Bigger or Better? Research-Based Reflections on the Cultural Deconstruction of Rural Schools in Norway: Metaperspectives

Abstract

The author identifies indicators of the pressure for deep changes in rural schools—from weight on place-conscious education to focus on tested pupil achievement in abstract school subjects—as potential research themes. Examples of such indicators are changed school structure, localization and scale; learning by acquisition or participation; educational quality or deficiency; schools as units of knowledge production; educational governance and governmentality; changed funding; migration, thinning out communities and child settlement. The context builds the larger Norwegian school reforms—silent closing of rural schools. This adds up to an overarching research theme: the cultural deconstruction of rural schools and communities as places. The author analyzes three projects covering 30 years of research on rural schools in Norway referring to metaknowledge of research themes, design, methods, concepts, and theories to trace how the footprint of cultural deconstruction of rural schools and communities, deconstructing knowledge and place, is visible in social science research as well.