Exploring the Interplay of the ‘Rural’ and ‘Community’ in and for Teacher Education Research

This chapter explores the two concepts of ‘rural’ and ‘community’ to better understand how (if at all) rurality might interplay with and in turn shift the notion of community and vice versa in relation to education. Discussion centres on the impact and implications of this dialogic interplay in relation to teacher education. Both terms are often portrayed by the media as distinctively Australian with popular culture myths serving to feed idealistic, romantic views or views of the ‘other’ in the individual and collective psyche. The term ‘rural’ is as an example often viewed as a geographic term denoting a space and/or place that is beyond the metropolis and often defined as in-land. It is also a subjective term often dependent on one’s own lived experiences of places and spaces that ‘look or feel rural’. As an ‘imagined’ space, it can be viewed as either idealistic and romantic or barren and hellish. ‘Community’ is also a term that has been captured in the discursive turn to be often synonymous with ‘harmony’ or homogenous and collective efforts. Both terms risk being made redundant or meaningless within the teacher education field as they hold little substance and yet teacher education studies continually highlight and recommend the importance of engaging with and for a rural community. This chapter examines closely the terms, their meanings, and teases out further the implications for research in and for teacher education.