Dr. Karen Eppley

A former fifth grade teacher, my research interest is at the intersection of literacy education and rural education. I write about rurality as a contested social space within economic globalization, rural literacies, textual representations of rurality, rural education as a matter of social justice, and policy analysis. My current project is a multiple-case study analyzing the experience of community members in rural Pennsylvania communities who opted to use charter law to open a community-operated charter school to replicate the traditional school after its closure. A second project is a co-authored textbook for undergraduate teacher preparation programs that prepare teachers for rural teaching appointments. I edit the Journal of Research in Rural Education (JRRE) and lead a multi-modal, arts-based reading camp each summer in the College for readers entering grades two through six.