Education and the Global Rural: Feminist Perspectives

This edited collection challenges the urban-centric nature of much feminist work on gender and education. The context for the book is the radical reconfiguration of rural areas that has occurred in recent decades as a result of globalisation. From a range of diverse national contexts, including Kenya and South Africa, Australia and Canada, and the United States and Pakistan, authors explore the intersections between masculinity, femininity, and rurality in education. In recognition of the heterogeneity of categories such as ‘rural girl’ and ‘rural boy’ they attend to how educational exclusions can be magnified by differences in relation to social locations such as class, race, or sexuality. Similar critical insights are brought to bear as authors examine what it means to be a male or female teacher in rural environments. Contributors draw on data ranging from contemporary feature films to historical materials, along with detailed ethnographic work and participatory approaches, to produce a compelling narrative of the need to understand education as experienced by those who are not part of the urban majority. This book was originally published as a special issue of Gender and Education.

Barbara Pini is a Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. She has an extensive publication record in rural studies. Her work includes the co-edited titles Transforming Gender and Class in Rural Spaces (2010), Geographies of Sexualities and Ruralities (2012), and Feminisms and Ruralities (2014). More recently she has examined representations of rural youth in documentary and feature films, and in young adult fiction.

Relebohile Moletsane is Professor and John Langalibalele Dube Chair in Rural Education in the Faculty of Education, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. She has extensive experience in teaching and research in the areas of curriculum studies and gender and education, HIV and AIDS Education in diverse ‘cultural’ contexts, and girlhood studies in Southern African contexts. She is the co-editor (with Kathleen Pithouse and Claudia Mitchell) of Making Connections: Self-Study & Social Action (2009), and (with Claudia Mitchell and Ann Smith) Was it Something I Wore? Dress, Identity, and Materiality (2012).

Martin Mills is a Research Professor in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His research interests include social justice and education, alternative schooling, gender and education, school reform, and new pedagogies. He is President of the Australian Association for Research in Education and holds a Visiting Professorship at King’s College London, UK. His most recent book (co-authored with Glenda McGregor) is Re-engaging young people in education: learning from alternative schools (2014).