rurality, institutional disadvantage, and achievement/attainment

Rurality, Institutional Disadvantage, andAchievement/Attainment*

Vincent J. RoscignoMartha L. CrowleyThe Ohio State University

Abstract Students living in rural areas of the United States exhibitlower levels of educational achievement and a higher likelihood ofdropping out of high school than do their nonrural counterparts. Inthis paper we extend the literature by offering a framework in which re-sources influencing achievement/attainment are viewed as embeddedin, and varying across, rural and nonrural places because of differencesin structures of local opportunity. We draw from the National Educa-tional Longitudinal Survey and the Common Core of Data, and employhierarchical linear and hierarchical logistic modeling techniques to testour ideas. Rural adolescents are disadvantaged in regard to those familyand school resources which are conducive to educational success. Theseresources translate into important educational investments at bothfamily and school levels, and explain rural deficits in both attainmentand standardized achievement. We discuss the implications of our find-ings for analyses of rural deprivation and inequality specifically, and foreducational processes and the spatial patterning of stratification ingeneral.

Students living in rural areas of the United States achieve at lowerlevels and drop out of high school at higher rates than do theirnonrural counterparts. Lower achievement, whether measured bystandardized math/reading performance or by SAT/ACT score,has been evident for nearly 30 years with very little change (Col-lege Entrance Examination Board 1995; U.S. Dept. of Education1992). A disproportionate share of the nation’s high schooldropouts likewise live in rural places; this pattern has been attrib-uted in part to family poverty and to a convergence between ruraland nonrural places in rates of divorce and nonmarital fertility(Lichter, Cornwell, and Eggebeen 1993; U.S. Dept. of Education1997).

In this paper we extend the literature by considering spatialvariation in achievement/attainment across rural and nonrural lo-cales. This focus is important for several reasons, most notably

Rural Sociology 66(2), 2001, pp. 268–292Copyright © 2001 by the Rural Sociological Society

* This paper was presented at the 1999 annual meetings of the American Socio-logical Association and the Rural Sociological Society, held in Chicago. The au-thors thank Linda Lobao, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, and the editor and anony-mous reviewers of Rural Sociology for helpful comments on earlier drafts of thispaper. Direct correspondence to: Vincent J. Roscigno, Department of Sociology,300 Bricker Hall, 190 N. Oval Mall, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH43210; [email protected].

that the literature has been limited in explaining how educationalprocesses and outcomes vary spatially. That is, the orientation ofthe research has tended to be nonspatial, particularly with respectto a rural, as opposed to an urban, focus (DeYoung 1987; Lichterand Eggebeen 1992). The general education literature, however,correctly points out two key institutional spheres, the family andthe school, that may have consequences for spatial variation in ed-ucational outcomes generally, and for rural achievement/attain-ment deficits in particular. Unfortunately, conceptualization andmodeling strategies typically are concerned with the effects of oneor the other of these spheres, rather than with both. This posesproblems for model specification and for interpretation of results(Hanushek 1996; Orfield 1994; Roscigno 1998).

We begin with an overview of research on family and school re-sources and its applicability to analyses of rural achievement/at-tainment patterns. Then, addressing the limitations in prior work,we offer an multitiered conceptualization in which rural achieve-ment and attainment deficits are viewed as a function of spatial re-source disparities and their consequences for influential invest-ments at family and school levels. We also explore a possibilityoverlooked in prior work: that the educational return to resourcesand investments will be depressed in rural areas. For analyses ofthese relations we draw from a nationally representative sample ofU.S. high school students, and employ hierarchical linear and lo-gistic modeling techniques.

Rural Opportunity and Family/School ResourcesInstitutional resource disadvantages at family and school levels re-flect rural labor market opportunity, and specifically rural areas’dependence on low-wage, labor-intensive work (e.g., agriculture,mining, timbering) and low-wage service-sector jobs. Such an eco-nomic structure has been shown elsewhere to have strong conse-quences for socioeconomic status, family structure, and resourcesavailable to schools (e.g., DeYoung 1987; Lichter 1989; Lobao 1990;Meyer and Lobao 1997; Roscigno 1999; Tomaskovic-Devey 1987).

Family socioeconomic status and children’s economic well-beingin particular are depressed in rural areas. This condition has onlyintensified over the previous three decades (Hoppe 1991; Lichterand Eggebeen 1992; O’Hare 1988; Tickamyer and Duncan 1990).The implications of such patterns for students’ performance havebeen demonstrated clearly in the education literature. Socioeco-nomic status of a student’s household, most often operationalizedas family income or parents’ education, is consistently influentialfor achievement and attainment (e.g., Alexander, Entwisle, andThompson 1987; Guo 1998; Mehan 1992; Teachman 1987). Pro-posed mechanisms include cognitive development early in the ed-

Rurality and Achievement — Roscigno and Crowley 269

ucational trajectory (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, and Duncan 1996;Guo 1998; Moore and Snyder 1991) as well as the parents’ abilityto invest in educational resources, hire tutors, use “proper” En-glish in the household, and interact or meet with their child’steachers (e.g., Lareau 1989; Teachman 1987).

