ABSTRACT
Much of the popular literature on the American experience since de Tocqueville has focused upon the possibilities for and issues surrounding social change, community life, and the hypothetical relationship between progress and the biographies of those who either spurred it onward or resisted its logic for over 200 years. One region of the country which has alternatively captured national attention as a different sort of place with a different sort of people during the past hundred years has been Appalachia. There have been and remain at least four sorts of explanations available for understanding Appalachia in the popular and academic literature. Academic discussions of rural schools and rural education this century typically take one of two forms. The dominant one has detailed and continues to detail the statistically assessed inadequacies of rural schools and rural school practices. Educational anthropologists interested in understanding the cultural significance of the school echo similar perspectives.
