Teachers and the emotional dimensions of class in resource‐affected rural Australia

Abstract

In recent years, a 'cultural turn' in the study of class has resulted in a rich body of work detailing the ways in which class advantage and disadvantage are emotionally inscribed and embodied in educational settings. To date, however, much of this literature has focused on the urban sphere. In order to address this gap in the literature, this paper focuses on the affective evaluations made by teachers employed in rural and remote Australian schools of students' families, bodies, expectations and practices. The central argument is that moral ascriptions of class by the teachers are powerfully shaped by dominant socio-cultural constructions of rurality that equate 'the rural' with agriculture.

Educational outcomes across the generational and gender divide: the rural family habitus of Pakistani families living in poverty

“…They emphasise the dynamic relationship between these factors in time and space, considering the rural context as 'actively constituted' rather than static or fixed. Importantly, Pini, Price, and McDonald (2010) also link 'socially constructed' notions of rurality to 'emotionally inscribed' notions of social class in their study of an Australian rural setting, thus relocating the study of rural identities in schooling into that of social class reproduction. The predominantly middle-class teachers in their study saw rural parents as 'pre-modern'; as attributing 'little value to or interest in education ' (27), and as considering farming as the only 'legitimately' rural occupation (27).…”

“…The relationship between rurality, gender and education is complex not least because it is often viewed through the lens of urban realities or through hegemonic gender discourses that privilege interpretations from the Global North (Arnot and Fennell 2008). Empirical research on gender and rurality, for example, is often focused on advanced economies such as New Zealand (Powell, Taylor, and Smith 2013), Australia (Pini, Price, and McDonald 2010) and Norway (Haugen and Lysgård 2006). From such perspectives, not only are rural families in the Global South seen as the most disadvantaged but, from a gender perspective, they are often portrayed as the most hidebound by oppressive patriarchal traditions (Kenway, Kraack, and Hickey Moodey 2006;Connell 2007).…”

Education and the global rural: Feminist perspectives

“…Other scholarship has revealed how cross-cutting hegemonic discourses of masculinity and rurality which privilege physicality, risk-taking, practical skills and a nonchalant attitude to schooling limit the educational progress and opportunities of young men (Alloway and Gilbert 2004;Kenway, Kraack, and Hickey-Moody 2006). While to date, fewer studies have considered rural femininities, the scholarship that has been undertaken has provided an insight into how, not only gender, but also class infuses mythologised ideas about the rural, so that working class girls in rural schools are subject to particular stigma (Pini, Price, and McDonald 2010;Cairns 2013, forthcoming).…”

Assets and Affect in the Study of Social Capital in Rural Communities

“…The next section explores the extent to which the distinctions between institutional, objectified, embodied, technical and emotional capital connect to the concept of social capital, rural class analysis and, at least potentially, issues highlighted in the emotional and affective turns impacting rural studies (e.g., Anderson and Smith ; Thien ; Clough and Haley ; Davidson, Bondi and Smith ; Pile ; Pini, et al . , ; Phillips ).…”