Making Space for Interrogation of Place: An Argument for Spatial Equity in Education Research

The use of critical spatial perspectives in interrogating spatial inequities has proven essential to understanding rural students’, teachers’, and leaders’ experiences. In this qualitative study, we use spatial (in)justice to examine the socio-spatial challenges rural schools experience across different U.S. geographies. We then explore the spatialized local responses to educational problems through the leveraging of local strengths and partnerships, countering deficit perspectives of rural schools and communities. Disrupting bounds between rural and urban scholarship through a common critical framing of place can serve as a source of resistance to shared sources and outcomes of spatial injustice.