Developing Students’ Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent in Rural After-School Settings: Rural Educators’ Affordances and Barriers

This study uses a naturalistic inquiry approach to investigate how rural educators navigate the affordances and barriers of implementing an out-of-school program to identify and develop middle school STEM talent in rural communities. At the time of this study, the STEM program was in its fourth year of implementation. Participants included 34 educators and 324 students in Grades 6–8 across 10 school districts in a predominately rural state. We used maximum variation purposive sampling to select 3 of the 10 districts as case study sites. The cross-case analysis resulted in the themes of (a) exercising local control, (b) expanding community for advanced STEM learning, and (c) leveraging the intersectionality of rurality, local agency, and expanded resources. One implication is that when supported with resources, rural educators will leverage the systems of their schools and communities to create robust ecosystems for advanced STEM talent development.