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Background: Cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer death among women of reproductive age despite being treatable if it is diagnosed early. Early diagnosis is possible through regular screening through the public health system. However, screening rates remain low in many low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya, where the screening rate currently stands at 16–18%. The low screening rates are attributed to, among other factors, low knowledge about cervical cancer and the available screening options among women of reproductive age. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of dialogue-based community health education by trained community health volunteers (CHVs) in improving cervical cancer knowledge among women of reproductive age (WRA) in rural Kisumu County. Methods: This was a longitudinal pre- and post-intervention study with a control group. The knowledge of women of reproductive age was assessed at baseline in both the intervention and control groups, followed by dialogue-based community health education in the intervention arm. A final end-line knowledge assessment was performed. The scores at baseline and at the end of the study were compared to assess changes in knowledge due to the intervention. The proportion of WRA with improved knowledge was also calculated, and statistical significance was considered at p ≤ 0.05. Results: There was no significant difference between the participants in the two arms, except for the level of education (p = 0.002). The knowledge of the WRA in the intervention arm improved significantly (p < 0.001) following the dialogue-based educational intervention by the trained CHVs. None of the demographic characteristics were associated with knowledge. Conclusion: Dialogue-based educational intervention significantly improved the knowledge of the WRA in the intervention arm, showing its potential to address the knowledge gap in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depression is increasingly affecting mothers in poor countries such as Uganda. Various interventions have been implemented to tackle this problem, but their sustainability is under-researched. Here we present follow-up data on maternal depression six years after a cluster-randomized controlled maternal education trial in rural Uganda. The intervention lasted six months and consisted of nutrition, hygiene, sanitation and child stimulation education, delivered to 511 mothers of 6 to 8 months' old children. Six years later we assessed maternal depressive symptoms using two psychometric tools; the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES D). For this follow-up study, data was available from 307/511 (60 %) mothers. Intention-to-treat analyses adjusting for clustering showed that the intervention mothers had non-significantly less depression symptoms (absolute score difference − 2; 95 % CI -5 to 0; p = 0.07) on BDI-II, and borderline significantly less depression symptoms (absolute score difference − 3; 95 % CI -5 to 0; p = 0.05) on CES-D compared to the controls. For categorized depression scores, the control mothers had significantly higher proportion of women classified in the worse depression categories for both BDI-II and CES D. We did not find any baseline characteristics associated with maternal depression. The BDI-II and CES-D tools are both self-reported and we cannot rule out the possibility of social desirability bias in reporting of depression symptoms. Six years after the maternal education trial, some benefits on maternal mental health were sustained. More studies are warranted on sustainability and scale-up of such interventions. • An earlier educational RCT in education in nutrition, hygiene and infant-stimulation reduced maternal depression • The education benefits on maternal depression are reduced at 6 years, but still sustained • Younger mothers reported more depressive symptoms than older ones [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study's aim was to examine the challenges faced by early childhood practitioners in the provision of Early Childhood care and education in rural schools in Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria. The study adopted a mixed method research design. A sample of 20 respondents was selected from five (5) Early Childhood Education Centres in rural areas. Data was collected using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data was analysed using themes by coding and grouping similar ideas and quantitative data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to generate frequencies, mean, and standard deviations. Frequencies, mean, and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions, while t-test statistic was used to test the null hypotheses that guided the study at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study among others revealed that there was inadequate fund for the running of early childhood education in rural areas. It was also found that lack of qualified early childhood practitioners, lack of instructional materials, dilapidated classrooms, inadequate space for quality play and lack of motivation of staff were among the notable challenges encountered while providing early childhood care and education in rural school. In view of the research findings, it was recommended that appropriate infrastructure, teaching/learning materials and relevant equipment for play be provided in ECE Centres. Further, the proprietors should establish more ECE centres closer to communities so that preschoolers can access the schools easily. The government should highly fund ECE centres for better operations of the program in rural schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planetary Health is an expanding scientific field around the world, and actions in different areas are essential to minimize the environmental damage that compromises the future of humanity. This project report aims to describe the development of Planetary Health actions in a rural school in the Brazilian Amazon, to understand and raise awareness of themes related to Planetary Health. To implement the educational activities, a booklet entitled "Planetary Health: Guide for Rural Education" was created. Subsequently, didactic sequences were applied to 37 ninth-grade students in the first semester of 2023. The activities were diversified, including: (1) investigative activities (pre-tests, interviews with family members, ecological footprint adapted to the Amazonian riverside context), (2) interpretative activities (image reading, identification and problem-solving for Planetary Health stories in the Amazon, educational cartoons, and graphs of the sectors with the highest pollution in Brazil and diseases associated with climate change), (3) audiovisual activities (educational videos), (4) playful activities (educational games), (5) practical and field activities (forest tracking, planting seedlings, sanitation trail, construction of a school garden, preparation of a healthy school snack, greenhouse effect simulation, and basic analysis of lake water with a probe). The results of the educational actions allowed students to undergo new experiences on Planetary Health themes, as well as understand the centrality of the Amazon for the planet and how the environmental impacts in this biome are compromising the future of humanity. The experiences during the educational actions showed that young riverside residents are concerned about the future of the Amazon, especially given the environmental destruction that is frequently evident, such as deforestation, fires, illegal mining, and land grabbing. Inserting these themes into riverside education makes it possible to look at the