Serving Gifted Students in Rural Settings

Education

PART I

The Rural Life

CHAPTER 1

National Context of Rural Schools

Zachary J. Richards and Tamra Stambaugh, Ph.D.

What Is Rural?

When presented with the term rural, one is likely to conjure clichéd images of idyllic landscapes, from rolling green hills and abundant pastures to winding roads and fenced in farmland. There is much more to the concept of ruralness than these rustic images provide. For one, Duncan (2012) discussed the implications for these communities when we move beyond such idealized fantasies. Not all rural spaces are the same, nor are these spaces created equal. Where some areas like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or the Rocky Mountain West benefit from the touristic and retirement allure that their natural beauty and resources generate, regions like the South, Midwest, and Appalachia do not find themselves in such a fortunate situation. In these circumstances, markets are not as strong and there do not exist such beneficial factors enticing others to spend their time and money in these communities (Duncan, 2012).

Also important to understanding the essence of rural communities is how their far-flung physical locations from urban centers situate them in a position where accessibility to many modern conveniences is hard-found. Difficulties in obtaining broadband connectivity, developing basic frameworks for services like water and sewage access, and meeting transportation needs complicate the rural landscape (Battelle for Kids, 2014). Instead of public transit services, everyone relies on cars and trucks for getting around. These remote communities lack the infrastructural necessities to support economic growth, and because of this shortcoming in commercial viability, the institutions that make up rural areas are much less diverse than their urban counterparts (Duncan, 2010).

Nailing down what rural means is no simple task. Should a community be labeled as rural based on its geographic location, or by the number of people living there? Do agricultural economies or the way land is used determine that a community is a rural one? When do urban areas end and rural ones begin? Federal agencies use more than two dozen definitions to characterize a community as rural depending on the issues at hand, emphasizing the multifaceted considerations needed to capture this complicated idea. Generally speaking, rural communities are defined as not urban. In addition to using purely jurisdictional boundaries to delineate the rural from the urban, examinations of settlement density and cities’ influence on labor, trade, and media also matter for drawing this line. Residents in rural areas are not as concentrated as those of their urban counterparts, and they do not find themselves within a reasonable commuting distance to urban cores for employment and other necessities. Population size also matters, although ascertaining an appropriate threshold for characterizing a community as rural is subject to ongoing debate. With technological developments in the 20th century organizing economic and social activities around cities and large towns, recalibrations were necessary to take suburban development into account. Where a rural population was once defined as those communities with less than 2,500 people in 1910, this definition is now more fluid. A rural characterization is applied to areas with populations between 2,500 and 50,000 people, depending on the situation (Cromartie & Bucholtz, 2008).

But these answers do not wholly capture the essence of rural communities. They are more than being outside the city limits. They are more than communities with fewer than 50,000 people. Rural communities are more than not urban. People are rural, too. Tight bonds are forged in these small environments that foster neighborliness and communal cooperation. With this it may seem paradoxical, but there is also a great deal of respect for independence and hard work (Howley, 2009). Such an irony speaks to the difficulties one encounters when trying to discuss the rural. Rural communities consist of individuals of differing values, belief systems, and characteristics. No two rural areas are the same, but there exist patterns—patterns we now discuss as the essence of rural.

The Essence of Rural

Although one rural community may differ drastically from the next, embedded in these rustic landscapes and the people who inhabit them are common themes that permit a discussion of a rural essence. A sense of place is especially strong where the individuals are tied to the lands in which they were born and raised. Home and personal histories are valued for the powerfully informative role they have on one’s self—past, present, and future. Concern for tradition is prominent as well, and requires reconciling a committal to the way things have always been done in the face of an always-advancing world that necessitates adjustments in response to developing technologies and emerging markets. Along with neighborliness and communal cooperation, it is no surprise that rural communities find ways to organize themselves in meaningful ways around nexuses like family and religion. Success is measured in ways ranging from assessments of self-worth, to recently developed standards of material possessions and financial gain. Although the term rural is difficult to encapsulate, considering these themes as they relate to the rural experience opens the door for a focused and relevant discussion of a rural essence.

