate practices can connect communities and ensure a sustainable future for everyone (Donehower, Hogg, & Schell, 2007).

Conclusion

It is a myth that rural literacies are based solely on traditional models of literacy. Examining the literature on rural literacies shows the complexity of literate practices in rural communities that reflect a mixture of traditional, modern or neoliberal, and postmodern or new rural literacies.  Rurality is not defined by images of a one-room schoolhouse, a farm wife mending socks, a farmer working in bucolic fields, or an uneducated hillbilly.  The realities of rural literacies are that they are complex, multiple, and evolving in relation to a globalized world.  As Donehower, Hogg, and Schell (2007) conclude, “the phrase ‘rural literacies’ should suggest reading and writing as social action that supports and sustains diverse communities trying to cope with complex, often interlinked economic, social, cultural, and environmental issues” (p. 193).  Rural literacies research that addresses these issues and contributes in the ability of rural communities to address these issues is essential.

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