School Rurality: New Measure and Relationships With Family Socioeconomic Status, Parental Expectations, and Achievement

Abstract

In this study, a school rurality index was developed that considers a multivariate view of rurality. The estimated index was used to study the relationship between school rurality and school aggregated variables related to socioeconomic conditions, parental expectations and parental evaluations of the school. The results show that the index allows us to measure school rurality in a continuous manner with the combination of different variables related to rurality (agricultural activities, population density, etc.). This index was negatively correlated with school socioeconomic composition, school parental expectations composition and school academic achievement. On the other hand, school rurality is positively correlated with parents' evaluation of the schools. The results highlight the challenges and opportunities that rural schools face in their communities.