An ecocultural perspective on family support in rural special education.

Abstract The historical shift in focus in special education from individual treatment to family support has led to the need for an ecocultural perspective in the delivery of services to families living in rural communities. This need is met by understanding the developmental niche of such families and by distinguishing the particular characteristics of rural communities from urban societies. Characteristics addressed here include the role of the individual and the community in supporting development and responding to the phenomenon of disability; the social and economic circumstances present in rural communities; and the rural constructions of gender, work, and schooling. Using examples drawn from farm families, structural and economic factors are explored to better understand how to support rural families with a disabled child. Implications for rural special education policy and practice are suggested including the need to understand the diversity of rural communities, the importance of relationship-based services, and the value of an ecocultural perspective in the conceptualization of support services. One of the most important lessons learned from the War on Poverty and the subsequent interventions applied in rural communities during the past 25 years is the necessity for social services that are person-oriented (cf. Looff, 1971; Photiadis & Schwarzweiler, 1971). This emphasis on the idiosyncratic needs of individuals was a direct response to the impersonal, bureaucratic one-size-fits-all approach to social supports that seemed to characterize urban educational, health, and welfare programs. An understanding of the importance of individual planning, noncategorical services, and community outreach emerged from the rural antipoverty programs of the 1970s. It is not surprising, therefore, to note that the shift to family- oriented services, such as those now found in the field of special education, also has its roots in rural settings. For example, the work of Dunst and his colleagues at the Western Carolina Center in the 1980s (cf. Dunst, Trivette, & Deal, 1988) came directly from their experiences serving families who lived in remote communities in southern Appalachia. Given this history, special educators and others working in rural communities now understand the necessity of grounding intervention efforts in the specific needs of individual families within particular social contexts. However, to address the characteristics, assets, and needs of families who live in rural communities begs a larger question - Are there aspects of rural life that are distincdy different from life in other demographic entities? Is there, in fact, a rural culture that not only creates a set of parameters for behavior, language, and beliefs, but also provides for the creation of certain requirements for the nature of formal, institutionalized social programs? In the case of families who have a child with a disability, the questions become focused on the demands of rural culture and the design of programs and broad-aim policies conceived at some distant, central location (either a state capital or in Washington, DC). For example, how can the particular needs of families living in rural communities who have a child with a disability be addressed? In small school districts where having a child with a disability is a matter of public knowledge, and source of resentment if local taxes are affected, how can families receive the support and respect to which they are entitled? How can we distinguish the special assets as well as liabilities that rural families possess as they care for a disabled child? These questions become especially salient when the distance between policy-makers and program implementers is great, both geographically and culturally, resulting in the potential for a poor fit between solutions designed to fit nonrural contexts and the realities of rural families and schools. In this article, some of the unique aspects of rural culture are addressed, particularly as they bear on families with a disabled child, that should be considered in the design of effective programs. …