Remote possibilities: Rural children's out of school activities and educational aspirations

In an attempt to better understand the influence of rural context on youth's life chances this study takes up the question of rural children's educational aspirations. The experience of rural life may, as some claim, serve to limit students' educational aspirations. Yet there are indications that rural communities simultaneously generate important social benefits that tend to be devalued by educators and researchers alike. Survey and time diary data from the 2002 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics were analyzed to explore this debate. Findings suggest that rural youth come of age in familial contexts of attachment to place, with rural families being more likely than nonrural families to have turned down a job to remain in their communities. Rural families are also less likely to plan a move elsewhere. Rural youth also spend more time than their nonrural peers participating in household chores and in the practice or performance of an art, providing evidence that rural children are at once functionally engaged with their families and with the accumulation of cultural capital. Finally, rural children in this study are as likely to aspire to a high school or an undergraduate education as are nonrural youth. The significant difference in aspirations between rural and nonrural children is in terms of postgraduate education: A larger percentage of nonrural than rural youth aspire to graduate studies. The findings here challenge assumptions that rural youth limit their educational aspirations because they suffer from uniquely rural handicaps. Instead, the data suggest that the rural experience is rewarding, enough so that rural youth seek to fit their educational aspirations to local job markets in a bid to remain in their communities as adults. In place of deficit models of rural youth's aspirations, more sociological perspectives might allow for the distinctive way in which rurality engenders attachment to place. Future research should sample rural families and children more adequately and include measures of children's own attachment to place. Additional studies might also take into account the influence of rural community type, neighborhood quality, and school factors on rural youth's educational aspirations.