Rural cultural wealth: dismantling deficit ideologies of rurality

Abstract

Purpose

Rural education research has historically been cast in a deficit lens, with rural places characterized by their problems or shortcomings, as if the way of understanding rural itself is to compare it to nonrural locales. These intransigent and narrow perceptions of rurality hinders recognition of the assets and possibilities of rural places. The purpose of this paper is to apply community-empowering, transgressive knowledge to analyses of rural communities to advance rural education research and practice.

Design/methodology/approach

In this conceptual paper, the authors propose an asset-based, conceptual framework to ground rural research and education practices: rural cultural wealth.

Findings

The authors describe and explore the concept of rural cultural wealth within the context of education. Furthermore, the authors discuss the dynamics of rurality and propose four constructs that comprise the rural cultural wealth framework, rural resourcefulness, rural ingenuity, rural familism and rural community unity, and consider implications for future research and practice.

Originality/value

The goal of this paper is to advance a rural cultural wealth framework aimed to interrupt social reproduction of educational inequities that impact rural students.

Citation

Crumb, L., Chambers, C., Azano, A., Hands, A., Cuthrell, K. and Avent, M. (2023), "Rural cultural wealth: dismantling deficit ideologies of rurality", Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 125-138. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-06-2022-0076

Rural education scholars have documented the ways rural education has been positioned as a “problem” in the broader field of education (Biddle and Azano, 2016). Comparing rural to what it is not can perpetuate constrained conceptions of rurality, particularly that rural places are White, monolithic, monolingual and conservative. However, rurality is a vital component of cultural diversity. Acknowledging the unique funds of knowledge and ways of being in diverse rural places (Sherfinski et al., 2020) is essential toward improving the educational outcomes of rural students and informing how the resourcefulness, ingenuity, familism and unity found within rural communities can be harnessed to improve education writ large. Informed by interdisciplinary scholars who continue to expand the literature and scope of rural education research and advocacy (Azano et al., 2021; Chambers and Crumb, 2020; Crumb et al., 2020; Hott et al., 2021; Reardon and Leonard, 2018; Seelig, 2021; Williams and Grooms, 2015), we propose a conceptual framework: rural cultural wealth. Building upon an ecologically situated community cultural wealth construct (Yosso, 2005), the rural cultural wealth conceptual framework is an asset-based approach that acknowledges the strength and resilience of rural people. In this article, we explore the concept of rural cultural wealth within educational contexts and its potential to improve rural education research and practice.

Rethinking rural definitions

There are upwards of 70 different definitions of rurality used by US federal agencies, nearly all which center on urbanicity and population density. For example, the US Census Bureau denotes that “‘rural’ encompasses all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area” (United States Census Bureau, 2018, p. 1). Defined thusly, the term is inherently urban normative and forwards predominant sociological depictions of rural communities as regressive in contradistinction to urban progressiveness (Azano and Biddle, 2019; Panos and Seelig, 2019). Moreover, defining rural as “not urban” implicates homogeneity across culturally and geographically distinctive locales.

Rurality is not merely a population count, urban alternative or even a pastoral ideal. Rural represents a set of cultures and diverse experiences ranging from Indigenous and migrant farming communities to intergenerationally shared land in established communities. There are both similarities among rural cultures as well as differences within them (Flora et al., 2018), as is the case with urban environments. Rural communities often comprise small, close-knit places with intergenerational connections to land with a strong sense of pride, community history and tradition. Nevertheless, this strong communal identity is often suppressive of differences, fragmented by socioeconomic statuses, race/ethnicity, sexuality and religion, among other identities (Kebede et al., 2021). Thus, equity within rural schools and communities requires the address of hegemonic power dynamics (Biddle et al., 2019; Pini and Bhopal, 2017). With the aim of creating a more socially just experience for rural people, there is a need to recognize the agency and cultural wealth that rural residents possess, resist deficit-oriented perspectives of rurality and enhance structural support for underserved rural students and communities (Hewitt and Reitzug, 2015).

