Rural Gifted Education and the Effect of Proximity

Gifted education services in rural districts typically lag behind those in nonrural areas. Using district classifications assigned by the National Center for Education Statistics and Texas school district data (n = 1,029) from the Academic Excellence Indicator System, the role of school district classification on gifted education outcomes was investigated. Contextual variables such as school demographics and school size were also examined. The study focused on rural and town school districts which are further classified as fringe, distant, or remote (level of proximity) within those two broad categories. Results of one-way multivariate analysis of variance indicated an effect of proximity for both rural and town districts on both contextual variables and gifted education outcomes. Additionally, rural fringe districts were found to be more similar to districts not classified as rural (i.e., urban, suburban, town) than to rural distant and rural remote districts. Findings offer important implications for both the support for gifted education in rural settings and the usefulness of the census codes as an indicator in educational research.