Educational Disadvantage in Primary Schools in Rural Areas

The achievements of pupils in English reading and mathematics in schools in rural areas serving pupils from poor backgrounds are examined. Pupils in a sample of schools selected for inclusion in the rural dimension of a programme to address educational disadvantage performed significantly better than pupils in a sample of urban schools participating in the same programme. Test scores of pupils in the rural sample were significantly below the national norm for reading but not for mathematics. Although poverty was found to be less concentrated in the rural than in the urban sample, no evidence was found to implicate this in the explanation of the superior performance of rural pupils. There was, however, support for the idea that the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and pupil achievement is quantitatively and qualitatively different in rural and urban areas. Achievement of pupils in the rural sample seems to be unrelated to school size so there is no support for the idea, common in the international literature, that small school size may mitigate the effect of poverty on educational outcomes. However, the presence in the rural sample of relatively large numbers of pupils from some counties in the West of Ireland may account for some, but not all, of the gap between the urban and rural samples. The fact that about 18% of pupils in the rural sample are attending schools in the Gaeltacht may be part of the reason for the urban-rural gap being smaller for English reading than for mathematics. It is argued that further research in this area is needed and that the work reported here does not yet represent an adequate basis for policy decisions, including those about the allocation of resources.