Sense of Place

Consisting of pastures and farmlands, agriculture also makes up a big part of what it means to be rural, both for the place and its people. In his essay, A Native Hill, Berry (2002) discussed the role farming had on developing his character. Born during the Great Depression, Berry remarked on how working with his grandfather and father on their farm in a setting not yet affected by the developments of industrialized farming forged a bond more strongly held to the history of his home community than to his generation. Berry believes this strong sense of place tied to working the land was crucial in the development of his character (Berry, 2002). Recent developments, however, threaten such traditional ties to rural places where fewer than 2% of rural workers now work in agricultural occupations (Duncan, 2010).

Given the pull of sense of place and the emphasis on family and community for many rural individuals, the decision to move to an urban area for education or employment is a difficult one. The pull to return home is strong and the rural area is always likely to be referred to as home, regardless of how long the individual has been living elsewhere (Jones, 1994). The feeling rural people often exhibit toward their rustic homes speaks to the importance that ought to be placed on understanding a rural sense of place. When individuals bear a special connection to the land they inhabit, they perceive themselves embedded in that place and its history, all its dilemmas, and the possibilities inherent within it. Indeed, fostering such a perception proves promising for the benefit of rural communities.

Berry’s (2002) discussion of his home in Port Royal, KY, speaks to the profound effect a rural sense of place may have on individuals and the compelling mindset they may develop toward their rustic homes. He traced multiple generations of his family back through his community and recalled how although he achieved the (presumed) highest status within his literary career, for him, his home and its history were inseparable from him. In discussing his early years, he wrote, It entered my imagination, and gave its substance and tone to my mind. It fashioned in me possibilities and limits, desires and frustrations, that I do not expect to live to the end of (p. 4).

After leaving New York University to return to his old Kentucky home, Berry’s fears that he would be unfulfilled were wrong, and instead, he felt more alive and conscious of himself than before. Berry saw his home with not only with positive fervor, but a poignant scrutiny as well. Where he could occupy the role of outsider and critic while living in New York, as both a native and a citizen in Kentucky, Berry enjoyed no such immunity. In entwining himself with Port Royal and his predecessors, he became aware of how their treatment of the place narrowed its future, forcing him to be cognizant of how his actions would influence what of his community he will leave behind (Berry, 2002). A heightened sense of place, then, undoubtedly has great potential to impact rural communities for the better. When citizens see themselves as part of a communal tradition, they are obliged to have its best interests in mind and cultivate in that place a set of values, traditions, and opportunities in the best interests of all its people.

Value of Tradition

Another definitive feature of rural communities that helps to explain the static tendencies of rustic economies is a commitment to the way things have always been done. This tradition coincides with some rural communities being seen as back woods or not embracing change. In an age where adjustment is required to keep pace with advances in technology and global markets, the tradition of assuming the same occupation as one’s parents is not always a viable option (Duncan, 2010). Where government and policy do not lend themselves to moving beyond nostalgia, rural communities suffer in that a limited range of employment options, and a lack of a diversified local economy discourages individuals from seeking to live and work in rural communities (Huang et al., 2002). In these situations, the economies of rural communities remain stagnant.

With a lack of a foundation for economic growth also come challenges in attracting jobs to rural communities, thereby creating a situation where capital is unequally distributed to urban areas over rural ones. High-paying service jobs in finance, law, medicine, and technology are typically reserved for urban centers, where unskilled careers like work in factories are the norm for rural employment (Duncan, 1999). Also, recent economic restructuring of a declining goods-producing industry can be attributed to exacerbating the inequality between urban and rural communities. This situation also creates problems when rural individuals hold multiple jobs over their lifetimes, never develop a traditional career, and prevent them from forging beneficial professional connections (Howley, 2009).

Adhering to tradition may also have benefits for rural youth. Although they might fear openly identifying with their rural heritage because of the potential for negative stereotyping, second-generation Appalachian students are nevertheless more forward and direct in communication and open to hearing other values and worldviews. With a stronger orientation toward family, a dominant work ethic, and a practical approach to education, Appalachian students are positioned to success in community-oriented work at home (Helton, 2010). Complying with rural traditions, then, has the capacity to set rural youth up for success within their communities. Abandoning the country lifestyle and its accompanying tenets for the overbearing values of the metropolitan mainstream is not necessary to equip rural youth with the tools to sustain their communities.

