An equitable early childhood education and care (ECEC) system in Australia relies on the availability of quality services that meet the needs of all children and families. However, availability can be limited in thin markets, such as those in unserved and underserved areas in regional and remote areas. This report sets out the findings of a…

Small rural schools in many countries have historically been viewed as less desirable than their larger urban counterparts, being treated less favourably in the policy arena and facing a risk of closure or amalgamation. Within Europe, they have been the focus of a range of research studies and have been defined in different ways, based mostly on…

Education policies are enacted differently according to school contexts and geographies. This is particularly the case in large countries such as Australia where context and geographies for schooling differ greatly. Within regional, rural and remote Australia, schools are witnessing a trend in geographic disadvantage in that as distance from urban…

In Australia, government-funded equity programs have positively impacted the equality of rural schooling, but persistent issues remain. A literature review examines positive and negative features of rural schooling related to teachers, school size, academic achievement, completion rates, curriculum, lifestyle, and social justice. (Contains 66…

The phenomenon of globalization argues for a broader world view that makes allowances for cultural diversity. Caribbean states have a history of living and working with people from diverse backgrounds, and could make a contribution to the new perspective through closer engagement with the field of comparative education, which has always stressed…

Australia has a long history of what has been pilloried as "cultural cringe", and of bemoaning its isolation from "overseas" developments. In recent years, the valuing of ideas and practices from elsewhere has been transformed under the rubric of "world best practice" within a global economy and culture, both in…

The access to postsecondary education that is offered to students in rural areas differs significantly from the access available to urban students. An overview is given of the various factors and structural obstacles influencing rural access to postsecondary education, including aspirations, college preparation, socioeconomic characteristics of…

In 1998 the Charleville School of Distance Education (SDE) in Queensland, Australia, began using telephone teaching to replace high frequency radio as its means of communicating with rural and remote students. A study investigated the extent to which telephone teaching has contributed to the development of a constructivist teaching and learning…

This article extends a framework for the study of culture-cognition relations to problems of historical research and diachronic analysis. As an illustrative case, we focus on mathematics in Oksapmin communities located in a remote highland area in central New Guinea. The Oksapmin, like their neighboring Mountain-Ok groups to the West,…

In regional, rural, and remote areas of Australia, geographic and professional isolation take their toll on professionals, particularly in the first 5 years of practice. The attraction and retention of human service professionals and paraprofessionals in regional Australia is a significant problem affecting the sustainability and social cohesion…

This paper presents highlights from surveys of some of Canada's most isolated schools, located in northern Labrador, Nunavut, northern Saskatchewan, and northern and interior British Columbia. Most served Inuit or other First Nations communities. Although all schools had contact by phone and most had e-mail, few were accessible by road. Five Inuit…

In Greece, "small schools" usually means those with less than 50, and perhaps, as few as 3 children. The isolation and inaccessibility of many regions, due to Greece's many mountain ranges and islands, have resulted in many small "schools of necessity." Even with the demographic shift to urban regions since World War II, 24…

This paper examines specific problems facing community service delivery in rural Australia and efforts to overcome these deficiencies. The generic term "rural" is advantageous in that it delineates particular problems facing rural communities, aids in resource allocation, raises public awareness of rural disadvantage, and provides an…

This paper describes various types of distance education technologies and their use in rural Australia. Communications and information technologies may be categorized as distributive or interactive. Correspondence education is a distributive form of distance education, involving the postal service and, at times, educational television or radio.…

This study explores current education, training, and employment issues and opportunities for rural youth in Australia, and suggests ways in which relevant education, training, and employment options and prospects can be generated for rural youth. Specifically, this study documents the ways that economic and social changes in rural communities have…