Understanding rural education contexts

Nearly one in five students, about 9.3 million children and adolescents, attend rural schools in the USA (Showalter et al., 2019). In contrast to disparaging rural stereotypes, rural students are capable and nationally competitive. Rural students tend to be school-ready, score higher on NAEP assessments and graduate from high school at higher rates than their urban counterparts (Dahill-Brown and Jochim, 2018). Yet, they are less likely to enroll in or complete college, are inclined to have lower academic self-concepts and are subject to rural stereotype threat often exacerbated by poverty (Azano et al., 2021; Byun et al., 2012; Greene et al., 2020; Tieken, 2016).

There is also variance in educational outcomes and post-secondary opportunities within the rural student populations, particularly among historically minoritized groups, which are worth probing across rural communities from a critical lens (Swain and Baker, 2021; Thomas et al., 2011). For example, rural Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) students are less likely than their White counterparts to enroll in post-secondary education (Means et al., 2016; Showalter et al., 2019). Sexism, genderism and heterosexism are also inhibitors to rural students’ success (National Rural Postsecondary Research Agenda Working Group, 2021).

Reasons for rural students’ suppressed post-secondary educational attainment can be bifurcated into macro-level structural challenges that are unlikely to change without policy reform (Sutherland, 2020) and school and district micro-level challenges – both resulting in systemic oversight of rural potential (Hewitt and Reitzug, 2015). Using rural cultural wealth-informed constructs as a foundation, rural scholars, leaders and practitioners can frame the address of long-standing inequities in rural education.

Macro-level equity concerns

Macro-level structural challenges related to differences in attainment and opportunities are based on funding matrices. State and local education contributions are generally at parity, with education accounting for 40% of local budgets (Urban Institute, 2021). However, post-Great Recession, states have decreased education funding, and localities struggle to make up the difference (Leachman et al., 2017; Sutherland, 2020) partly because of land values upon which local property taxes are based being lower in rural communities. Furthermore, state funding formulas adjusted for population density tend not to outweigh the cost-of-living adjustments that lure teachers away from rural districts. Moreover, rural schools experience greater teacher turnover, further exasperated during the COVID-19 pandemic (Williams et al., 2021). Funding and staffing challenges translate into fewer resources available to rural schools, impinging on districts’ abilities to deliver more rigorous education and career readiness programming (Grimes, 2020; Showalter et al., 2019).

Micro-level equity concerns

Conditions undergirding district allocations notwithstanding, micro-level challenges influencing education attainment include disparate local use of resources and internalized rural bias that rural educators may have akin to internalized racism and sexism (Sherfinski et al., 2020). While understandings of racism and xenophobic ethnocentrism, classism, heterosexism, ableism and religious marginalization are emergent areas of inquiry within rural contexts, the paucity of research in this area gives rise to a presumption of the lack of a problem (Azano and Biddle, 2019; Pini and Bhopal, 2017), and the naming of these social fissures themselves poses challenges to a presumed sense of community adhesion in rural spaces (Corbett and Gereluk, 2020). Because of these internalized assumptions and stereotypes, the onus is placed on students from historically marginalized groups to assimilate in rural places (Chambers et al., 2021; Yull, 2014). Assimilation and rural norming are not only centered on Whiteness but also wrought with Anglo-Saxon Protestant perspectives, which can be resistant to gender equity and unwelcoming of sexuality and gender diversities (Phillips and Rogers, 2021). These challenges can hinder minoritized rural students’ academic achievement and attainment (National Rural Postsecondary Research Agenda Working Group, 2021) and may contribute to outmigration among rural college graduates (Sowl et al., 2022).

A call to respond to concerns

Fortunately, these structural circumstances facing rural education are amenable to change. Recognizing and building upon the wealth within one’s rural habitus, including one’s social and cultural capital, students can improve educational achievement and attainment (Chambers and Crumb, 2020; Means et al., 2016). This is not to say that a focus on cultural wealth in and of itself dismantles the real and systemic challenges in rural schools. We do not suggest that grit, bootstraps, or a positive attitude remedy these ensconced inequities. We do, however, suggest that rural people have agency which rural education scholars and practitioners should amplify. As such, an evaluation of rural students’ capital stocks is warranted.