Role of Family

Delving into the institutions of family and religion illuminate the ways in which rural youth organize themselves within their communities. From 2008 through 2018, the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire is conducting a study on education and job opportunity decisions of young people in rural Coös County in northern New Hampshire. The Coös Study, as it is known, seeks to understand trends of how rural youth approach realizing their life goals. Students’ findings from the first half of this study show the impact of family on rural aspirations and students’ perception of their rustic homes.

For rural youth, mentorships play an informative role in developing ambition where they instill in rural students the idea that they can realize their achievements with dedication and hard work. Where family members comprise 68% of these relationships for Coös County youth, a positive experience with relatives in professional spheres encourages students to have more faith in bringing their goals to fruition. Rural students’ understanding of their relatives’ professional lives also has the potential to place strain on familial relationships. The study found that when families face economic pressure, rural students are more likely develop negative opinions of their parents and siblings. But that is not to say that these feelings necessarily deter rural youth in Coös County from considering family as an important factor in deciding where to make their lives. Although 76% of study participants said leaving Coös County was important, 93% said that living close to family was meaningful as well. These findings speak to the tenuous threshold and conflicting priorities in which rural students largely find themselves (Staunton & Jaffee, 2014).

What can be done, then, to reconcile these conflicting interests? From their findings, the Carsey Institute recommends expanding educational opportunities and strengthening professional mentorship bonds to alleviate the difficulties rural students face in realizing their goals. They encourage teaching youth money management skills to reduce the anxiety rural students of poverty might face in light of their families’ financial strain. Lastly, they urge for programs that provide assistance for families with fiscal issues that develop problem solving, communication, and conflict resolution skills (Staunton & Jaffee, 2014). Where familial relationships constitute a key thread in the rural fabric, investing in rural families is not only an investment in rural students, but their communities as well.

Role of Religion

Church is the hub of many rural areas and is relied upon as a foundation for shaping the culture, beliefs, and traditions of several rural communities. The church is a place for families to gather and for a sense of community to be established. According to Jones (1994), a leading expert on rural Appalachia studies, social reformers criticize the idea of rural individuals holding to strong religious beliefs as it is viewed as impeding progress, although, as he explained, one cannot understand rural Appalachian families without understanding the importance of the church in their lives. Strong beliefs in God helped rural Appalachians make it through difficult times and find meaning and purpose. Even if rural individuals do not go to church, faith and a strong reliance on and trust in God is an integral part of many rural communities.

Dillon and Savage (2006) compared the religious beliefs and voting patterns of those from urban, suburban, and rural areas. The study divided rural areas into four regions: South, West, Midwest, and Northeast America. They found significant differences in belief systems among rural individuals in each locale, with the rural South being the most religious, followed by the rural Midwest, Northeast, and then the West. They also found that rural areas, in general, are more conservative in their voting patterns and religious beliefs than their nonrural counterparts, regardless of the region in which they live. As church is the foundation of many rural communities, it serves an integral role in rural culture and influence across the lifespan.

Commercialism and Definitions of Success

The definitions of success for urban and rural families differ. Berry’s experiences in early 20th-century rural America, previously discussed, speak to the traditional characteristics associated with rural communities, particularly those found in Appalachia. In 1994, Jones wrote of 10 beliefs that make up Appalachian values. These included principles of independence, self-reliance, and pride; community sociability; strong ties to family; personability; religion; modesty; love of place; patriotism; and senses of beauty and humor (Jones, 1994). These characteristics are valued above all else. As Jones (1994) explained, rural Appalachians are more concerned with who you are instead of what you do, what you have attained, or how much money you have.

Although these aspects once captured the social landscape of rural communities, recent materialistic ethics jeopardizes this beneficially collectivistic disposition. The philosopher, bell hooks, who grew up lower class and Black in rural Hopkinsville, KY, offered us a personal example of how rural individuals may be changing the priorities of their ancestors, leaving a wholesome, simple life for that of a consumer-dominated culture. She recalled how handmade quilts decorated her grandmother’s house and how her grandmother’s handpicked and hang-dried peppers in windowsills provided hooks with insight into her identity and ancestry as a Black agrarian, but her own house did not feature such cultural objects. Her mother did not adorn their homes with objects that reflected the people who lived there, but instead subscribed to satisfying material expectations: Imagine always striving for the newest television, the most luxurious furniture, and bearing the burden of a high price tag to satisfy these wants (hooks, 1995).

