Social Theory and Practice

published on June 23, 2023

Children of the Broken Heartlands
Rural Isolation and the Geography of Opportunity

This paper argues that rural children’s prospects of achieving civic equality within the wider society are limited by the fact that the education they receive is not inclusive, that this is in some respects unjust, and that some partial remedies are available. The non-inclusiveness of rural education is characterized as a form of rural isolation, defined by physical and cultural distance from pathways of opportunity that are significant for civic equality, and by failures of mutually recognized mutual goodwill. Physical and cultural distance are identified as aspects of an evolving geography of opportunity, in which college graduates are highly favored and high-status opportunities are concentrated in cities.