Patterns of local labor market opportunity also shape familystructure, partially through family economic distress (McLaughlin,Gardner, and Lichter 1999; Meyer and Lobao 1997). Though ruralfamilies traditionally have been more intact in regard to parentalpresence, rural trends in family dissolution and nonmarital fertil-ity now mirror those of nonrural areas (Lichter and Eggebeen1992). The resulting family structural patterns influence educa-tional outcomes negatively through potential household turmoil(Hetherington, Cox, and Cox 1978; Sandefur, McLanahan, andWojtkiewicz 1992), limited resources (McLanahan and Sandefur1994; Thompson, Alexander, and Entwisle 1988; Zill 1996), or agender-unbalanced socialization environment (Hess and Camara1979). The number of siblings in the household influences edu-cational performance negatively, presumably because of the dilu-tion of parental attention, family resources, and educational su-pervision (Cicerelli 1978; Downey 1995; Powell and Steelman1990).

Rural schools will resemble rural families in their degree of re-sources. Just as rural labor markets affect family socioeconomicstatus and structure through the availability and quality of jobs(Garrett, Ng’andu, and Ferron 1994; Lichter 1989; Lobao 1990),they shape the availability of school resources through concentra-tion of poverty and the generation of educational revenuethrough local property tax (Roscigno 1995). Simply stated, less ed-ucational revenue will be available in rural locales because of de-pressed local property taxes, problems in generating additionalrevenue through corporate taxation, and an already high tax bur-den (DeYoung 1987; Reeder 1988). Diminished resources alsomay be a function of local concerns about the distribution of pub-lic funds. In the case of rural “brain drain”—that is, educatedpeople’s movement out of locales where labor market opportuni-ties have diminished—there is a disincentive for devoting re-sources to education (McGranahan 1991; McGranahan and Ghelfi1991; Swaim and Teixeira 1991). The logic is that the beneficiariesof such spending are not the rural places that provide the fund-ing, but the nonrural locales to which the educated segments ofrural populations move.

Limitations and Theoretical ExtensionA singular focus on families or on schools, rather than on both si-multaneously, is the most problematic feature of previous re-

270 Rural Sociology, Vol. 66, No. 2, June 2001

search, particularly when applied to deficits in rural achievementor attainment. The fault is due partially to a lack of inclusive datareporting on students’ families and schools. Specialization in thisresearch area certainly plays a role as well. As a consequence, find-ings derived from school analyses are inconclusive at best, indicat-ing “no effects” or “weak effects.” In contrast, families’ direct in-fluence on educational success will be overestimated when schoolattributes are not considered, because a portion of the family in-fluence is mediated through processes and concentration at theschool level (Roscigno 1998).

In addition to introducing a multitiered focus, we address ruraldeficits in educational outcomes specifically; this topic is largelymissing in the research literature (Lichter et al. 1993). In keepingwith rural labor market analyses, our most general theoretical ar-gument is that family and school, as distinct although often over-lapping institutional spheres, are embedded in and shaped byplaces; such places vary significantly in opportunity and conse-quently in resources. Taking this focus, we recognize both the spa-tial variability of local dynamics and the importance of thosedynamics in perpetuating or mitigating inequality through institu-tional channels.

It is not enough, however, to focus on institutional processesand their embedded nature: resources must be disentangled frominvestments. Empirically, the lumping together of institutional re-sources with investments obscures potentially influential effectsand mediating processes. Treating institutional investments asconceptually distinct, on the other hand, makes explicit the theo-retical assumptions about institutional decision making, its poten-tially rational character, and its constraint within the boundariesof both context and resource availability. The link between re-sources and institutional investments is certainly quite significantin asking why some students achieve at lower levels and drop outat a higher rate. With few exceptions, however, prior research hasdone little to disentangle institutional resources from the invest-ment of those resources.

Family educational investments will be constrained where de-pressed income and family disruption are more commonplace(Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell 1999; Teachman 1987). Re-search on achievement/attainment indeed indicates three poten-tially influential educational investments that parents can make,although few analyses explicitly conceptualize and model these asa function of family socioeconomic status and structure. First, par-ents can invest and transmit to their children cultural capital: thatis, “highbrow” European cultural attributes, typically highly re-garded in the classroom, that are conducive to higher achieve-ment/attainment (Bourdieu 1977; DiMaggio 1982; Lamont and


Lareau 1988). Educational sociologists typically operationalizesuch transmission as involvement in cultural practices such asvisiting museums and/or taking extracurricular classes in sub-jects such as dance, art, or music (e.g., Aschaffenburg and Maas1997; DeGraaf 1986; DiMaggio 1982; Ganzeboom, DeGraaf, andRobert 1990). Second, household educational items such asbooks, computers, and newspapers, also shaped by class back-ground and parental structure, likewise represent a parental in-vestment with important consequences for students’ orientationstoward school (e.g., Downey 1995; Mercy and Steelman 1982;Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell 1999; Teachman 1987). Finally,local opportunity and its more direct effect on labor market ex-periences may shape rural parents’ expectations regarding theirchildren’s educational performance and attainment (Kohn et al.1990). Figure 1 is a general conceptual diagram of the relationswe are discussing.