This obsession with the material is problematic for hooks, as it obscures the experiences of one’s people by recalibrating the measurement of worth in terms of possessions. Where the issues facing rural communities are already unpronounced, abandoning such traditions in favor of material possessions contributes to a lack of an identifiably rural aesthetic, metaphorically voiding rural communities of a readily recognizable culture. Instead, hooks (1995) urged for the cultivation of a cultural aesthetic, like that found in her grandmother’s house, that heightens awareness and understanding of one’s communal history and present status. This cultural expression of circumstance, for hooks, was an important step in bridging the gap between the haves and have-nots. To address the problems facing rural communities in light of this lack of a cultural atmosphere raises the question of who will take the initiative to vocalize rural issues, a question complicated by present orientations of educational institutions that will be discussed later.

Education, Success, and the Rural Essence

An overemphasis on commercialism is not the only way rural communities may be changing. The definitions of success are also called into question through an overemphasis on national policies related to schooling—many of which do not favor or consider rural schools. Recent developments in what it means to achieve academic success seem only to burden the prospects of righting the wrongs rural students, schools, and communities encounter. Later trends show that the United States’ education policies have reoriented schooling to be a tool for training students to be future employees of corporations so that the nation can be an effective competitor in the global economy. With this, any potential for education is thought of in terms of employment prospects (Howley, 2009).

Where such corporate concerns are devastating for rural communities is in how they discredit the traditional values associated with a rural way of life—like self-provisioning, neighborliness, and diverse farming—in favor of the cosmopolitan mainstream. This disposition has misinformed rural students, particularly those who strive to be academically successful, that the middle-class professional trajectory is the only successful way to live. Such commoditization of education has managed to find its way into the relationships between individuals in rural communities as well, where those who subscribe to the terms of corporate success are more compelled to act in line with global demands than local ones (Howley, 2009). Much like bell hooks’ own account of the differences between her grandmother’s and her own houses, when success is abstracted from the realities of one’s immediate environment, important aspects of one’s identity are prone to being lost. With this, rural communities are debilitated in their relationship with urban communities and the autocratic notions of success bound to corporate interests. Craig Howley (2009) was not exaggerating when he said, Rural places are relatively powerless in political, economic, and cultural terms (p. 540).

But these corporate priorities of education do not always coincide with the characteristic features of rural students, and where these differences clash, much work is to be done in making known the different fabric of the cloth from which rural students are cut. For one, qualitative studies conducted by observing Appalachian students in classroom settings saw more informal manners of communication and a lack of typically good writing skills. Although they usually were not college ready in terms of verbal or math ability, these rural students were nevertheless described as sincere and motivated in obtaining an education. Interestingly, this motivation coincides with the fact that many are working class and approached life as a struggle (Helton, 2010).

Even within the group of observed students, differences were found between first- and second-generation Appalachians. First-generation students were more committed to Appalachian customs and valued education as a privilege, believing that they would take what they learned back home and share their successes within their culture. Second-generation Appalachians, however, fit more into the effects of the aforementioned commoditization of education. These students had better literacy skills and were less bound to Appalachian customs. They avoided identifying too strongly with Appalachian culture as to avoid being negatively stereotyped. Second-generation Appalachians were described as more forward and direct, more inclined to pursue graduate or professional degrees, and more liberal and flexible in their values. Adding weight to arguments for obsessions of achieving corporate success away from one’s rural home, an observer remarked, It’s as if second generation Appalachian students grow up with a strong expectation for success, the motivation to do better than their parents have done, educationally and economically (Helton, 2010, p. 69).

In relation to their urban counterparts, Appalachian students were observed to be more reflective and take more time to digest what they learned. Many held part-time work in addition to their studies, likely as a result of the concern for the economic pressures that their families face. Because of this, many cut corners on completing assignments and showed more interest in practical application of material rather than theoretical concepts. Urban students were also observed as being more verbal, asking more questions in class, showing more initiative, and more prone to employing critical thinking to understand concepts than their rural peers (Helton, 2010).