Theoretical grounding: understanding student capital stocks

As articulated by Bourdieu (1977), habitus is the space in which individuals move through society with their respective social and cultural capital assets and deficits. The greater one’s connection and access to cultural capital stocks within one’s habitus, the more readily one can achieve “success.” Signals of cultural capital are acquirable assets, knowledge and norms distinct from ability (DiMaggio, 1982). However, they are evaluated by those in dominant positions through a multiplicity of gatekeeping mechanisms such as patterns of speech, style of dress, geography, academic credentials, employment status and the like (Lareau and Weininger, 2004).

Yosso’s (2005) derivation of community cultural capital fits within a reading of Bourdieu’s work, which avoids the essentialization of “highbrow” cultural goods (Lareau and Weininger, 2004). Using a critical race theory approach, Yosso (2005) challenged the valuation of only “highbrow” cultural capital in rural BIPOC student success, identifying fives types of capital stocks upon which these students could draw:

• aspirational capital, the ability to maintain hope in the face of adversity;

• familial capital, cultural knowledge within kinship networks;

• linguistic capital, intellectual and social skills acquired via communication experiences in more than one language or style of speech;

• resistant capital, one’s ability for self-preservation; and

• navigational capital, the ability to maneuver through social institutions, in addition to social and cultural capital.

Yosso proffered these capital stocks collectively, along with social and cultural capital, as community cultural capital wealth. This conceptualization capitalizes on the assets of minoritized communities as a strength and a means by which minoritized persons can advance themselves, their families and communities. We contend that all of this occurs within an ecologically stratified habitus building from one’s family to the community, the region, the nation and globally (Agger et al., 2018; Bronfenbrenner, 1994).

Drawing from Yosso’s theoretical foundation, our goal is to advance a rural cultural wealth framework aimed to interrupt the social reproduction of educational inequities that impact rural students, with special attention to students further minoritized by poverty, race/ethnicity, gender/gender identity, sexuality, dis/ability and religion, among other structural challenges posed by dominant cultures. We believe that by building upon the assets that undergird community cultural wealth, we can positively impact outcomes for rural students with lessons for communities more broadly.

Rural cultural wealth

The rural cultural wealth conceptual framework is grounded in asset-based ideology that acknowledges rural residents’ multiple strengths and resiliency strategies. Rural subsistence activities are relatively understudied, as are how these culturally responsive adaptations are encouraged (Sherman, 2006) and applied in the education sector and how they can contribute to long-term community prosperity (Williams and Grooms, 2015). Situated within the habitus of rural communities and based on evidence-supported research related to diverse groups of rural residents and matters affecting rural communities, we propose the following constructs to comprise rural cultural wealth: (a) rural resourcefulness, (b) rural ingenuity, (c) rural familism and (d) rural community unity.

Rural resourcefulness

Rural resourcefulness refers to the capacity of rural students and residents to overcome socio-contextual adversities that threaten their livelihood and well-being through taking actions to mitigate limitations. Self-determination is a fundamental starting point in rural resourcefulness (Mackinnon and Derickson, 2012). As such, rural people can be deemed as vital resources themselves, who have a repertoire of social, cognitive and behavioral skills with which they can regulate internal events such as emotions and cognitions that might otherwise interfere with the execution of a targeted task (Akgun and Ciarrochi, 2003; Mackinnon and Derickson, 2012). Rural resourcefulness emphasizes forms of innate learning and navigation based on the needs and local priorities as identified by rural individuals (Mackinnon and Derickson, 2012).

Researchers have documented rural resourcefulness and demonstrated its application in various circumstances ranging from addressing rural education challenges (Howley et al., 2012) and food and housing insecurities (Sherman, 2018; Ulug and Horlings, 2019), to exploring the acquisition of educational and mental health-care resources (Crumb et al., 2019). For example, participants from Crumb et al.’s (2019) research, exploring the experiences of counselors in rural, economically marginalized communities used the term resourcefulness to describe the combination of attitudes among rural residents and the actions they took to overcome difficult circumstances. Despite their challenges with accessing quality and secure education, housing, transportation and health care, the counselors observed that rural youth and their families attained the resources necessary to thrive, with or without, adequate support from people in professional positions and despite the inaccessibility of ample resources: “They’re savvy, they have a knack for finding ways to achieve what needs to happen” (Crumb et al., 2019). Additionally, in addressing student resourcefulness, Akgun and Ciarrochi (2003) found that students with learned resourcefulness are better able to cope with academic stress and less likely to allow it to impede their academic performance.