Like family investments, school investments will be partially afunction of resources determined by local structures of opportu-nity. Labor markets also will play a direct role in investment deci-sions because educators and school boards probably invest re-sources (e.g., student-teacher ratios and advanced placementclasses) in accordance with the perceived needs of the local popu-lation and the demands of local labor markets. Like parental ex-pectations, teachers’ expectations (as a potential investment madein a student population) are likely to be depressed in places withlimited labor market opportunity. In such a scenario, depressedexpectations are shaped not only by the context in which theteacher works (e.g., poorer locale, segregated school) but also by


Figure 1. Conceptual Model of Rurality, Family/School Institutional Embeddedness,and Consequences for Achievement/Attainment

the socioeconomic status of the students under evaluation. Al-though we suspect that most of the rural deficits in achievementand attainment are mediated by resource and investment dynam-ics at both family and school levels, we also leave open the possi-bility that rurality directly influences educational outcomes. Sucha direct effect would likely represent adolescents’ perceptions oflocal labor market opportunity and the extent to which educationis important for mobility where they live (Roscigno 1999).

DataTo address the ideas posed above, we draw from three waves ofthe National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) and theCommon Core of Data (CCD). NELS presents a large, nationallyrepresentative data set with student, parent, teacher, and principalcomponents. During the first wave, conducted in 1988, the Na-tional Center for Education Statistics drew random samples ofabout 25 grade 8 students in each of about 1,000 middle schools.These students then were traced in 1990 and 1992; follow-up re-sponse rates were high (see National Center for Education Statis-tics [NCES] 1992). The CCD, from which school/district data aredrawn, is the primary database concerning public elementary andsecondary education used by the National Center for EducationStatistics. From this source we draw important indicators regard-ing racial composition and educational spending. Because of therequired matching and the exclusion of private school studentsfrom the CCD, our analyses focus on patterns of achievement/at-tainment in the U.S. public school population.

To increase confidence regarding causal order, we take advan-tage of the longitudinal nature of the data by predicting achieve-ment/attainment at a time point later than family backgroundand school attributes. To avoid losing cases or artificially reducingvariation through general mean substitution, we used regressionimputation with random error components to replace missingitems for explanatory measures ( Jinn and Sedransk 1989). Defi-nitions, means, and standard deviations for achievement/attain-ment and key explanatory variables are reported in Table 1.

MeasurementRuralityWe measure rurality dichotomously, using information about thecommunity provided by the principal of the student’s school. Thismeasure is somewhat more subjective than the other indicatoravailable to us, which is based on census designation of rurality(see NCES 1992) and restricts the rural portion of our sample to



Table 1. Definitions and Means (Standard Deviations) for Achieve-ment/Attainment Outcomes and Explanatory Family and School

Measures

Definition Mean (SD)

Dependent variablesMath\reading achievement Composite score of 51.033 (10.108)

standardized achievementin reading and mathematics,drawn from test developedby ETS, and measured ingrade 10

Dropout status Student is a school-reported .057 (na)dropout, without return,by grade 12

FamilyResources

Income Logged family income, 10.300 (1.109)derived from ordinal scale,recoded to reflect dollarmidpoints.

Parental education Ordinal scale (1–7) of highest 3.257 (1.644)level of parental education.

Single parent Student lives with only one .162 (na)biological parent(1 = yes; 0 = both bio. parents).

Parent/stepparent Student lives with biological .113 (na)parent and stepparent(1 = yes; 0 = both bio. parents).

Siblings Number of siblings living in 2.211 (1.533)the student’s household.

InvestmentsHousehold educational items Number of educational 8.292 (1.937)

items in home, includingbooks, newspapers, encyclopedia,computer, place to study, etc.(scale 0–11; alpha = .8).

Cultural capital Extent to which student visits 2.727 (1.857)museums and takes classes inart, music, language, history,etc. outside school(scale 0–8; alpha = .7).

Parental expectations How far the parent expects 8.870 (2.503)the student to advanceeducationally (scale 1–12).

School characteristicsResources

% Receiving free lunch Percentage of the student 19.407 (20.855)population receivingfree\reduced-price lunch(school-reported).

% Nonwhite Percentage of the student 27.783 (30.186)population that is nonwhite(school-reported).

fewer students and schools.1 This more constrained measurementis appropriate insofar as it takes into account not only the school’sgeographic location but also the probable qualitative characterand makeup (i.e., family background) of the student population.Localities specifically described as “rural or farming,” includingnonfarming rural places, were coded 1; other localities werecoded 0.2 Approximately 20.6 percent of the students in our sam-ple live in a rural place; this percentage approximates national es-timates.

Principals’ responses also are likely to take into account adja-cency to metropolitan areas; this factor is important to analyses ofrural diversity, stratification, and labor market opportunity (Lobao1990; Massey 1984; McGranahan 1980). We also examined base-line models of achievement/attainment using a 10-point ordinalBeale index (see Butler 1990; Butler and Beale 1994) for cases inwhich NELS provided locality identifiers; we report these resultsin Appendix Table A1. Findings derived from the dichotomousprincipal measure, which we report in the text, are stronger. Al-


Table 1. Continued

Definition Mean (SD)

Per pupil expenditure ($1000) Yearly per pupil expenditure 4.870 (1.648)from federal, state, and localsources, in thousands ofdollars (district).

InvestmentsNumber of AP courses offered Total number of advanced 5.430 (6.141)

placement courses offeredat school (school-reported).

Student-teacher ratio Number of students/ 16.046 (4.783)number of full-time, accreditedteachers (school-reported).