The Relationship Between Poverty and Education in Rural Areas

Another factor to consider is the role of poverty in many rural areas. The socio-economic circumstances to be expressed for rural communities are not presently favorable. The more than 50 million adults and 12 million rural children face a greater likelihood of lower incomes, higher poverty rates, declining health outcomes, and lower educational attainment than those individuals hailing from suburban and urban regions (Battelle for Kids, 2014). Statistically speaking, 85.4% of rural adults have a high school diploma and 6.6% are unemployed; 46.6% of rural students are eligible for free or reduced school lunch, and 19.3% of rural students are eligible for Title I funds (Johnson et al., 2014).

It should be noted, however, that rural areas in certain regions feature more exaggerated challenges associated with impoverishment. Rural areas in states in Central Appalachia, the Southeast, and the Mid-South Delta have higher unemployment rates than others elsewhere, and states in these same regions feature lower median incomes as well (Johnson et al., 2014). Nonmetropolitan areas with the most severe persistence of child poverty rates are also regionalized, clustered in the Appalachian states of Kentucky and West Virginia and banded from east to west across the southern United States from Virginia and North Carolina to New Mexico and Arizona (Duncan, 2010).

Given the ties between education and job-preparedness, it is unsurprising that those communities facing the greatest struggles associated with poverty are also the ones with lower rates of adults with high school diplomas. This factor compounds itself where a lack of an educated adult population diminishes the capacity to support public schools in these rural localities (Johnson et al., 2014). Parents lacking an education perpetuate this educational shortcoming for future generations by approaching the subject of education beyond high school as impractical for their children (Helton, 1995; Reck & Reck, 1980; Wilson et al., 1997). They seek to direct their children toward staying in the community and taking general labor at home, and particularly for women, Appalachian families discourage the pursuit of education beyond high school (Wallace & Diekroger, 2000). Further complicating the educational situation in rural America is the lack of knowledge where parents who do indeed desire to have their children to seek higher education do not understand how these goals can be realized (Battelle for Kids, 2014).

Regarding the policy decisions that impact rural public schools, there is a wide host of intersecting factors that have bearing on student outcomes. Fiscal concerns like spending per pupil and for transportation, as well as concerns of obtaining funding from outside sources, strap rural schools for resources to use for serving students. Also at play are more abstract elements like expectations for and implications of achieving academic success and the often unacknowledged and particular characteristics of rural students themselves.

The rate at which rural schools spend money per pupil does not keep up with their urban and suburban counterparts. The national average expenditure for each student is $5,826, but states with very small rural districts, or those in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast spend upwards of twice this amount. Sixteen states, many of which are found in the same previously discussed impoverished regions in the South and Southwest, spend less than half as much as states like New York in those more privileged areas (Johnson et al., 2014).

The ratio at which school districts spend money on transporting students to instructing them also complicates the issues surrounding rural educational policy. Unavoidable issues of geographic isolation, cumbersome terrain, and dispersed residential zones require that some rural districts devote more funds to getting students to and from school. When money is spent on fueling buses and hiring drivers, it is necessarily diverted away from beneficial programs that benefit student learning. Rural districts find themselves spending an average of $11.71 for instructional purposes per dollar devoted to transportation costs. Although spending can vary even between areas with similar geographies, school size and area serve as better correlations to higher spending. When a single school system serves many people living in dispersed and isolated communities, this increases costs. Having many school districts serve small, isolated population clusters and large, sparsely populated geographic areas can sidestep decreases in instructional spending. Large schools and school districts also have been shown to be problematic for successful student outcomes, especially for impoverished and minority students. States in the Southeast, Appalachia, and neighboring areas in the Mid-Atlantic are prone to suffering from these size problems as a result of typical countywide districting and regional high schools (Johnson et al., 2014).

The ratio at which local and state governments contribute money to rural schools has resounding consequences where impoverished communities cannot make up the difference of underfunded districts. Many states leave expenses of transportation, capital investments, teacher pay supplements, and sometimes even benefits to the responsibility of local governments (Battelle for Kids, 2014). Where rural communities have low income, low property values, and low income taxes, they are at an obvious disadvantage in this respect (Williams, 2013). Exaggerating this problem is that states have begun funding schools less since the recession that hit in the late 2000s. Even in the 2013–2014 year, 34 states decreased their support to rural schools, with 13 states cutting funding by 10% or more (Leachman & Mai, 2013).

