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face exceptionally high rates of poverty, as do Mexican-origin Hispanics in
the colonies of the lower Rio Grande Valley and the American Indians on
reservations in the Great Plains states and the American Southwest. (p. 1133)
In the described areas, there are significant regional concentrations of rural minorities.
The rural minority communities are segregated mainly from the White families
in close proximity to them, regardless of their incomes (Lichter & Brown, 2011).
These challenges have persisted for so long that researchers have identified a “new
rural order” within society (Burton, et al., 2013; Schafft, 2016). This concept refers Dr. Tami B. Morton is
to the rapid and profound transformations occurring in rural life due to increasing Professor and Assistant
Department Head in The
economic ties with urban areas. The emergence of this new rural reality can be Department of Curriculum
attributed to several factors: and Instruction at
(a) The restructuring of rural economics represented by shifts away from stable, Texas A&M University-
family-sustaining production jobs to low-wage service employment; Commerce, where she
(b) a recent rise in the migration of low-income urban racial/ethnic minorities has been teaching and
facilitating instruction for
and Hispanic and Latino immigrants to largely White small-town and more than 10 years. Her
pastoral communities, and research interests include
(c) dramatic shifts in the spatial concentration of rural poverty. (Burton et al., reading foundations,
2013, p. 1129) preservice teachers,
These developments have profoundly affected the rural labor market, family culturally relevant
pedagogy, writing, and
structures, and the prevalence of poverty across various communities, shaping children’s and young adult
the contours of the “new” rural landscape and impacting rural education systems. multicultural literature.
Thus, this literature review delves into diversity within education in rural America,
including the educational challenges found in Texas. Tami.Morton@tamuc.edu

Demographics of Rural Schools
Research by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2017) explains
that rural education holds importance, as evidenced by the enrollment of 12.4 million
students in rural public schools nationwide. Despite only 25% of public schools
being classified as rural based on geography, nearly 60% constitute rural school
districts (Nino & Perez-diaz, 2021; Shafft, 2016). According to the “District Type
Glossary of Terms, 2021-22” by Texas Educational Agency (TEA; 2023), a school
district is considered rural if it matches the criteria of “(a) an enrollment of between
300 and the median district enrollment for the state and an enrollment growth rate
over the past five years of less than 20 percent; or (b) an enrollment of less than 300
students.” Moreover, 20% of the nation’s population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019) and
almost 28% of public elementary and
secondary school districts are located
in rural areas (Rhinesmith et al., 2023).
Within these rural districts are some of Commonly, rural people are unfairly
America’s most impoverished racial
and ethnic minority populations, who characterized as economically
have been subjected to systematic
racism and have continued to live in disadvantaged. This perception fails
these isolated rural areas for multiple to capture the true diversity of rural
generations (Lichter & Brown, 2011).
Texas demographics indicate America....
that the state has about 1,200 rural

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