Teachers’ expectations Whether the teacher expects .664 (.236)the student to eventually attendcollege (average of two teacherresponses 0–1), aggregated at theschool level.

1 The census-defined rural sample includes 5,589 students; the more restrictiveprincipal report yields a sample of 3,597. The two measures are correlated at .5.

2 One source of potential bias in our rurality indicator derives from the fact thatit measures where a student attends school rather than where he or she lives, al-though the two are correlated quite highly. If we assume that some rural adoles-cents go to school in more urban or suburban locales (are bussed into such lo-cales), but that very few urban or suburban adolescents attend rural schools, ourtests may be conservative. The actual gap in educational performance betweenrural and nonrural adolescents will be underestimated in our models becausesome rural adolescents may be attending nonrural schools.

though this may be a function of differences in sample sizes andpossible biases pertaining to missing data, it also suggests the pos-sibility of an important qualitative distinction between rural andnonrural that may be captured less adequately with a more con-tinuous measure of rurality.

Our decision to measure rurality dichotomously, although gov-erned in part by the desire not to lose cases, was also shaped byassumptions about variations in rural versus nonrural processes.This conceptual tension certainly is at the heart of debates be-tween more quantitative and more historically grounded, qualita-tive approaches to understanding rural areas. At the very least, re-searchers must weigh the importance of adjacency patterns (andvariation within rural places) relative to the possibility of substan-tive (processual) variations that are more straightforwardly di-chotomous (see Duncan 1996; Swaim and Teixeira 1991; Warner1999). Indeed, our results suggest that although much of theachievement/attainment process is invariant across place, therealso exist some processual distinctions between rural and nonrurallocales.

Achievement/Attainment OutcomesAchievement is measured by standardized mathematics and read-ing performance, derived from tests constructed by the Educa-tional Testing Service. We focus on tenth grade scores becausedropping out typically occurs after grade 10, and the loss ofdropouts from the grade 10 sample is not significant relative tothe grade 12 wave. Recent analyses (e.g., Roscigno 1998) revealsimilar family and school effects regardless of outcome; thereforewe use a composite score of math/reading achievement. Analysesof achievement include 16,903 students across 1,185 schools. At-tainment, derived from the third wave of NELS, is measured bystudents’ dropout status. Dropouts are those students whodropped out by grade 12 and never returned to school. Approxi-mately 5.7 percent of our sample is composed of dropouts; thesample size for analyses of dropout status is 17,345 students in1,288 schools.

Family Resource and Investment MeasuresWe measure family resources with standard measures of SES andfamily structure. We offer two indicators of family SES: family in-come and parental education. Family income falls into a 15-cate-gory ordinal scale ranging from 1 (none) to 15 ($200,000 ormore), recoded to reflect midpoints. We use the natural log vari-ant because of its skewed distribution. Parental education is an or-dinal scale (1–7) indicating the highest level of education at-tained. Family structure is measured with two binomial measures:


single parent and parent/stepparent, and number of siblings inthe household.

Educational investment at the family level is operationalized byhousehold educational items, cultural capital, and parental ex-pectations. “Household educational items” reflects the number ofitems in a student’s household conducive to learning, and is de-tailed in Table 1. Cultural capital is also measured ordinally, andreflects whether the student has participated in cultural trips (vis-iting museums) and cultural classes (art, music, dance, language).“Parental expectations” indicates how far the parent expects thechild to advance educationally.

School Resource and Investment MeasuresOur measurements of school class composition and racial compo-sition are consistent with past and current research (e.g., Colemanet al. 1966; Roscigno 1998). These compositional measures (prox-ies for school resources) are supplemented with an indicator ofeducational spending, measured as the current level of spendingper pupil from all sources: federal, state, and local.

Spatial variation across rural and nonrural places in class/racecomposition and in spending per pupil are likely to translate intodifferential school investments. Therefore, we include three ofperhaps the most important investments that schools can makewith implications for achievement/attainment: smaller classes, abroader, more challenging curriculum, and high expectations byteachers. Class size is captured by the number of students in theschool, divided by the number of full-time, accredited teachers(e.g., Bidwell and Kasarda 1975; Fitzpatrick and Yoels 1992). Theeffects of student/teacher ratio might be attenuated somewhat bylower spending and its consequences for the ability to hire newteachers and/or attract them to rural locales. The availability ofadvanced placement classes is our second investment measure,capturing the character of the curriculum and its potential effectson students’ performance. Finally, teachers’ expectations reflectan aggregated average of teachers’ responses to whether theythink students in the school eventually will attend college.

ControlsAchievement and attainment models control for students’ raceand gender. These controls are important because they capturepotential variation in family processes and investments, race- andgender-specific micro political processes and biases that may be atwork in the classroom, and differences in spatial concentration,particularly in the case of race. Along with these more commoncontrols, we include an indicator of whether the student hasmoved in the past four years. Although this selectivity control is


not ideal, it provides some assurance that the main effects we findare not biased by movement in and out of rural areas. This con-trol also is likely to capture potential disruption and the breakingof social capital ties for a student; both tend to have negative con-sequences for achievement/attainment (Ingersoll, Scamman, andEckerling 1989; Reynolds 1991).