Amazon in a resilient, responsible way and to discuss scientific and local knowledge so that students can develop initiatives to face environmental challenges in their community. We conclude that Planetary Health education needs to be an effective part of the school curriculum, prioritizing reviewing the documents that guide education to prioritize transdisciplinary actions with children and young people, as they are the voices of the future and future leaders in emerging causes. Educational actions in Planetary Health in the Amazon region are an example that can inspire actions in other places with similar characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought myriad challenges to South African public schools based in rural areas. The recurring concern is that those challenges might negatively impact the performance and progress of learners in rural areas. This should be understood within the context that most schools in rural areas are characterised by a lack of resources, such as modern technological resources. This paper aimed to find ways to enhance teaching practices during and after the COVID-19 crisis in a rural context. The objectives of the paper were to discover the impact of COVID-19 on learning and teaching practices and recommend ways to enhance such practices during and after the pandemic. Weiner's Attribution Theory of motivation and emotion was used to identify and address the underlying factors that may contribute to a learner's academic success and how they act or behave in certain ways towards the teaching practices. Methodologically, the study adopted a qualitative approach, and the purposive sampling technique was employed to draw data from participants through interviews and observations. The collected data was analyzed through thematic content analysis. The study found that psychosocial factors such as lack of positive mindset towards the curriculum, lack of motivation, family challenges, environmental challenges, and anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder and phobias caused by covid 19 pandemic, affect the cognition of learners and hinder the learning process. Therefore, it is recommended that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) consider implementing some psychological assessment programmes as a way to prepare learners and teachers for learning and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In connection with the changes imposed in recent years, the trend in education has been set by forms of education based on the use of digital technologies. Thus, also at the level of pre-college education, forms of online education have emerged that are adapted to the legal requirements, to the subject, but also to the experience of the teaching staff in the field of digital skills. In this sense, we have proposed an analysis of the digital systems used in precollege education. This research is divided into three parts: the analysis of teachers' experiences in the classroom, the use of digital tools, and the process of assessing students using digital methods. The method used in this research is based on a survey based on a questionnaire. The results sought were the opinions of elementary school teachers about the use of digital tools throughout the educational process. The conclusions concerned the degree of use of digital resources in the educational process and proved the reluctance of teachers and parents to use them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice was historically a "total social phenomenon" in Sierra Leone, molding rural identities through farming. Crop yields are rapidly declining, forcing change among people who once claimed to be "wealthy" from rice and now face severe food insecurity. In response to change, they can take out loans—offered by "strangers"—to continue farming rice, or they can "diversify" and farm alternative crops. Low rice yields largely condemn those who accept a loan to farming solely to pay their debts, a "poverty trap" that most cannot overcome. However, the majority of farmers in our study area accepted seed and tractor loans, arguing that rice is "the only way" to offer their children a better life through education—even as no children from the villages have procured waged jobs—as it is the only commercial crop that pays school fees. We argue that thinking in terms of fetishes offers a constructive analysis of the dissolution of total social phenomena. Devoting the next generation to the new "fetish" of education is paradoxically dependent on retaining one's commitment to the old fetish of rice, allowing the usurious stranger to profit from this paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Settled families and rural workers face precarious living and working conditions that weaken their health and access to quality education. Health and education indicators are important parameters for planning and implementing public policies to improve these subjects' access to health and education. In light of this, this scoping review aimed at identifying the health and education conditions of families and workers living in rural settlements in Brazil. The SciELO, Scopus, and PubMed databases were searched. After the study screening process, thirty articles published between 1997 and 2021 were included in the review. The studies showed that families and settled workers are highly vulnerable in terms of health and education, with emphasis on the difficulty of accessing health services, leisure and physical activity, goods, and services such as transportation, basic sanitation, and income, as well as all levels of education, especially higher education. The main causes of the advances observed in the conditions of access to education were the constitution of rural education and the National Rural Education Program (Programa Nacional de Educação na Reforma Agrária [PRONERA]). The democratization of access to health and education services in rural settlements depends on public policies that focus on valuing the socioeconomic, cultural, and educational context of rural people. Therefore, interventions and public policies must aim at expanding access to health and education services in the settlements and promoting autonomy in the relations between work and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: This article discusses the use of educational technology (EdTech) in girls' education at PEAS (Promoting Education in African Schools) schools in rural Uganda during the Covid‐19‐related school closures. Purpose: This article addresses a research gap surrounding the potential use of EdTech to support girls' education, focusing on the barriers to girls' EdTech use and how technology might be used to enhance girls' education in disadvantaged rural areas—specifically their academic learning and their social and emotional learning. Methods and approach: A sequential, explanatory mixed‐methods case‐study approach was used. Quantitative exploration of a dataset of 483 Ugandan students, from 28 PEAS schools, was first conducted, followed by interviews with PEAS staff to elucidate the reasons and context behind the findings. Findings Findings show that female students are less likely than male students to have access to their caregivers' phones for learning. The form of EdTech that appeared to be most beneficial for girls' academic learning was radio; girls also had significantly more interest in tuning into radio broadcasts than boys did. Also, poorer boys were more likely to be influenced by SMS messages than wealthier boys. Apart from gender‐based differences, students with more highly educated parents found SMS messages more helpful, and phone calls from teachers appeared to help boost younger students' self‐confidence. Policy implications: The findings suggest that policy‐makers need to: carefully consider provision of education through multiple modes of EdTech in order to ensure that it reaches all students; ensure that caregivers are involved in the strategies developed for girls' education; make EdTech interventions interactive; and consider language in EdTech interventions. Given the gender differences which emerged, the findings are of relevance both to supporting the continuation of educational provision during periods of school closure, and also in terms of finding additional ways to support girls' education alongside formal schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether large families have a subsequent negative impact on child health, education, and welfare is of pressing concern for development and public health policy. We tackle this question by empirically exploring whether parents face a trade-off between increasing the size of their family and investing in their children. Using data from a rural sub-district in Bangladesh (the 1996 Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey), we estimate the effect of siblings on school attendance, literacy, and numeracy. We use an instrumental variables approach, instrumenting first for children's sibship size their mothers' menarche age, and also instrumenting for children's sibship size with the household's treatment status (in the Matlab family planning experiment). Although we find no effect of siblings on school attendance, we find that additional siblings increase the likelihood that children are literate and numerate. These effects are greater for girls and younger siblings, consistent with positive numeracy and literacy spillovers from older siblings to younger ones. The results provide counter-evidence to the quality-quantity trade-off theory and demonstrate that sibling education spillovers may dominate any reduced investment on the part of parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, access to education and culture was predominantly online. Those responsible for cultural activities in the rural environment ensured access to the culture and traditions specific to the rural area. In this sense, we proposed an analysis of cultural support activities for education in the rural environment during the pandemic period. The present work was structured in three parts, namely: One part in which those responsible for cultural activities are identified, the links between them and the state's contribution to the development of culture, a second part in which we analyzed the specific cultural activities of each institution and the correlation with the results obtained in the educational system in the established area. The last part of the research was dedicated to the conclusions obtained from the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development brokerage has become a crucial and enduring phenomenon where local actors link their communities to the international development and aid system. Using the case of the World Bank-led Promoting Partnerships with Traditional Authorities Project (PPTAP) with the Asanteman Council in 2003, this study investigates the brokerage roles played by Traditional Authorities (TA) towards rural education. This study finds that the role of TAs was significant concerning improved time-bound projects, greater community participation and ownership, de-politicisation of projects, and accelerated land acquisition processes. However, issues of sustainability and gender remain critical concerns for the overall success of TAs as development brokers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University education is envisaged to contribute to and enhance sustainable development in society. Hence there is a desire for quality and effectiveness in the tertiary education system for which huge amounts of money are budgeted annually. However, the quality and effectiveness of rural university education with regard to aiding sustainable development in host communities tends to be questionable. This study explored the relevance of rural university education toward enhancing sustainable development in Africa, using the context of South Africa. A review method was adopted for this study. Relevant literature was reviewed and analysed using themes. The findings of the study show that while rural universities are capable of promoting sustainable development, those in South Africa and by extension developing and underdeveloped nations are hindered by various challenges such as lack of career guidance, globalisation of the curriculum, and poor academic literacy, among others. The challenges render students incompetent in their chosen professions, consequently affecting their ability to give back to society. The study recommends that rural universities should be designed and positioned for glocalisation first. Also, adequate support for rural universities must be made available to enable them to contribute toward sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN ROMANIA DID NOT APPEAR SUDDENLY, BUT THROUGH AN EVENTFUL EVOLUTION OF HISTORY. THE END OF ROMANIAN DEMOCRACY IN AN UNFAVORABLE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT HASTENED THE SEIZURE OF POWER BY A POLITICAL PARTY THAT UNTIL THEN HAD NO TRACTION AMONG THE MASSES. THE COMMUNIST PARTY MADE THE ASSAULT ON POWER IN THE PERIOD 1945-1947. THE SOVIETIZATION OF THE COUNTRY WAS ACHIEVED IN ALL SECTIONS OF SOCIETY THROUGH THE MOST VIOLENT MEANS, AND FOR HALF A CENTURY, FORCEFUL MEASURES WERE TAKEN, THE COUNTRY'S EVOLUTION BEING DIVERTED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL TRAJECTORY. REGARDING THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF THIS PERIOD, IT CAN BE SAID THAT IT EXPERIENCED A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE AFTER 1948, CHANGES THAT HAPPENED IN PARALLEL WITH THE PROCESS OF COLLECTIVIZATION, WHICH AFFECTED THE ENTIRE RURAL POPULATION OF ROMANIA. THIS PAPER AIMS TO STUDY RURAL EDUCATION AND THE CONSEQUENCES THAT COLLECTIVIZATION HAD ON EDUCATION, FROM THE BEGINNING OF SOVIETIZATION TO THE END OF THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN ROMANIA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Farmer field schools are a methodology in which participants share prior knowledge to supply solutions to agrarian problems. Objective: To strengthen the availability, access, and consumption of healthy food through Sembrando Salud strategy in two rural villages and the town center of the municipality of Soracá, Boyacá, Colombia, in 2017. Materials and Methods: A mixed study was conducted including participant observation to show the phenomenon of food access and surveys to measure the change in access, availability, and consumption of healthy foods. With the farmer schools were developed five training modules with seven hours of intensity each. Results: Sembrando Salud involved 100 participants, 40 % under 18 years of age and 60 % adults; 74 % female and 26 % male. Access, availability, and consumption of fruits and vegetables are limited, due to the high cost of food and lack of knowledge on how to prepare them. The change in the inclusion and consumption of fruit and vegetables was showed by 59.4 % making changes in production, 51.9 % in preparation, and 43% in acquiring vegetables by other means. Conclusion: Sembrando Salud demonstrated that rural participation and education processes allow the improvement of access, availability, and consumption of healthy food in rural populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of new "Special-post teachers" has decreased considerably, especially at China's rural schools in recent years. This study applies the semi-structured interview data of new "Special-post teachers" in China's