International Rural Contexts: Youth Outmigration and Education

This article discusses the impact of youth outmigration on rural communities and the role of education in developing knowledge and awareness. It also explores the challenges faced by rural schools and education districts in the US and China. The article cites research studies to support its arguments.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL RURAL CONTEXTS
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The process of youth outmigration has been perceived as problematic for rural
communities for several reasons. The net decline of young adults belonging to rural or
nonmetropolitan areas has periodically received considerable degree of awareness in comparison
to older adults and the ones departing rural areas who have the propensity to gather greater
degree of knowledge and more proficient (Biddle & Azano, 2016). However, on the contrary the
segment of individuals who settle in metropolitan areas constitute the less educated and
proficient class with inadequate skills and competence (Petrin, Schafft & Meece, 2014). Thus,
local disadvantage tend to rise in agrarian societies not only because of the reduced rate of
economies but due to patterns of discerning outmigration which have essentially shaped the
demographic as well as socio-economic composition of local populations. However, these
processes often reveal the possibility to result in local ambivalence in terms to the role and
significance of value of education as developing knowledge and awareness has immense
integration to the process of youth outmigration (Biddle & Azano, 2016).
Certain observations on adolescence have significantly focused on the ways whereby
contexts of family and community transform the developmental trajectories of the youth
population along with increasing rate of social inequality (Petrin, Schafft & Meece, 2014).
Furthermore, few theorists have suggested the ways in which the schooling and education have
been regarded as mechanism of modernity that is further contend the agrarian communities
whereby education has perceived the distinctiveness of an assimilatory project performing the
missionary work of cultural education in the backward domain of the rural community (Biddle &
Azano, 2016). However, one of the essential roles of education in this sphere is to enhance the
developmental skills of the learners which further facilitate them to secure employment outside
the sphere of rural area and thus determines economically developed lives for themselves.

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Furthermore, it has been noted that affection towards their rural or agrarian societies and desire
to remain attached to their native roots result in lower degree of development in the education
specifically if those desires and aims belong to the young generation who significantly have the
adequate knowledge for higher education (Petrin, Schafft & Meece, 2014).
America in the 20th century had witnessed significant transitions in the areas of physical
landscape, economic system, migrations of populace and various approaches towards rural life
conditions. The shifting social situational contexts of the nation’s different and varying rural
communities have established new areas of avenues and challenges for rural schools as well as
education districts (Biddle & Azano, 2016). Several agrarian American societies encountered
declining rate of opportunities and challenges in terms of the rising fiscal constraints whereby
taxation rates have dissolved and the decline of state and federal budget posed consequences at
the local level. At this juncture, it is important to witness the way China had witnessed a
significant shift from decentralization in the early 2000s (Petrin, Schafft & Meece, 2014).
However, the issues related to the decentralized financing along with the negative impact of tax
reform on local fiscal rate comprehended the necessities of underdeveloped financial aid from
the central government if China determines the nine-year compulsory education by early phase
of 2000s (Zhao, 2009). This led the central government to initiate a number of projects in order
to refurbish a series decrepit school buildings in rural areas in order develop school infrastructure
in the western region.

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References
Biddle, C., & Azano, A. P. (2016). Constructing and Reconstructing the “Rural School Problem”
A Century of Rural Education Research. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 298-
325.
Petrin, R. A., Schafft, K. A., & Meece, J. L. (2014). Educational sorting and residential
aspirations among rural high school students: What are the contributions of schools and
educators to rural brain drain?. American Educational Research Journal, 51(2), 294-326.
Zhao, L. (2009). Between local community and central state: Financing basic education in
China. International Journal of Educational Development, 29(4), 366-373.