Rural ingenuity

Rural ingenuity is the inventiveness of rural residents, a collective attribute based on the rural community ecology and human and social capital (Gutiérrez et al., 2017). It is demonstrated by how rural people leverage everyday knowledge (complex, dynamic, and everyday practices) to respond creatively (e.g. create products, initiatives, programs) to challenges. Through rural ingenuity, rural residents can cultivate sustainable usage of scarce resources for community good and build social capital networks (Chambers et al., 2019; Noack and Federwisch, 2020).

Rural schools and districts exude rural ingenuity. Innovative programs, such as full-service schools, situate rural schools as a central locale in which students and their families can have their physical, mental and sociological needs met. Programming can include food distribution, before- and after-school care and on-site mental and physical health-care providers (Miller et al., 2017). By using existing school structures, rural communities conserve financial resources.

Rural ingenuity is observable in Howley et al. (2012), wherein four rural school districts, when facing “population decline, suburbanization, and fear of losing community identity” (p. 14), form a collaborative to share services and instructional and administrative resources to stall consolidation. More recently, we saw examples of this ingenuity as rural schools found creative solutions to challenges posed by limited connectivity to meet the remote learning needs of students during the pandemic (Brenner et al., 2021).

Rural familism

Familism is a rural community cultural capital asset derived from the intragenerational establishment of familial lineages within geographic proximity who collectively care for each other (Chambers et al., 2019), especially in the absence of immediate access to essential governmental services. Rural familism is characterized by a feeling of belonging among family members and integrating individual activities and achievements toward a collective goal: consideration of land, money and other assets as shared property for mutual aid. In this respect, rural familism is a social organizer within kin networks, defining rights and obligations, roles, behaviors and perceptions thereof within nuclear and extended families (Agger et al., 2018).

Value is placed on the assets of the broader familial network and not the lack of information of any individual member. Familial collective action responds to socioecological conditions and is an integral part of everyday living. Honoring rural familism is especially important for rural residents living in high poverty who do not receive equitable resources even within their rural communities, or when mutual aid is not extended equitably from dominant rural groups (e.g. majority White, wealthy or dominant religious institutions; Sherman, 2006).

Rural familism begets intergenerational literacy and upward mobility (McCulloh, 2020), serves as protection against oppression and adversity (Campos et al., 2014) and is a source of emotional and financial support (McCulloh, 2020) and community stature. For example, rural first-generation college students (McCulloh, 2020) and rural Black and Latinx students (Boettcher et al., 2022) rely on familial connections to acquire the social, navigational, aspirational and financial capital necessary to remain in college including college knowledge, encouragement and financial assistance.

While such familial networks are commonplace, they are especially significant for rural first-generation students and students of color whose use of campus-based academic advising and support services lags that of continuing-generation students (Means et al., 2016; RTI International, 2019). Thus, in addition to informational support, encouragement through extended kin networks (McCulloh, 2020) is of utmost importance in cultivating self-efficacy and academic self-concept when students internalize deficit ethos (Sherfinski et al., 2020; Swain and Baker, 2021).

Rural community unity

Rural community unity refers to the composite assets held by rural populations, resulting in unifying and organizing behaviors. These interconnections foster civic engagement and positively impact the ability of rural communities to effectively organize and collaborate, especially in times of crisis or high need. Though not exclusive to rural communities, these qualities are highly visible because of the limitations of governmental aid dispersed over broad geographical areas (Shuls, 2018).

Rural community unity is easily recognized when rural areas experience a crisis or natural disaster. For example, in response to COVID-19-related school closures, rural community unity was exemplified in multiple rural districts across the USA. Educators and rural residents joined together to create educational television programming for K-12 students featuring local teachers, used school buses for meal delivery and homework drop-off and converted school buses into mobile hotspots, parking them in remote areas throughout the district to facilitate access to online instruction (Brenner et al., 2021; Diallo, 2020). Here, rural leaders identified and addressed an immediate need that threatened the academic outcomes of rural youth – long before formalized state and federal programming to address COVID-19-related learning recovery.