rural schools to explore their perceptions on the rural new teachers' problems and challenges at nine developing rural provinces in China. It finds that the new rural teachers were confronted with severe challenges and difficulties for their professional adaptability in rural areas, such as the interpersonal relationship, heavy workload and dissatisfied salary, and unqualified teaching capacities. Those interviewed new "Special-post teachers" also learned lots from those challenges in reality, such as the diversified personality characteristics, professional beliefs and career motivation. It also suggested that, Chinese government should offer sufficient and diversified educational policies to stimulate rural teacher development, especially for new "Special-post Teachers" at rural areas. Chinese central government plays a significant role to guarantee the sustainable funding support for the development of new "Special-post teachers". In addition, the principals in rural schools should pay close attention to new Special-post Teachers' personability characteristics, hobbies and needs to create a supportive teaching environment for them to move toward successful rural teacher development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research consisted of two studies to investigate how the Chinese rural educational system supported students' online learning and to determine the factors that influenced students' online learning quality (satisfaction and cognitive and social presence) during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Study 1, based on interviews with three curriculum officers, seven principals and 30 course teachers, found that great efforts were made to realize digital equity and education for all students. The necessity of providing resources and support to teachers and students (facilitating conditions) was recognized, along with the importance of teachers' online course design and organization and the facilitation of discourse (teaching presence and social presence). Based on the findings of Study 1 and the literature review, a conceptual model of facilitating conditions and teaching presence reported to influence students' online learning quality was generated. In Study 2, 1,409 students from three rural primary schools were surveyed to test the conceptual model. The results indicated that facilitating conditions influenced students' online learning quality through enhanced technology self‐efficacy and perceived usefulness. Teaching presence directly and positively predicted students' online learning quality. This research highlights the importance of creating a learning community and providing technology access and support to ensure online learning opportunities and quality for rural students. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Chinese students from rural or migrant schools have fewer opportunities to access computers and the Internet, lower frequencies of online activity and technology self‐efficacy and less training and parental and teacher support.Providing support and resources to encourage and facilitate technology use among teachers and students in rural and underdeveloped schools is of great importance.Identifying the factors that contribute to online learning quality among rural school students to tackle the transition to online learning is necessary.What this paper adds The rural government and schools have made great efforts to ensure digital equity and education for all students, despite family conditions.Facilitating purposeful interactions and providing timely feedback is critical for effective learning in online teaching.Facilitating conditions represented by available support and resources and teaching presence influence students' online learning quality in rural areas.Implications for practice and/or policy Providing digital equipment and resources to all students is the first step towards distance learning.Providing opportunities to improve teachers' digital competency is critical for providing quality online instruction.Providing students timely assistance and useful and learner‐friendly technologies to enhance their satisfaction and social and cognitive presence is necessary.Online instructors should create a friendly online learning environment, facilitate active discussion and purposeful reflection and create opportunities to promote students' open communication, group cohesion and meaning construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a research carried out in ten municipalities of great territorial extension in the state of Paraná, with the aim to understand the educational policy in relation to rural public schools. In this text, we selected eight municipalities considered extremely rural to expose contradictions present in the field and in education, based on documentary studies and interviews. The aim is to problematize microregions whose territory has the presence of large properties and agribusiness, alongside the work of the diverse peoples of the countryside. In these contexts, there are challenges regarding the guarantee to the right to education. They are marked by school closures, precarious roads that give access to the municipal headquarters, centrality of school transport for students, difficulty with the continuity of teachers in schools, among others. It is possible to conclude that the contradiction that generates exclusionary processes in the countryside resides in the concentration of land, in agricultural production for exportation that generates few job opportunities, and results in the policy of closing schools due to the low population density. When studying such regional contexts, it is evident the need for another project for the countryside, agrarian reform and public policies for the subjects to remain in the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is located in the investigation between the relation of the social projects developed in the peasant schools by companies of the agroindustrial branch and the perspective of the class struggle proposed by the Rural Education movement. To develop it, we used the qualitative methodology based on the bibliographic analysis. We highlight the achievements of this modality in recent decades. However, we highlight the impacts that capitalist projects have on rural schools. In this sense, it is important that these institutions and their education networks, establish partnerships in order to enable their educators to establish practices to strengthen an education that is geared to peasant needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mental disorder is associated with a significant amount of stigma in Indian culture. The stigmatizing attitude towards mental illness starts developing at a younger age and continuously evolves through adulthood. Educational interventions showed a significant reduction of stigma after acquiring new information. Aim: The current study aimed at a change in attitude and reducing stigma related to mental illness through education. Methodology: A total of 3478 students from the 9th to 12th class of rural schools participated in a one-time educational intervention program. Attitude towards the person with mental illness was assessed before and immediately after intervention using the California Assessment of Stigma Change Scale. Results: It indicates a significant reduction in overall stigma towards mental illness. We also observed significant improvement in empowerment, recovery, and help-seeking attitude towards a person suffering from mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses cross sectional survey data to explore the two-way causality between the household head's education level and poverty in Turkey. In contrast with the existing studies, this