Federal funding disparities also disadvantage rural schools and students. Title I funds are allocated on considerations of high concentrations of poverty, which are determined either by a high number of poor students or a high percentage of poor students in a particular area. But with these considerations taken into account, the higher number typically has more sway. Due to the present Title I distribution formula, an overall wealthier suburban district with a higher headcount of poor students, for example, will usually receive greater funding from this federal program than rural communities with a higher percentage of students living in poverty (Strange, 2011).

Financial problems of rural education policy also carry over into the wages that can be paid to teachers. Rural educators earn on average 13.4% less than their urban and suburban counterparts, leaving rural schools with detrimental prospects of attracting highly qualified teachers of advanced subjects and STEM courses (Jimerson, 2005). Without the financial means to attract these desirable candidates or take advantage of professional development opportunities to better their own teacher’s practices, rural districts will continue to underserve their students, and the rural-urban achievement gap will continue to widen (Battelle for Kids, 2014).

As a result of their educational hardships, rural students also fall behind their urban and suburban peers in educational outcomes. Data gathered through the National Assessment of Educational Progress by the United States Department of Education compares the testing outcomes between regions within and across states. In the states where overall scores were the highest, rural students consistently performed more poorly on grade-level and subject area assessments than their nonrural peers. Additionally, when comparing performance across state lines, those states previously mentioned to suffer most from rural impoverishment—states in the Appalachian, Southeastern, and Southwestern United States—score lower than states in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and near the Great Lakes (Johnson et al., 2014). Clearly, then, if these assessments are to be trusted, a lack of funding has had a consistently adverse affect on the success rates of rural students.

Overcoming these funding disparities remains a difficult task for rural communities where such districts lack the people, resources, and experience to vie for federal funding in the form of grants against better funded, more seasoned districts. Instead of grant writers, rural districts often rely upon principals and superintendents for completing grant applications (Ayers, 2011). As a result of these unpromising prospects, some have argued that more provisions ought to be set aside for funding rural schools and communities, and more efforts initiated for equipping rural educational officials with the technical schools to be more competitive for future grants (Battelle for Kids, 2014).

Out-Migration and Brain Drain

Another consequence of a lack of investment in high-quality education in rural areas and investments in community development is the phenomenon of brain drain, also referred to as out-migration. This concept alludes to the values that have come to define rural communities in spite of traditional perceptions of neighborliness and hospitality typically associated with this population. Brain drain, which describes the mass exodus of young and educated individuals from their rural homes in favor of education and employment opportunities in urban communities, may be seen as a direct response to the economic problems facing rural regions. Brain drain has far-reaching implications. For one, it perpetuates the widening gap found between rural and urban incomes by luring college-educated youngsters away from their homes to work in the suburbs and metropolises (Artz, 2003). This causes concern for rural areas where population loss is feared to diminish the possibility of providing public services like police and fire departments, qualified teachers, and access to healthcare. On such a slippery slope, rural communities have the potential to be too small and their populations so underqualified that they can no longer sustain themselves (Huang et al., 2002).

The present situation in rural communities fails its gifted youth in their ability to realize their aspirations, but much remains to be done in terms of investing in terms of opportunities. Parents lacking an education perpetuate an underfunding of human capital that threatens to dissolve the potential future of rural communities. Investing in future generations to have a greater prevalence of professions in teaching, medicine, law, and the sciences benefits not only rural communities immediately, but in the future as well. A diversified economy is a more stable economy, and where mentor relationships have been shown to improve rural youth’s desire to remain in the communities, this diversification better provides the rural gifted with the opportunity to realize their aspirations at home. Being from close-knit communities, gifted rural youth would certainly benefit from solidifying their relationships to their fellow rural citizens. To sustain rural communities and ways of life, then, it is necessary to invest in those individuals who make up such places and provide for their future.

The Rural Gifted Student and Rural Essence

Now that we have considered the broad and complicated characteristics associated with what it means to be rural, implications of these characteristics for education, and the features that differentiate rural students from their nonrural peers, we may consider what all this has in store for gifted and talented students from rural areas. First, even knowing which students are gifted in rural environments proves to be a difficult task requiring unconventional methods of identification. Geography limits access for gifted students to enriching activities that have otherwise been proven to benefit this population. Economic problems plaguing rural communities have implications for gifted rural students as well, especially in terms of providing them with academic and professional resources to meet their needs. Expectations from families, schools, and future employers also have resounding consequences for developing these students’ identities.

