Community perspectives on rural education in a challenged space

Abstract

Knowledge from rural spaces, and especially from the Global South and Africa is underrepresented in the global knowledge base. Similarly, community-level, emic perspectives on education is lacking. This qualitative, constructivist study, with Gaventa’s power cube as theoretical lens, aimed to address these limitations by exploring the perspectives of community members on rural education in a South African school district. The secondary data analysis study purposively sampled verbatim transcriptions of structured, face-to-face interviews with community members (n = 39, men = 8, women = 31) involved in a three-year intervention research study in 10 primary schools. Themes evident following thematic analysis included community perspectives on the quality of rural education; the role of school leadership in rural education; the social context of students in rural spaces; and rural infrastructure negatively shaping education in rural communities. Findings indicate that, through the lens of power, community members perceive rural education in terms of (i) claimed spaces of power in the form of a supportive school climate and teacher commitment, (ii) the local place of power in rural education as local via leadership in schools and school communities, and (ii) the constraining hidden forms of power that inhibit rural education (limited infrastructure in school communities, teaching and learning materials, and socio-economic deprivation and associated social challenges). This study contributes to evidence on rural education from the underrepresented lens of beneficiaries of rural education, namely community members, and has value for egalitarian policy development in comparable low-and-middle-income countries.