The ambivalence of community: A critical analysis of rural education's oldest trope

Abstract

The concept of community has been central to the discourse of rural education for generations. At thesame time, community has been and continues to be a deeply problematic concept. I begin this analysiswith Raymond Williamss characterization of the idea of community as a uniquely positive concept,arguing that this framing is, as Williams pointed out, deeply problematic. This paper interrogates theidea of community and looks at the way it has been used historically in rural education as well assome of the ways that it is understood and used in educational, social science, policy, and governancediscourses today. In this analysis I draw on the foundational communitarian analysis of Americansocial thinkers Paul Theobald and Robert Putnam as well as on Williamss critical analysis of ruralityand community. I argue that effective rural educational policy today needs to problematize the ideaof community and develop it in ways that avoids playing into nostalgic and retrogressive notions ofthe rural. This argument is based on a conception of place that keeps in focus multiple and complexunderstandings of emerging postproductivist rural spaces.