is the first study to examine the issue of a possible endogeneity problem. For that purpose and to overcome the simultaneity bias, we adopt the most commonly used Instrumental Variable (IV) estimation technique, two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression. Our IV estimates indicate that the policy reform, which was implemented in 1961, only increases the household head's years of education for rural residents. Furthermore, the higher the level of education of the household head, the higher the household per capita income. Policy recommendations for policymakers are addressed in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portraying a localised educational system as part of broader global flows of policy ideas and practices emanating from multiple sources – an eduscape– the paper focuses on family practices shaped by global policy flows and the return impact of families on the translation of these policies into local school formations. Under scrutiny are the decentralising or devolutionary directives, linked so often to choice and competition, which took hold in Western jurisdictions in the 1980s, the influences of which are still strongly felt. The conceptual links spread to a mobile 'second modernity', implicating many a family in movement associated with choices they are obliged to make, and which are often correlated to family achievement and success. The observations reported here are framed conceptually by an interest in the synthesis of Beck's individualisation thesis and Bourdieusean practice approaches in order to portray and comprehend social being and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compiles the voices of teachers from some settings where the Colombian armed conflict has been intensely experienced. It derives from the research titled "Narratives of Peace in Rural Educational Contexts. The Teachers' Voices," whose aim is to identify the abilities, experiences, and knowledge of teachers from multiple contexts. It was carried out with a phenomenological perspective, which guides the description, comparison, explanation, and understanding of the study from the perspective of participants. A type of discourse in which their voices are collected is the anecdote, which approaches the subjectivities of participants. This article introduces some theoretical elements on the subject of evil, shows the first findings, and ends with a thesis resulting from the interpretation of the analyzed categories. According to one of the findings, it can be affirmed that, although evil remains in those territories, good is reflected in rural teachers' hope and educational intentions for their students; therefore, good materializes as human dignity in rural schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study approaches the relationship between school education and Catholicism in rural areas, especially in the Mapuá river, Breves municipality, Marajó archipelago, Pará state. We have as objective to identify the presence of Catholicism in field schools. and the relationship with the formation of the students. Specifically, the perspective is to discuss the influence of religious rituals and sacred artifacts on the educational process and school culture. It is a qualitative research, based on bibliographic foray and field research, whose empirical data were collected through ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews and photographs. In theoretical terms, the study seeks support in the writings of authors from the field of Anthropology, Science of Religion and Education, and it has religious teaching as its focus. The results indicate that school education and Catholicism in the Mapuá River are interlaced through rituals and sacred artifacts that narrate knowledge, traditions, affects, meanings and symbologies that in the perception of the deponents help to forge the school formation of the subjects and, therefore to the school culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Education in Colombia has been established as a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed by the state. Education and its implementation are a shared responsibility in which regional and municipal governments, as well as educational institutions and grassroots social organizations participate to contribute from their field of action to the quality of schooling in their municipalities and rural areas. Aims: To identify the different processes of rural development and associativity implemented to strengthen public education in the indigenous community of Ébera Katio of Santa Teresa's village and the tri-ethnic community of the city of Santa Cecilia in Pueblo Rico, Risaralda. Methodology: The study is descriptive and cross-sectional, and it was conducted using a qualitative approach. Four study variables, including education-pedagogy, assistance-technical support, actors-allies, and participation spaces, were established to understand executed actions and the aspects to be improved in the development strategies of rural areas. Results: Among the most important findings, we were able to establish the vitality of promoting theoretical and practical knowledge processes in rural areas through the implementation of participative methodologies designed to invigorate the resources of the territory and to facilitate the participation of the Dokabú and Kemberde communities in a municipality in Pueblo Rico, Risaralda. Conclusions: By encouraging theoretical and practical knowledge processes in rural areas, it was possible to complement the required strategies to strengthen education and rural development in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural depopulation, decreasing numbers of children, and general centralization, combined with high expectations for education, are factors that challenge rural communities and school structures in both Latvia and Norway. The aim of this article is to compare the role of the municipality and other levels of governance in making decisions on school structure in rural municipalities. The research method is a multiple-case-study approach, supported by survey data. Through the lenses of multi-level governance theory, we have investigated how national frameworks such as regulations and educational expectations are affecting local decision-making. Local politicians navigate between national frameworks and local expectations in making their decisions on school reorganization and closure. We find that local stakeholders' perceptions of rural educational objectives and possibilities are embedded in their role(s) in society. Closing of schools causes conflicting pressures and dissension between different stakeholders. We find that local negotiations might generate better solutions and less-contested decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Beibei Public Library (1928–1950) dedicated itself to social education in the rural areas of Chongqing. Examining this library in light of rural reconstruction, this study considers how libraries are affected by the attitudes and behaviors of social elites, officials, government policies, wars, conventional thinking etc. The Beibei Public Library is studied in terms of three aspects: indoor service, itinerant libraries, and additional services. Moreover, this study examines how librarians catered to peasants' needs, promoted knowledge dissemination, and helped mold new lifestyles in rural China. This case study contributes to research on Chinese rural libraries in the first half of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to discuss the practices of rural extension from the concepts of peasantry, rural education, agrarian paradigms of modernization and recampesinization, Tschajanow practice and Freire's