Rural education and spatial struggles in a digitalised community

Bibliographic Data

ID7515021
AuthorsPeter Erlandson (0000-0003-0428-0233, Linnaeus University, corresponding author), Anne Kjellsdotter (0000-0003-1229-1987, Linnaeus University)
Year2026
Volume124
Pages104093
Publication date2026-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Rural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0743-0167 • E-ISSN: 1873-1392
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.jrurstud.2026.104093
OpenAlexW7133691252
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited40

This paper examines how rural education is shaped through the interaction of local traditions, demographic change, and global digital influences in a small rural community in Sweden. The study forms part of a larger project aimed at advancing rural studies by addressing persistent gaps in research on rural schooling. Using an ethnographic approach, it provides an in-depth analysis of everyday practices in a single school and its surrounding community. The theoretical framework draws on Doreen Massey's relational understanding of place, highlighting how rurality is produced through the convergence of multiple social and spatial trajectories rather than through fixed or bounded identities. The findings illuminate four interconnected areas of tension: conceptions of land, conceptions of education, engagements with digital spaces, and imagined futures. Together, these tensions show how teachers, families, and students navigate uneven spatial positioning within the rural municipality, while children assemble aspirations shaped simultaneously by local attachments and globally circulating digital cultures. The study contributes to rural education research by demonstrating how contemporary rural schooling is embedded in the relational and political production of place, generating both constraints and new possibilities for young people's futures. • Uneven power relations influence education, land use, and future imaginaries. • Rural schooling is shaped through contested spatial relations in contexts of rural change. • Place is produced through the intersection of local traditions and digital trajectories. • Digitalisation reshapes spatial horizons without dissolving rural attachments. • Aspirations emerge from relations between local place and global cultural flows

Convergence (economics · Ethnography · Politics · Rural area · Rural community · Rural history · Rural management · Rural sociology · Rurality · Education in Rural Contexts · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Rural development and sustainability

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access