Research aimed to enhance rural women's access to communication and information technologies and to assess the impact of their technology use on their participation in small business development and community development. Over 200 women throughout Queensland (Australia) were involved. A trial electronic mailing list linking rural women to urban…

Provides a brief overview of the educational conditions in Canada's Yukon Territory and discusses their effect on curriculum development. Describes three social studies curriculum projects from inception to completion. The projects are "Our Land Too: Women of Canada and the Northwest 1860-1914"; "Klondike Gold"; and…

Australian rural communities often suffer from psychological isolation in addition to geographic isolation. Human and social capital are powerful antidotes to psychological isolation and are closely dependent on learning. Rural schools can reverse the negative effects of isolation on educational outcomes if they first work on building human and…

A culturally appropriate oral health training course tailored to the needs of rural Aboriginal health workers was developed in Western Australia. The course is taught in three modules ranging from introductory material to comprehensive practical and theoretical knowledge of basic dental health care. The program encourages Aboriginal health workers…

A survey examined the continuing education needs of 706 rural general practitioners (GPs) across Australia. An inability to generalize findings across location indicates that regional identification by local service providers would be more effective. However, a set of topics broader than the traditional continuing medical education topics for…

Addresses the needs of gifted children in rural New South Wales and discusses disadvantages often experienced by rural gifted students. Describes a project coordinated by the Armidale Catholic Schools Office that developed enrichment materials for gifted rural students in grades 3-10. Includes brief descriptions of learning modules and cites…

A survey of home-schooling parents and staff associated with the Longreach School of Distance Education in a remote area of Queensland (Australia) examined attitudes about the importance of drama and visual arts education. The majority of parents valued their children's participation in the arts and would like to see more arts education included…

The "Passport to Flexible Learning" project was designed to support Central Queensland University's (Australia) plan to use a variety of communication technologies for the delivery of units of study across its geographically isolated campuses. Hands-on workshops were developed to introduce first-year students to a variety of electronic…

The Broken Hill School of the Air provides distance education to isolated rural students in the far west of New South Wales (Australia). Services include correspondence study, radio lessons, home visits, and minischool meetings. A student teacher describes his 10-week experience with Broken Hill, teaching 15 students in grade 5-6. (SV)

In response to overseas economic competition and changing technologies, Australia's national vocational education and training system was recently restructured, with emphases on competency-based training and industry participation. This national training system has had little relevance for geographically remote Aboriginal communities. Issues of…

Definitions of "education" and "rural" are debunked and expanded. The three major tasks of rural education are educating people to understand their own needs, the unavoidable changes that will transform rural Australia within their lifetimes, and the range of technologies that can enhance their well-being. Presents a strategy…

This paper provides a glimpse of the current picture of education in rural Scotland. Scotland has many small schools, and not all of these are in geographically isolated areas. Although Scotland's population has decreased in the past 20 years, the decline has been mostly in urban areas. Remote areas are becoming more cosmopolitan as highly…

This paper describes the characteristics of Botswana's remote area dwellers (RADs) and the government's related rural development policies. RADS live a nomadic lifestyle, live outside the traditional village structure far from basic services, rely heavily on hunting and gathering, have low levels of literacy and little access to education, and…

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…

In Australia, many teachers begin their careers in rural schools, a posting for which they are often ill-prepared. This book addresses the concerns of beginning teachers or other teachers about to take up rural appointments. The first chapter examines the context of rural schools, differentiates between "rural education" (education…