thinking, indicating ways of searching for a model of rural extension rooted in the pedagogical perspective of rural dialogic education. Rural extension is considered a historic reality that presents itself as an educational process. Historically, rural extension practices have followed two different directions: as an educational domesticating instrument featured by the modernization of agriculture, or as a liberating dialogic model featured by peasantry. Methodologically, the reflection is presented in the form of a theoretical study, based, in general, on the historical practices of rural extension. In conclusion, it is possible to observe that the peasant condition can be asserted by practicing rural extension in a dialogic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to discuss the practices of rural extension from the concepts of peasantry, rural education, agrarian paradigms of modernization and recampesinization, Tschajanow practice and Freire's thinking, indicating ways of searching for a model of rural extension rooted in the pedagogical perspective of rural dialogic education. Rural extension is considered a historic reality that presents itself as an educational process. Historically, rural extension practices have followed two different directions: as an educational domesticating instrument featured by the modernization of agriculture, or as a liberating dialogic model featured by peasantry. Methodologically, the reflection is presented in the form of a theoretical study, based, in general, on the historical practices of rural extension. In conclusion, it is possible to observe that the peasant condition can be asserted by practicing rural extension in a dialogic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to present the context of south of Bahia and to understand how the socioenvironmental conflicts related to the conflicts between antagonistic education and rural development projects are generated in the process of campestral territoriality and its confrontation against the pulp and paper industries. Based on the literature review and the interviews with the inhabitants of this territory, we conclude that the articulation of social movements and other interlocutors presses the socioenvironmental contradictions in the dispute for the territory, as well as presses an anti-hegemonic model of education and production that oppose the anti-ecological and social model inequality of agribusiness, by the articulation of social movements and other interlocutors offer potential contribution to the formation of sustainable societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses Salud y Sanidad (Health and Sanitation), a government journal edited in 1930s Colombia. It examines the state's model of public health, which proposed education and prevention as strategies to guarantee the success of its programmes. It argues that despite the journal's more progressive approaches, editors and contributors reproduced stereotypes about Colombia's rural inhabitants that contradicted state rhetoric and showed the limits of public health models that do not address the underlying social inequities that drive the propagation of poverty and disease in rural areas, and that ultimately continued to blame victims for their illness and misfortune [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rural Education, directly connected to the dispute of projects for the countryside, is expression of the struggle for agrarian reform and social movements, contributing directly to the construction of an educational project that prioritizes and respects the human being in its different cultures, which respects him as a working class protagonist of the transformations necessary for a full life. The purpose of this article is to analyze the proposal of the Rural Education, Education and Society project still under construction, which opposes the model of capitalist development for the field expressed in the agribusiness-export model. As a reference documentary and bibliographical research carried out and the analysis of a rural school experience in the Roseli Nunes settlement in the state of Mato Grosso. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, educational reform has been one of the centerpieces of transition in Central and Eastern Europe. A huge degree of variability among countries exists, from sudden liberalization to securing the status quo previous to revolutionary political change. Reforms have ranged from institutional to instrumental changes. We argue that policies may lead to undesirable outcomes, when they assume a certain institutional framework. We then describe the evolution of Romania's educational system, focusing on a case study of an implemented large-scale policy program: the Rural Education Project for Romania. We thus argue that by assuming institutional change such attempts are bound to fail because the existing status quo adapts actions to existing practices, thus leading to unexpected outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to discuss the term ‘quality’ in relation to primary education in Tanzania, and to contextualize quality and identify the premises for obtaining quality in primary school education in rural and urban settings. To understand opinions about the quality of education and the current situation in primary schools, the author conducted interviews with teachers and focus group discussions with parents and caregivers in Iringa town and three villages in Iringa Region. The findings indicate a general consensus, regardless of geographical setting, that quality in primary education is primarily measurable through national exams. However, surrounding circumstances such as infrastructure and poverty have a great impact on the quality of education in rural primary schools. Lack of water and electricity, and poor transport networks have consequences for schooling by limiting children’s, parents’, and teachers’ access to school supplies and limiting the ability of officials to carry out monitoring activities. The author concludes that the premises for providing and receiving education vary to a great extent, depending on geographical setting, and favour urban youths with respect to their further education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Considerable disagreement exists on the impacts of intergovernmental transfers in improving education access and outcomes. This is further complicated by the fungibility of these transfers, especially in a developing country setting. This study examines the effects of the block grant established by the Chinese government to subsidize the operating costs of rural compulsory education in 2006 on education attainment in a difference-in-difference framework. Comparing students whose compulsory schooling was completed just before or after the reform in counties receiving higher and lower percentages of their operating costs from higher-level governments, we find that a 20% increase in subsidies received from higher levels of government has led to 0.21 more years of schooling completed (0.07 standard deviation) and a 2.2 percentage points rise in the probability of completing compulsory education (0.08 standard deviation). These findings have implications not just for China but also for other developing countries which aim to achieve universal compulsory education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This study proposes a multi-dimensional conceptual framework for analyzing rural teacher SWB. • Significant factors including gender, age, administrative position, marriage, class size, wages, and professional training are found • Relative wages are far more important than absolute wages in determining rural teachers’ SWB. • Rural teachers in administrative