Analytic Strategy and ResultsBecause of the argument that rural deficits in achievement and at-tainment are a function of family or school resources and invest-ments, multilevel analysis techniques are necessary. We use hierar-chical linear and hierarchical logistic modeling (see Bryk andRaudenbush 1992; Garner and Raudenbush 1991) to estimate ef-fects on general achievement/attainment and the rural deficits wefind, because OLS techniques may produce biased slopes andstandard errors due to correlated errors and group-specific errorvariances (DiPrete and Forristal 1994; Kaufman 1995). Because weare interested in spatial patterns, we focus on the variation in av-erage achievement and in the average likelihood of dropping outacross schools. The percentage of spatial variation explained is es-timated for each equation; these statistics are reported in the lastlines of each table, 3 through 6.3

We begin our analyses by examining rural versus nonrural dis-parities in family/school resources and investments. We examinefamily resource disparities using standard mean comparisons andt-tests. For family investments, we employ hierarchical linear mod-eling. For school investments, we use aggregate OLS analyses. Thefirst equation of each investment model introduces a dummy in-dicator for rural locale, thus capturing the average difference be-tween rural and nonrural places. The second equation adds insti-tutional resources. Declines in coefficient magnitude for our ruralvariable reflect the degree to which deficits in educational invest-ment are a function of spatial variations in available resources.

In the second portion of our analyses, we focus on the conse-quences of these inequalities for achievement and for the likeli-hood of dropping out of high school. First we report rural deficitsin these educational outcomes. Then we introduce family andschool resources simultaneously in Eq. (2). This modeling strategyaddresses the need for multilevel analyses, mentioned earlier, aswell as concerns related to spurious school effect findings and in-


3 Because we are interested here primarily in potentially mediating relationsacross levels of influence, rather than in conditional or interactive effects, all re-gression coefficients except the intercept have been “fixed,” or constrained to beconstant. To aid in the interpretation of family and school-level effects, we havecentered all explanatory variables around their means.

adequate model specification (Hanushek 1996). Declines in ruralcoefficients with the introduction of family and school resourcesallow us to determine the extent to which deficits are a functionof resource inequalities highlighted in our prior analyses. In linewith our theoretical modeling and causal logic, family and schoolinvestments then are introduced in Eq. (3). Finally, we disaggre-gate these findings by rural and nonrural context to discernwhether the educational returns to resources and investmentsthemselves vary across place. Indeed, the effect of resources andinvestments on achievement/attainment in rural locales may besomewhat attenuated by the local context and/or the multi-insti-tutional disadvantages about which we have been speaking.

Rural Institutional Resource Disadvantage: Implications forEducational InvestmentsTable 2 reports means comparisons of family and school resourcesacross rural and nonrural places. In accordance with expectations,rural families lag significantly behind nonrural families in income.The income gap (approximately $8,000) is clearly significant, as isthe gap in parental education. Trend data suggest a convergencebetween rural and nonrural places in family structural patterns;this is evident in Table 2. Rural adolescents are less likely to live insingle-parent families and are more likely to have siblings, al-though these differences are quite small.

Disparities in school resources, captured by class/race composi-tional measures and by spending per pupil, are obvious. Rural stu-dents are much more likely to attend schools with poor studentpopulations but are less likely to attend schools with high concen-trations of minorities. We expect that these patterns vary signifi-cantly by regional racial composition and history. In Appalachia


Table 2. Means (Standard Deviations) for Family and School Re-sources Across Rural and Nonrural Locales

Rural Mean (SD) Nonrural Mean (SD)

Family resourcesIncome 10.053 (1.076) 10.364 (1.108)Parental education 2.737 (1.427) 3.391 (1.670)Single parent .144 (na) .167 (na)Parent/stepparent .124 (na) .111 (na)Siblings 2.324 (1.588) 2.181 (1.517)

School resources% receiving free lunch 27.233 (22.727) 17.818 (20.601)% nonwhite 16.924 (26.340) 33.864 (31.871)Per pupil expenditure ($1000) 4.404 (1.360) 5.144 (1.580)

Note: All rural/nonrural differences shown are statistically significant under .01except parent/stepparent families.


Tab

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and certain portions of the Midwest, for instance, one is likely tofind a high concentration of poor white students; in other regions(e.g., the black-belt South) the simultaneous concentration ofnonwhite and poor students is more commonplace. The disparityin per-pupil expenditure is noteworthy: students living in rural lo-cales receive approximately $700 a year less in educational expen-diture than do their nonrural counterparts. This difference ismost likely a function of depressed property taxes in rural locali-ties and difficulties in generating additional revenue through cor-porate taxation or school bond votes.

In sum, the most problematic feature of institutional resource dis-advantage stems from disparities in income and parental educationat the family level, and from social class composition and monetaryexpenditure at the school level. We suspect that these disparities areimportant for achievement and attainment, in part because theyshape meaningful investments at both family and school levels. Wenow turn to analyses of family and school investments.

Eq. (1) of Table 3 reports the average rural/nonrural gap inhousehold educational items, cultural capital, and parental ex-pectations across our sample. Rural deficits in these family educa-tional investments are strong and statistically significant (p < .001).On average, rural families’ unit disadvantages are respectively .47,.69, and .90 in household educational items, cultural capital, andparental expectations, relative to nonrural families.