Less than 8% of students identified as gifted and talented come from backgrounds of impoverishment, significantly below the statistics of students identified from the middle and upper classes. This unequal distribution is likely the result of measures like standardized testing, teacher recommendations, and grades, all of which more frequently screen out students of poverty because of the discrepancies found between these students’ lower quality of education and fewer academic opportunities. Although students of poverty might have great potential, they are unable to compete against the enriched backgrounds of their more fortunate counterparts. When circumstantial factors are left out of the equation of identifying gifted students, what is selected is not talent, but rather access to opportunities that allow gifted students the choice to further their education and to be prepared to do so (Slocumb & Payne, 2000).

Belief systems and geographic isolation serve as obstacles for rural students in gaining access to enriching activities. Rural parents are more likely to take their children to athletic events rather than to visit museums, zoos, aquariums, and libraries (Provasnik et al., 2007). Although a simple lack of access might serve as one explanation to this situation, the priorities of parents and communities are reflected in the attitudes of students as well, where despite being unsatisfied with the conditions of their rural schools and educational opportunities, they view their athletics departments as points of pride (Herzog and Pittman, 1995). Clearly, then, where gifted students can benefit from enriching academic activities, they have been told that sports are more important to their communities than their scholastic achievements.

In their study of beliefs and values of individuals from a rural county in the mid-South, Deggs and Miller (2011) noted contradictory opinions between the value of continued education and the rural identity. Families were in favor of higher education opportunities but also highly valued the rural quality of life, community identity, and loyalty—which are compromised when postsecondary educational opportunities are sought.

When rural communities do not have the infrastructure to support higher educational attainment, both the communities and the individuals suffer. When individuals from rural communities do leave, it is generally because of economic conditions more than a desire to leave (Petrin, Schafft, & Meece, 2012). Contrary to popular belief, the desire to remain in the rural area is true for many gifted students from rural communities as well (Howley, 2009). However, when rural communities do not have the jobs or support networks to keep gifted individuals in the local community, they are forced to leave if they want to follow their passion.

Quality of available education also has implications for rural gifted and talented students. Where it was previously discussed how rural school districts have difficulty attracting highly qualified teachers, this means less access to advanced materials and courses like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs in comparison to urban and suburban students. The lack of access to rigorous academics is also a result of the classroom dynamics at play in these communities. Concerning math courses, rural gifted students are subjected to repetitive, lower level basic skills instead of being presented with advanced materials (Howley et al., 2005).

These students described school as mundane and not as challenging in contrast to the perspectives of their urban and suburban peers (Gentry et al., 2001). Without the resources to challenge these students and make them more competitive with their advanced, nonrural peers, rural gifted students skate through school easily, unchallenged until the rude awakenings of a more rigorous college experience (Colangelo et al., 1999). To compensate for the lack of available academic challenges, rural gifted students might consider looking outside of the classroom, but in light of earlier considerations of the overall lack of professional employment in rural communities, content experts for some fields are in short supply (Provasnik et al., 2007).

This is truly problematic for prospects of talent development where studies have shown mentor relationships to be essential in this pursuit for rural gifted students, especially those from impoverished backgrounds (Payne, 1996). These relationships equip students with perspectives to better deal with issues of poverty, help them set appropriate goals for their futures, and allow them to recognize and develop desirable skills they see in someone they can emulate. These benefits are not reserved to the immediate student at hand, but families can learn what skills to cultivate in their children as well, and thereby become more involved in developing their talent (Montgomery, 2001; Olszewski-Kubulius, 2007; VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2007).

Where rural communities lack outlets for gifted students to explore their interests or understand their unique abilities, intensities, and passions, these students are likely to feel out of place and without similar peers who get them. For those rural gifted students who do succeed in achieving academic success in spite of feeling out of place, they are often encouraged to look beyond their home communities for professional success (Colangelo et al., 1999). Work still remains to be done in attracting rural gifted students to return in high numbers to their rural homes and impact their communities for the better in spite of the magnetic pull exerted on these students to flock to cities to satisfy normative goals of corporate success (Howley, 2009). As we have seen, however, rural students and their upbringings and values do not neatly coincide with those