New Perspectives in Science Education

Historically disparities between urban and rural academic achievement have been well documented in the literature. Research is, however, unclear on definitions of rural and urban.  Different definitions of what constitutes as a rural school have been previously used, these include: population size [4], geographical location, numbers of pupils and teaching staff, and in some cases the research only states that a rural area was used. These definitions are reduced down into a simplistic form, which generally fails to explain the context of the study, creating problems for generalisation of the results [5]. There have been calls for stronger research using clear statistical definitions of locales to improve the outcomes of research.

Rural areas and populations have long been associated with inferior opportunities, which include the provision of education. Evidence suggests that rural schools and their students are educationally at a disadvantage in comparison to their urban counterparts in terms of their academic achievement, particularly in science and mathematics subjects. However the sources for this inequality have long been disputed in the literature. These include individual student factors, and educational environment related factors. On an individual level, factors affecting rural students’ science and mathematics achievement have been found to be related to aspirations, as an example. Educational environment factors have been found to include teacher retention and shortages issues, particularly in specialist subject areas such as mathematics, science and technology. Furthermore for the educational environment a lack of access to resources has also been stated as an issue for rural attainment.

This research will aim to use a clear definition of rural and urban to examine differences between science and mathematics achievement in rural and urban Lincolnshire. Attainment inequality between the two areas will be investigated further through the study of influencing factors that affect science and mathematics attainment between the two locales.