Using rural education research to rethink literacies pedagogies

Using rural education research to rethink literacies pedagogies

This chapter considers how rural education research might inform literacies pedagogies. It begins by describing how researchers have mapped pedagogical approaches for teaching literacies and how there are consequences for using particular pedagogies in narrow ways. It also considers how, in the current competitive context of standardised testing, some education systems have required schools to declare publicly their pedagogical framework. Such moves seem to have resulted in a proliferation of narrow pedagogical approaches that are unlikely to be effective for all students. The chapter argues that rural education research—with its detailed and nuanced understandings about rural place and space—offers evidence to help open up particular pedagogical approaches to scrutiny and to demonstrate the importance of knowledge about place in selecting pedagogies.