Such actions tighten the bonds of already close-knit communities, a quality especially important when governmental assistance wanes or bureaucratic systems prove unwieldy. This is not to suggest that rural communities are not fraught with tensions typical of any community. Groups further marginalized by race/ethnicity, indigeneity, socioeconomic status, sexuality and other identities are sometimes excluded, have their values overlooked or feel forced to conform to the values and norms of dominant rural community groups (Biddle et al., 2019; RedCorn et al., 2021; Sherman, 2006). Rural youth who experience disruptions to family structure through migration, prison or foster care involvement, sexuality outing and other factors warrant intentionally community unifying activities, as they may be excluded from extended networks (Ajilore and Willingham, 2019).

Capitalizing on rural cultural wealth

By recognizing and appreciating rural resourcefulness, ingenuity, familism and community unity, rural stakeholders can capitalize on rural cultural wealth to improve education and other outcomes for rural students, families and communities. We urge educators and researchers to have a deep understanding of and appreciation for the specific community in which they are engaged. As a matter of practice, we must respect outsider statuses, build relationships with rural community residents (Agger et al., 2018) and avoid deficit-oriented approaches.

Researchers vested in rural education and prosperity recommend collaborative approaches with communities, engaging with them as equal partners rather than as passive recipients (Azano et al., 2021; Casto et al., 2016; Williams and Grooms, 2015). In the next section, we illustrate the application of rural cultural wealth across three strategies often used in educational research and practice: asset mapping, school–university–community partnerships and college planning. This list is illustrative and inclusive of strategies demonstrated to be effective when there is collaborative engagement. The list is not exhaustive, but from here, we hope others can use or add to this framework to support and create additional strategies to benefit rural students and their overall educational and career advancement.

Asset mapping

Asset mapping is the systematic cataloging of a community’s strengths and resources. It is guided by the understanding that every person has skills critical to a community. Each time an individual uses these abilities, the community in which they live is strengthened and its residents empowered. Asset mapping displays the interconnection of community assets to create networks and support the needs of residents (Crumb et al., 2020). As rural communities are rich in cultural wealth, asset mapping specifies the prevalence of rural resourcefulness and ingenuity as well as sites where communities come together (e.g. schools, festivals, churches etc.) that can be useful in helping individuals or communities unify to attain common goals.

Specific assets may include the skills possessed by youth, older adults, parents, students, entrepreneurs, organizations (e.g. charitable groups, schools and hospitals) and other local resources (Crumb et al., 2019). The interconnectivity of rural networks is an advantage in this context (Byun et al., 2012). To illustrate, consider the asset of language interpretation. Many rural communities are linguistically heterogeneous (Coady, 2019); however, the resources to provide language interpreters for educators, law enforcement or health-care providers are often limited. An asset mapping project would include identifying individuals who can provide interpreting services and sharing that resource with local educational, governmental and community organizations. Other examples are homegrown leader programs that build the capacities of leaders within the areas (www.ncruralcenter.org/leadership/homegrown-leaders/). Such programs help build sustainable programs in rural spaces because of the leaders’ familiarity with existing community assets and their knowledge of the needs in their respective communities.

School–university–community collaborations

The rural cultural wealth model offers a framework for creating sustainable school–university–community collaborations (SUCCs), bringing together thought leaders in each entity. Together, they can co-create innovative approaches and leverage resources to improve educational and other disparities (e.g. health and financial) in various rural communities (Miller et al., 2017; Schafft, 2016), thus enacting rural ingenuity and rural resourcefulness. Post-secondary personnel can build relationships with various community entities, including religious organizations, schools, law enforcement agencies and medical service providers (Crumb et al., 2020). For example, post-secondary institutions can partner with rural schools to sponsor field trips to local colleges or universities for elementary-age students. In so doing, rural students with less college knowledge are directly exposed to post-secondary settings and provided access to information to help them make informed choices about their future, whether they opt for higher education, the military or immediate career immersion.