position tend to have a significantly higher SWB. Abstract Through an interdisciplinary lens, this study proposes a multi-dimensional conceptual framework for analyzing rural teacher subjective well-being (SWB) and examines it with survey data from rural teachers across 29 counties in 10 provinces in mainland China. The results demonstrate that an array of factors significantly impact rural teacher SWB, including gender, age, administrative position (in the individual dimension), and marriage (in the family dimension), as well as class size, wages, and professional training (in the school dimension). More prominently, compared with absolute wages, rural teachers’ perception of relative wages is far more important. Additionally, rural teachers in administrative positions tend to have a higher SWB, which demonstrates their needs to be involved in school management. Some policy implications for China and other developing countries are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The enactment of Escuela Nueva differed significantly in scale and emphasis. • The Philippines enacted a small-scale project to improve multigrade rural schools. • Vietnam Escuela Nueva was a national reform emphasizing the development of soft skills. • Appearance of implementation (without regard to results) still serves to legitimize Escuela Nueva as a global ‘best practice’. Abstract Escuela Nueva is a renowned educational innovation from Colombia that to date has been successfully transferred to 14 countries around the world. In this paper, I follow this ‘traveling’ policy and examine the local enactment of Escuela Nueva in two of these countries, the Philippines and Vietnam. This study reveals the various ways through which this policy model has been reframed and mediated at different stages of policy-making and local enactment. Despite local mediation, however, each attempt to transfer Escuela Nueva still contributes to the reproduction of Escuela Nueva as a universally-applicable ‘best practice.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although often assessed as one construct, teachers have been shown to draw on both content and pedagogical content knowledge as they teach reading. Factor analysis on sixty-six primary teachers in rural low-wealth districts illustrated that teacher knowledge of reading can be distinguished separately as content and pedagogical content knowledge, with teachers having roughly equal levels of knowledge across domains. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated teaching experience was the only teacher characteristic to be significantly associated with both domains of teacher knowledge, implicating the necessity of increasing experiential learning components in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the development of her curriculum for teaching a class on multicultural education. She mentions the homogenous nature of the students at a rural college, the lack of a good textbook for the subject, and the creation of a series of learning experiences to demonstrate dealing with unfamiliar situations.

Millions of rural households in India lack access to clean basic lighting which hampers the ability of children to study during dark hours. Over 81 million students are likely to be dependent on kerosene lamps for basic lighting. Despite programmes focusing on disseminating solar lanterns since the last three decades, penetration is limited owing to three main barriers: affordability, absence of after-sales services and unavailability in rural markets. This paper presents the localization-affordability-saturation (LAS) model that addresses these main barriers by bringing together three institutional spheres - government, corporate and NGOs for speedy upscaling. This paper illustrates experiences and challenges that have emerged from field testing of the model through Million Solar Urja Lamp Programme while disseminating 1,000,000 solar study lamps to rural school children residing in more than 10,000 villages in India. Though implemented successfully, applicability of LAS model can be hindered due to dependence on subsidies, bottlenecks in local manufacturing infrastructure, absence of market mechanism and its relevance in providing complete lighting solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we suggest that a new theoretical framework is needed within environmental education in the discussion of rural, underserved communities in Latin America. We argue that a community-resources approach, comprised of funds of knowledge and social capital, should be incorporated into contemporary research on place- and community-based education and environmental behavior. The model we present builds upon previous research in the areas of education, anthropology, social capital, and environmental education. These perspectives are discussed in accordance with their relevance to high school students in one of the most bio-diverse regions of Central America: the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. In this context, we suggest that promoting environmental behavior is both contextualized by and dependent upon social and community interactions, or ‘mediations,’ after Lev S. Vygotsky. We believe that the framework presented here may contribute to increased socio-economic, academic, and environmental benefits for underserved, Latin American communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to analyze school dropout caused by bullying in students from three rural high schools in the municipality of El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico. The study used semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire. The study population comprised 35 school dropouts and 10 teachers from the San Blas academic unit, in the Autonomous University of Sinaloa and its extensions. Results showed that 77% of school dropouts had been victims of some kind of bullying while studying at high school, mainly taunting due to their low academic performance or indigenous background. Indeed, most dropouts came from predominantly indigenous communities, and lived in moderately or highly marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, Xin Xiang investigates what, dushu, or "schooling," means for rural senior secondary school students in a high-poverty county in southwestern China, With the persistence of China's rural-urban education inequality and alarming reports about secondary school dropout rates, rural student's and their familie's attitudes toward schooling have become a topic of academic as well as public debate. Drawing from repeated interviews with and observations of twenty-seven students conducted over a year, Xiang uses portraiture methodology to illustrate the different dimensions of meaning these rural youth attach to dushu: the means to a future of comfort and dignity, a family responsibility and collective investment and a path toward individual freedom and actualization, This portrait also reveals the. deep contradictions that define these student's experiences of dushu and how it. often denies the hopes they attach to it and demands painful compromises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using semi-structured interviews gathered from youth and families in rural Cambodia, this paper focuses on the specific social circumstances that affect parents’ abilities to support their children’s education, as well as on how youth and young adults make sense of their own educational experiences in a context shaped by economic hardships and by social legacies of the Pol Pot regime. Data analysis shows that while economic factors have a strong impact on children’s educational opportunities, other risk factors include social tensions such as the changing social value