Eq. (2) of this table highlights the extent to which these dispar-ities in educational investments are a function of the family re-source inequalities examined above. The rural coefficient declinessignificantly, once family resources are introduced: the rural gapin educational items decreases by .29, the gap in cultural capitalby .27, and the deficit in parental expectations by .33. These find-ings suggest that approximately 61, 39, and 37 percent of the ruraldeficits in these respective investments are a function of inequali-ties in family resources. The findings are consistent with those fewanalyses which explicitly tie family-level decisions about educa-tional investment to the availability of family resources (e.g.,Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell 1999; Teachman 1987), but ex-pand upon them by specifying the spatially varying nature of thesefamily processes.

The effects of family resources, most notably income, parentaleducation, and number of siblings, are strong and generally con-sistent with what one would expect. Parental income and educa-tion have a strong positive effect on all three investment out-comes. The influence of nontraditional parental structure isstrong and negative for educational items, but weak or nonsignifi-cant for cultural capital and parental expectations. Number of sib-lings seems to dilute all three forms of family educational invest-



Tab

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ments. Approximately 72, 71, and 60 percent of the general spa-tial variation in household educational items, cultural capital, andparental expectations are explained in these models.

Table 4 reports similar analyses of school investments, and ofrural/nonrural gaps, as a function of school resources. In general,student/teacher ratios are lower in rural schools than in nonruralschools (p < .001). As noted previously, this is most likely a func-tion of lower population densities in rural areas rather than of aresource-rich environment. This interpretation is partially sup-ported by the fact that rural schools are much less likely to offeradvanced placement classes and to register high expectations byteachers (p < .001). In addition, the educational benefit of smallerstudent/teacher ratios in rural schools may be reduced by teach-ers who have lesser credentials and less specialized training(Swaim and Teixeira 1991).

School resources are added to the modeling in Eq. (2) of Table4. The fact that the rural advantage in student/teacher ratio in-creases with the addition of school resources suggests to us thatthe potential advantage of smaller classes in rural areas is partiallyattenuated by lower resources. As we argued above, depressed re-sources are likely to result in increased class sizes because of diffi-culties associated with attracting and hiring new teachers. In keep-ing with expectations, the rural disadvantage in availability ofadvanced placement classes diminishes by .11 (or 22 percent) withthe addition of school resource indicators, while the disadvantagepertaining to teachers’ high expectations declines by .06 (or 38percent).

Directions of effects are generally consistent with expectations.Educational expenditure decreases student/teacher ratios; it in-creases the availability of a more diverse, more rigorous curricu-lum and the likelihood of high teachers’ expectations. The classcomposition of the school does not influence class size, but it hasstrong, negative implications for the availability of advanced place-ment classes and for high expectations. Racial composition is re-lated to higher student/teacher ratios; this pattern is most likely afunction of nonwhites’ concentration in the high-density urbancenters of the Northeast and North Central regions (see Masseyand Denton 1993). Although we are somewhat surprised by themoderate but significant positive effects of nonwhite concentra-tion on the availability of advanced placement classes and onteachers’ expectations, we suspect that they may be due to someaspect of either regional or urban racial concentration not ade-quately accounted for in our models.

Findings presented in Tables 2, 3, and 4 largely support ourcontention that institutional resources and the investment ofthose resources at both family and school levels vary significantly


between rural and nonrural places. Family income and parentaleducation are depressed in rural locales, while the number of sib-lings is higher. Rural schools are characterized by parallel re-source disadvantages, specifically higher concentrations of poorstudents and lower educational expenditure. Resource disparitiesat both levels translate into inequalities in potentially influentialinvestments, most notably household educational items, culturalcapital, the availability of advanced placement classes, and par-ents’ and teachers’ expectations.

Do the institutional resource inequalities uncovered thus farand their respective associations with educational investmentshelp us explain deficits in rural achievement/attainment? And arethe returns to resources and investments the same across places,or do they vary by rural and nonrural setting?

Rural Achievement/Attainment DeficitsTables 5 and 6 report hierarchical linear and hierarchical logisticmodeling estimates of math/reading achievement and studentdropout status on rurality, family/school resources and invest-ments, and selected controls. Average math/reading achievementis approximately 2.53 standardized points lower in rural localities(p < .001). The average likelihood of dropping out of high schoolis .14 log-odds, or approximately 15 percent higher, in rural places(p < .05). Notable among controls are the strong negative effectsof nonwhite racial status (except Asian) on both outcomes andthe detrimental effect of moving. The effects of rurality, reportedhere, are stronger than those obtained when an interval-levelmeasure of rurality is used (see Appendix Table A1). In the caseof the Beale index of rurality, effects on achievement are parallel,although weaker; we find no clear or statistically significant impacton the likelihood of dropping out.

Eq. (2) introduces family and school resources. Declines in therural coefficient are noteworthy: the achievement gap declines by1.68 points, or 66 percent, and decreases in statistical significance.The higher average likelihood of dropping out is explained com-pletely by resource disparities at family and school levels, and thedirection actually reverses. Resource effects also are in the direc-tions one would expect, and outcomes are quite consistent.

