Rural schools, social capital and the Big Society: a theoretical and empirical exposition

Bagley, C.A.; Hillyard, S.

doi:10.1002/berj.3026

Rural schools, social capital and the Big Society: a theoretical and empirical exposition

Bagley, C.A.; Hillyard, S.

Authors

C.A. Bagley

S. Hillyard

Abstract

The paper commences with a theoretical exposition of the current UK government's policy commitment to the idealised notion of the Big Society and the social capital currency underpinning its formation. The paper positions this debate in relation to the rural and adopts an ethnographically-informed methodological approach to provide an in-depth look at two contrasting English rural primary schools and their relationship with their village communities. The empirical investigation seeks to explore the extent to which the potential for building social capital is evidenced in current rural school–community relations within these two locales. The findings reveal a highly differentiated countryside in which any attempt to essentialise the abilities of rural schools to generate social capital in order to build the Big Society should be avoided.

Citation

Bagley, C., & Hillyard, S. (2014). Rural schools, social capital and the Big Society: a theoretical and empirical exposition. British Educational Research Journal, 40(1), 63-67. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3026

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Feb 21, 2013
Publication Date	Feb 1, 2014
Deposit Date	Nov 27, 2012
Publicly Available Date	May 29, 2014
Journal	British Educational Research Journal
Print ISSN	0141-1926
Electronic ISSN	1469-3518
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	40
Issue	1
Pages	63-67
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3026

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Copyright Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bagley, C. and Hillyard, S. (2014), Rural schools, social capital and the Big Society: a theoretical and empirical exposition. British Educational Research Journal, 40 (1): 63–78, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/berj.3026. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.