The second keynote to be announced for The 2nd IAFOR Conference on Education, Research & Innovation (ERI2022) is titled “Is this Resilience?: (Re)Imagining Rural Futures and the Promise of Rural Education”, and will be presented by Amy Azano of Virginia Tech, United States.
To participate in ERI2022 as an audience member, please register for the conference.
The presentation will also be available for IAFOR Members to view online. To find out more, please visit the IAFOR Membership page.
Abstract
Is this Resilience?: (Re)Imagining Rural Futures and the Promise of Rural Education
What do we mean by "resilience" in education? Equity is a long-standing issue in educational research and practice but too often rural challenges are pushed to the periphery of those conversations. The COVID-19 pandemic made educational disparities more visible as rural challenges related to poverty, food insecurity, transportation, healthcare, and connectivity became more obvious. Additionally, rural people and places endure negative and harmful stereotypes. Resilience is the act of overcoming obstacles, but are we relying on educational survivance in an inequitable system? In this talk, Dr Amy Price Azano will reframe resilience and discuss efforts at Virginia Tech to center rurality and rethink the possibilities in rural education.
Speaker Biography
Amy Azano
Virginia Tech, United States
Amy Price Azano, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Rural Education and Adolescent Literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech and focuses her scholarship on issues of equity for rural learners. Dr Azano served as the co-PI on the U.S. Department of Education grant, “Promoting PLACE in Rural Schools,” and is the current PI on two place-based educational grants focused on developing talent in high-poverty rural areas. Dr Azano is a national and international leader in rural education research who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters; chairs the American Educational Research Association’s Rural Education Special Interest Group; and is co-editor of The Rural Educator. She is the co-author of Teaching in Rural Places: Thriving in Rural Classrooms, Schools, and Communities (2021, Routledge); and co-editor of the research monograph Gifted Education in Rural Schools: Developing Place-Based Interventions (2021, Routledge) and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rural Education in the United States (2021, Bloomsbury). Dr Azano is the 2021 recipient of the Brzezinski Memorial Research Award by the National Rural Education Association.