Family SES, captured by income and parental education mea-sures, exerts a strong positive influence on achievement across oursample and decreases the likelihood of dropping out. The influ-ence of family structure (except for the influence of parent/step-parent on achievement) is also strong and consistent. Nontradi-tional structural forms and number of siblings exert a negativeinfluence on achievement and increase the likelihood of drop-ping out.


Notable are the persistent and strong effects of school re-sources, even after accounting for those at the family level. Theconcentration of poor and nonwhite students depresses achieve-ment and magnifies the likelihood of dropping out. The influ-ence of monetary expenditure is significant and in the expected


Table 5. Hierarchical Linear Modeling Estimates of Students’Achievement and Rural Deficits on Family/School Resources, In-

vestments, and Select Controls, 1990

Math/Reading Achievement

(1) (2) (3)

Rural –2.526(.373)*** –.847(.313)** .220(.253)Family

ResourcesIncome .801(.072)*** .299(.070)***Parental education 1.156(.047)*** .599(.047)***Single parent –.550(.204)** –.549(.194)**Parent/stepparent –.308(.228) –.159(.216)Siblings –.343(.046)*** –.202(.043)***

InvestmentsHousehold educational .097(.038)**

itemsCultural capital .301(.039)***Parental expectations 1.079(.028)***

SchoolResources

% receiving free lunch –.054(.007)*** –.012(.006)*% nonwhite –.021(.005)*** –.027(.004)***Per pupil expenditure .321(.074)*** .050(.063)($1000)

InvestmentsStudent-teacher ratio –.093(.020)***Number of AP courses .028(.016)*offered

Teachers’ expectations 9.640(.540)***Controls

RaceAsian 1.772(.323)*** 1.634(.315)*** .863(.297)**African American –6.220(.284)*** –4.311(.287)*** –4.579(.266)***Hispanic –4.709(.269)*** –2.444(.271)*** –2.589(.253)***Native American –6.267(.770)*** –4.813(.748)*** –4.805(.704)***

Sex (1 = female) .824(.145)*** .981(.141)*** .593(.134)***Moved within previous –1.150(.193)*** –.816(.188)*** –.848(.178)***

4 yearsIntercept 51.144 51.045 51.101Between-place variation

Variance component 17.090 8.424 4.007% Explained 50.708 76.554

Note: Metric coefficients (standard errors).* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (one-tailed tests).

directions. As noted previously, students living in rural areas aredisadvantaged on many of the influential family and school re-source dimensions noted here. Thus it is not surprising that themodels explain a substantial portion of the rural/nonrural gap,and much of the more general spatial variation in these outcomes(reported in the last lines of the Tables 5 and 6).

Earlier we argued that resources probably affect achieve-ment/attainment partially through investments made by families


Table 6. Hierarchical Logistic Modeling Estimates of Students’Dropout Status and Rural Completion Deficits on Family/School

Resources, Investments, and Select Controls, 1992

Dropout Status

(1) (2) (3)

Rural .144(.087)* –.165(.094)* –.383(.095)***Family

ResourcesIncome –.111(.026)*** –.042(.030)Parental education –.241(.025)*** –.115(.027)***Single parent .433(.087)*** .413(.090)***Parent/stepparent .401(.097)*** .381(.099)***Siblings .130(.019)*** .110(.020)***

InvestmentsHousehold educational items –.044(.018)**Cultural capital –.045(.022)*Parental expectations –.143(.012)***

SchoolResources

% receiving free lunch .006(.002)*** –.001(.002)% nonwhite .004(.002)** .006(.002)***Per pupil expenditure ($1000) –.124(.027)*** –.063(.027)*

InvestmentsStudent-teacher ratio –.001(.008)Number of AP courses offered .002(.006)Teachers’ expectations –2.517(.210)***

ControlsRace

Asian –.272(.131)* –.272(.149)* –.094(.163)**African American .553(.100)*** –.007(.119) –.019(.121)Hispanic .759(.086)*** .147(.110) .179(.112)Native American 1.010(.237)*** .648(.251)** .609(.279)*

Sex (1 = female) –.005(.060) –.057(.063) .012(.066)Moved within previous 4 years .333(.080)*** .227(.085)** .252(.088)**

Intercept –2.867 –3.064 –3.278Between-place variation

Variance component, .427 .273 .167% Explained 36.066 60.890

Note: Log-odd coefficients (standard errors).* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (one-tailed tests).

and schools. In Tables 3 and 4 we detailed the causal associationsbetween resources and investments; now we follow our causallogic by introducing family/school investments in Eq. (3) of Ta-bles 5 and 6. The rural achievement deficit declines further, to thepoint of nonsignificance, when family/school investments areadded. For dropout status, the rural coefficient remains negativeand actually grows larger; this finding suggests that once we con-trol for influential family/school resources and investments, ruralstudents are much less likely to drop out of high school, on aver-age, than their nonrural counterparts (p < .001).

In line with expectations and causal associations detailed in ear-lier tables, it appears that a portion of the family resource effects,most notably those for income and parental education, is medi-ated through household investments in educational items, culturalcapital, and expectations (compare Eqs. (2) and (3)). All threeforms of investment have strong consequences for achieve-ment/attainment. School investments matter as well for achieve-ment, although their impact on attainment is less clear. The oneexception is teachers’ high expectations, which reduce the likeli-hood of dropping out. Number of advanced placement courses of-fered, lower student/teacher ratios, and teachers’ high expecta-tions each result in higher average levels of achievement; theseinvestments mediate some of the influence of class compositionand almost the entire influence of monetary expenditure. Similarmediation appears to occur in the case of dropout status. Thecombined institutional resource/investment model explainsnearly the entire rural deficit in achievement and attainment, andapproximately 77 and 61 percent of the more general spatial vari-ation in these respective outcomes.