Means et al. (2021) demonstrated that rural SUCCs are an effective approach to address problems of practice in rural education by demonstrating the advantages of involving rural youth in participatory action research projects with school administrators, educators and community leaders to identify and examine district challenges. The researchers found that engaging rural youth in this capacity increased students’ post-secondary education knowledge and their development as future rural leaders. SUCCs are fundamental to establishing transformation in rural schools whose leaders and approaches are historically entrenched in deficit ideology (Boettcher et al., 2022). Additionally, grant-funded SUCCs have found positive results in rural areas, especially when the work is sustained over time (Casto et al., 2016). University personnel can be especially helpful in connecting underfunded districts and localities to federal, state and private funding sources (Casto et al., 2016). By doing so, university personnel become part of the community unity supporting rural students. Before engaging this work, however, universities should consult successful SUCC models such as Barnett et al. (1999).

“All in” college planning.

By 2027, 70% of jobs within the USA will require some post-secondary education (Blumenstyk, 2020). Educators and community members can use rural cultural wealth to support students’ college aspirations. Because of large caseloads, rural school counselors have limited capacities to engage students in in-depth college exploration activities (Chambers et al., 2019). In addition, college-bound students in rural communities may have limited access to peers and other mentors to support and inform their college and career goals (Nix et al., 2020). Rural educators are encouraged to capitalize on the all-in spirit of rural settings. In practice, this entails rallying residents and local professionals around the common cause of supporting students’ higher education goals through events like career days at school, with guest speakers discussing their day-to-day work and practical tips for getting accepted, financing and thriving in college. We encourage researchers and practitioners to use the constructs of rural resourcefulness, familism and community unity in college and career planning efforts.

Addressing rural outmigration

Furthermore, in the literature regarding rural post-secondary opportunities, the issue of outmigration is discussed. Outmigration refers to an individual’s desires for post-secondary educational attainment or other activities that may take them out of the immediate orbit of their family or rural space, and the perceived inability of those with post-secondary degrees to return to their communities to find suitable livelihood (McHenry-Sorber et al., 2021). Drawing contrast, some rural residents return to their hometowns after completing post-secondary education rather than stay in their adopted cities (McHenry-Sorber et al., 2021; Theodori and Theodori, 2014). Those who choose to return (community returners) to their rural homelands cite common rural assets such as “the peaceful lifestyle, perceived safety, and social and familial ties” as reasons for returning (Theodori and Theodori, 2014, p. 114). McHenry-Sorber et al. (2021) asserted that community returners have a depth of understanding of rural spatial contexts, established understanding of their communities and are often leaders involved in efforts to increase college attendance among rural youth. The authors also proposed that community returners play a vital role in recruiting and retaining high-quality rural educators, serving as examples that moving away for college does not always lead to permanent rural outmigration.

Implications for future research, practice and advocacy

The four constructs that encompass rural cultural wealth are neither new in and of themselves nor are they fixed or static. However, collectively, they represent opposition to deficit-oriented scholarship regarding rural people and spaces and provide researchers, practitioners and stakeholders a common language for asset-based discourse regarding rurality. We encourage researchers to design place-based, contextual research studies using the constructs of rural cultural wealth to advance the understanding of diverse rural communities, attending to within-group variations and power dynamics. As well, we acknowledge diversity in rural contexts and among individual identities, which may present limitations to applying this framework. We hope that rural cultural wealth is broad enough to embrace migrant families, LGBTQIA+ youth, those disconnected from familial connections, Indigenous populations and linguistic, racial/ethnic and religious diversities.

Conclusion

As a matter of equity and social justice, it is imperative to devise approaches and adopt ideologies that improve educational and other outcomes for rural communities. While it is important to address sociocultural fragmentation within rural communities, we affirm that asset-based approaches to community building can improve educational outcomes for rural students.

The recognition and appreciation for rural resourcefulness, rural ingenuity, rural familism and rural community unity may supplant racial, ethnic or social class differences which have historically divided rural communities. This aim for a common framework to connect the capital stocks cultivated in rural communities over eons, adapted to a post-modern era, is not a cue for homogenization, implicitly or explicitly forced assimilation or conformity. As rural scholars, we call for further research to situate and illustrate rural cultural wealth constructs in practice. Furthering the asset-based rural research platform identifies the strengths and adaptive strategies of rural residents and influences and educates those who consider themselves partners with rural communities.