of education due to societal scars and schooling inequities. This paper concludes with recommendations for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we presented issues, challenges, and solutions of videoconference system for rural education. First, we discussed several issues on the implementation of videoconference system for education, particulary in rural area in Indonesia, which covered videoconference requirement, rural condition, and education needs. Second, we presented several challenges consisted of choosing videoconference technology, choosing compression method, system and application development, ensuring quality of services, and ensuring quality of experiences. Based on the issues and challenges, we proposed a solution of videoconference system which is specifically deployed in rural education. The solution was based on WebRTC technology implemented in Intel i5 core miniPC choosen to increase portability of the system. A STUN server was built on Javascript to facilitate communication between each client terminal. A simple and intuitive user interface was designed to facilitate the use of application by rural people. The system was deployed at two elementary schools in Cianjur, West Java, representing rural education in Indonesia. From the experiment, we obtained video sent data rate 82 kbit/s, video received data rate 245 kbit/s, average delay 316 ms and packet lost rate 1.32%. The experiment results showed that the audio and video quality can be accepted by users to implement distance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to the relationsbetweensport-education and employment labour markets have resulted in the increasing diversity of how academic and vocational skills, knowledge and practices are valuedwithinthe micro-level of qualifications. The implications of this are particularly felt by further education (FE) sport-lecturers in the UK, who are required to select, transform and transmit messages from both vocational education policy and the sport-industry sectors. To illustrate the implications of these changing relations, the paper offers insight into the experiences of one FE sport-lecturer, Janet (all names are pseudonyms), who, as part of her professional development, engaged within a process of reflective practice that focused on her pedagogic interactions within a Foundation Degree in Sport Coaching (FdSC). Drawing upon a Bernsteinian informed analysis we illustrate how Janet attempted to use a range of pedagogical strategies toframethe selection, transmission and evaluation of academic skills. This process supported students to begin recognising the value of academic skills and assimilate these with the more established vocational skills within the FdSC qualification. The experiences of Janet are then used as a starting point from which to discuss how the possibilities of change to pedagogic relations within the FdSC may be encouraged, developed and enacted across the vocational sport-education sector. We suggest that institutions and stakeholders responsible for shaping higher education sport-qualifications should consider how lecturers are supported in the framing of pedagogical relations that enable academic skills and practices to be integrated and valued within FdSC curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This work chronicles strategies used to engage a low-income rural community in the development of a middle school service-learning curriculum. Through interviews, focus groups, meetings, and retreats, we engaged in a cycle of implementing the curriculum, soliciting feedback, and revising materials. The community's feedback led us to simplify the curriculum, make lessons user-friendly for teachers, and incorporate more engaging activities for students. The significance and implications of this approach are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a critical analysis of the implications of teacher performance evaluation processes, from the standpoint of multi-grade rural school teachers. Using a qualitative design, opinions were gathered from 56 teachers working in rural schools in eight regions of Chile. As a data collection technique, a semi-structured interview was used to explore what teachers think about the evaluation instruments contained in the National System for the Teaching Performance Evaluation ("Docentemas"). Although teachers accept the evaluation process, the results show they question the methodological relevance of the instruments being used because it is felt they are out of sync with the reality of education at multi-grade rural schools in Chile. In conclusion, the teacher evaluation processes currently being applied nationwide are not suitable for multi-grade rural schools, nor are they well regarded by teachers. Therefore, it is necessary to have processes that are appropriate for this school environment and for those who teach there. On the other hand, educational systems and their diverse expressions in schools must be flexible enough to adapt to the extremely diverse realities that constitute them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a recent, rapid de facto privatization of education in many African countries, as the number of private secondary schools operating in the region has grown. The majority of these schools are "low-cost" private schools where tuition and fees are set as low as possible to cover operating costs and still generate profit. Proponents of low-cost private schools argue that these schools have proliferated in impoverished areas to meet unmet demand for access to education and where private schools may offer better quality than locally available public schools. Theories of inequality of educational opportunity suggest that if private schools offer better-quality education, students from more advantaged families will be more likely to enroll at these institutions, potentially exacerbating educational inequality in the region. This analysis uses data from a school-based longitudinal survey, the Malawi Schooling and Adolescent Study, to examine socio-economic inequalities in the transition to secondary school and on-time enrollment in upper secondary. My findings indicate that youth from non-poor households are not only more likely to enroll in secondary school than poor youth, but they are also more likely to substitute enrollment in private schools for enrollment in second-tier government schools. Enrollment at private schools, however, does not yield schooling advantages; relative to both tiers of government secondary schooling, students who initially enrolled at private schools were the least likely to enroll on time in upper secondary school. These patterns suggest that these schooling circumstances may yield less segregation of opportunity than might otherwise be assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to document a research project that was carried out in a rural indigenous school in Yucatan. The purpose of this study was to analyze from a critical perspective the school experiences in an indigenous rural school and the contribution of these for the intercultural education of children. The role of the school has been questioned; if attending school makes a difference in their lives or contributes to maintaining the conditions they live. Ethnographic design was followed. It framed the data recollection in three different interaction arenas and its key players: One teacher, parents and children. Results show that education policies are neoliberal framed. It maintains and reproduces exclusion structures to indigenous rural populations. Education policies, economic and social forces pressure the life of educational key player's and impacts them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]