In Table 7 we disaggregate these final equations by rural andnonrural subsample. This step helps us assess whether theprocesses described are parallel, or whether the educational re-turn to resources and investments varies by context. We denotestatistically significant interactions (that is, true differences acrossrural and nonrural samples) with the superscript a in our table.Although most of the processes described previously are constantacross the rural and the nonrural cases, others are distinct. Thefemale advantage in achievement is accentuated in rural places;possibly this suggests differential family/school investment in boysand girls across context. Parental expectations have a positive ef-fect for all students, but the actual achievement and attainmentreturns to these expectations are somewhat less in rural locales.Investments at the school level similarly bring less payoff for ruraladolescents, at least with regard to standardized achievement. Thebenefits of smaller student/teacher ratios and advanced place-ment classes are not apparent in rural places. Although teachers’


288 Rural Sociology, Vol. 66, No. 2, June 2001T

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expectations are influential, they are less important. We suspectthat these lower returns are partially a function of depressed locallabor market opportunity and the multilevel nature of the disad-vantages we have described; we elaborate on this point in our con-clusion.

ConclusionRural adolescents exhibit lower academic achievement and ahigher rate of dropping out of high school than do their nonruralcounterparts. In this paper we extend the literature and addressthese often-overlooked spatial disparities by integrating the foci ofrural research and of the sociology of education. In particular, weargue, researchers must acknowledge that institutional resourceinequalities are embedded in local structures of opportunity; mustconsider both family and school institutional spheres in relationto rural educational deficits; and must disentangle institutional re-sources from investments.

In line with expectations, rural and nonrural places differ sig-nificantly in institutional resources at both the family and theschool level. Specifically, rural areas of the United States are char-acterized by depressed family income and parental education, andby more children per household. Rural schools are characterizedby lower expenditure per pupil and a greater concentration ofpoor students. Resource disparities at both institutional levels ex-plain the rural deficit in attainment and nearly the entire rural/nonrural gap in achievement. Although some of the resource ef-fects are direct, a portion of these effects operates through invest-ments that families and schools make (or are constrained frommaking, in the case of depressed resources).

Although resource and investment inequalities influence ruraldeficits in educational outcomes, some of the educational returnsto family and school investments are themselves depressed inrural places. We suspect that these lower returns are partially afunction of local labor market opportunity, specifically the lowerreturn to human capital attributes (including educational creden-tials) in rural areas. In this scenario, broader structures of oppor-tunity (or lack thereof) may result in detachment from educationand in decreased effort, despite family and school investments (see,for instance, Roscigno 1999; Swaim and Teixeira 1991). Equally im-portant, returns to investments themselves may be diminished bythe multilevel quality of the disadvantages we have described. Inthis situation, investments made by parents may be offset by de-pressed resources and investments at the school level. Conversely,enhanced educational resources and investments will have limitedeffectiveness in rural places because the students must deal withsignificant resource and investment disparities at home.


By recognizing the embedded nature of families and schools,and the consequences for resource and investment disparitiesacross place, we obtain a more dynamic and more fluid picturethan by relying on overindividualistic or overdetermined frame-works pertaining to educational opportunity, processes, and out-comes. Such views are limited and should be supplemented withan understanding that the dynamics of stratification ultimately aremanifested at a more local societal level, and are mediated bymore proximate institutional processes. We believe that such anapproach is useful beyond examinations of rural areas and educa-tional outcomes. Indeed, we suspect that most modeling of edu-cational processes and achievement/attainment would benefit byincorporating such a conceptual frame.

It would be equally important for future researchers to extendthe causal model such that potential reciprocal effects on struc-ture are made more explicit. In this regard we hope that re-searchers in stratification, economic development, family, and ed-ucation will specify not only how various outcomes result frominstitutional dynamics and institutional vulnerability to local con-ditions, but also how the various individual outcomes and institu-tional processes under investigation play a part in reproducing oraltering those structural conditions.

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Appendix Table A1. Hierarchical Linear Modeling Estimates ofStudents’ Achievement and Dropout Status on Interval-Level Beale

Index of Rurality and Select Controls, 1990

Math/Reading Achievement Dropout Status

(1) (2)

Rural (Beale Index 0–9) –.185(.057)*** –.006(.016)Controls

Race:Asian 1.770(.374)*** –.306(.147)*African American –6.639(.309)*** .505(.107)***Hispanic –4.899(.297)*** .729(.090)***Native American –6.217(.822)*** .936(.242)***

Sex (1 = female) .909(.165)*** –.001(.065)Moved within previous 4 years –1.149(.218)*** .317(.087)***

Intercept 50.016 –2.712

Note: Metric coefficients (standard errors). N for achievement = 13,736 studentsacross 966 schools; N for dropout status = 13,401 students across 964 schools.

* p < .05; *** p < .001 (one-tailed tests).

rurality, institutional disadvantage, and achievement/attainment

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