Exploring Rural Children’s Lived School Experiences
A Phenomenological Study
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22410554 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Şükran CALP (0000-0001-6297-9056, Düzce Üniversitesi, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 126 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 720-750 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Elementary School Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-5984 • E-ISSN: 1554-8279 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/740710 |
| OpenAlex | W7155032587 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
This study examines rural primary school students’ perceptions of school, offering a broad inquiry into how education is structured. By making rural children’s experiences visible, the research aims to contribute to more inclusive and context-sensitive educational policies. In addition, it seeks to provide a methodological contribution to participatory research with children by integrating visual and verbal data. Adopting a phenomenological qualitative design, the study collected data through children’s hand-drawn mind maps and in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that children’s conceptions of school are shaped not only by instructional processes but also by relational experiences, play and free time, digitalization, aspirations tied to urban life, physical spaces, and interactions with nature. These results underscore the multidimensional and experiential significance of school for rural children. The study concludes that rural students attribute layered meanings to school and that these meanings offer guiding principles for integrating children’s perspectives into pedagogical and structural reforms in education.
Agency (philosophy) · Lived experience · Perspective (graphical) · Qualitative research · Work (physics) · Early Childhood Education and Development · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Parental Involvement in Education
Children's Peer Cultures
Constructing Childhood
Qualitative Content Analysis in Practice
Constructing and Reconstructing the “Rural School Problem”
Measuring Student Relationships to School
Social Identity and the Development of Children's Group Attitudes
Elementary School Children's Reasoning About Social Class
Defining Rural
The Urban–Rural Education Divide
Geographic isolation and learning
Teacher Shortages and Turnover in Rural Schools in the US
Research with children
Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood
Research With Children
Between the village and the city
Waiting to be called’
Places of freedom or entrapment? Black adolescent girls’ school experiences
Growing-up in the countryside
Mapping the unsafe school journey
Defining an agenda for the geography of children
Rural Education As Rural Development
Chapter 3
Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age
The limits of children's voices
Research with children
Cultural Capital, Gender, and School Success
Classed Beginnings
The Same People in the Same Places'? Socio-Spatial Identities and Migration in Youth
| Highly cited | No |
|---|