Michelle Ludecke

Pedagogy of the Rural: implications of size on conceptualisations of rural

Abstract This paper proposes a concept of Pedagogy of the Rural that draws together current rural education theory and practice to illustrate the complexities of rural space and place often overlooked in teacher education more broadly. We firstly examine notions of size, and then we explore how this impacts on the ways in which teachers in rural locations are positioned in terms of their identity. Finally, we provide a way forward for valuing rural contexts for what they bring to teacher identities beyond traditional deficit positionings dominant in current discourses on rural education.

Pedagogy of the Rural as a lens for understanding beginning teachers’ identity and positionings in rural schools

Abstract Pedagogy of the Rural is an approach to capture the complexities of rural space and place by challenging simple understandings of what it means to be a teacher in rural settings. Using Harré’s positioning theory, Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and simulacra, and Lefebvre’s space and economic geographies to form a composite theory through which we analyse longitudinal data from interviews with three graduates and their principals in two rural Victorian schools in Australia. We identify the intricacies of beginning teachers’ understandings of, and positionings in, rural space and place. We highlight how size matters in the way these teachers value their rural educational experiences within the liminal space of identity formation. It is in this liminal time and space that concerns around retention and attrition of beginning teachers in rural schools are compounded by factors such as access to professional learning and resources, and isolation and visibility within communities.

The practice of survival: Reflexivity and transformation of contract-employed beginning teachers’ professional practice

The ‘practice turn’ is a label Schatzki (2001a) uses to describe a shift across several social scientific disciplines to viewing practices as ‘the primary generic social thing’ (2001a, p. 10). Theorists whose research can be characterised in this way include Marx, Wittgenstein, Bourdieu, Giddens, Foucault and Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. According to Schatzki, ‘practice approaches promulgate a distinct social ontology: the social is a field of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organised around shared practical understandings’. He adds that, This conception contrasts with accounts that privilege individuals, (inter) actions, language, signifying systems, the life world, institutions/roles, structures, or systems in defining the social. These phenomena, say practice theorists, can only be analyzed via the field of practices. Actions, for instance, are embedded in practices, just as individuals are constituted within them. Language, moreover, is a type of activity (discursive) and hence a practice phenomenon, whereas institutions and structures are effects of them. Needless to say, practice theorists have different understandings of these matters.Practice Theory and Education challenges how we think about ‘practice’, examining what it means across different fields and sites. It is organised into four themes: discursive practices; practice, change and organisations; practising subjectivity; and professional practice, public policy and education.