A Critical, Place-Based Approach to Summer Enrichment for Gifted Learners from Rural Communities

This study explored a place-based summer enrichment offering for gifted rural students through the lens of a critical pedagogy of place (Greenwood, 2003). To ameliorate well-documented opportunity gaps for rural students, we established a residential camp on our university's campus where middle school students engaged in STEM and humanities enrichment courses. Inductive analysis of students' culminating projects revealed two salient themes: (a) students thought critically about environmental and social issues specific to their rural communities, and (b) students expressed strong connections to place through artistic projects. This study suggests a need to honor rural students' funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) and sense of place when designing and implementing enrichment activities geared toward increasing equity for rural gifted students.