Thursday’s lecture by Prof. Schafft will address the links between rural education and community.
Professor Kai A. Schafft from Penn State University prepared a lecture for the students of UJEP not only from the Department of Geography, but also for the academic community and the public on “Understanding Rural Education through a School-CommunityContext: US and International Examples”. The lecture will take place on Thursday, May 22 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in CPTO room 4.35.
Lecture Abstract: Education has often been understood as a mode of human capital development with social and economic multiplier effects for individuals and for national economic competitiveness. But education can also have contradictory development outcomes for rural people and places. I discuss the rural education-community connection and ground this discussion in two examples of recent research conducted in Romania – an examination of on-the-ground translation of policy into practice for Roma education, and a case study of the community educative functions of public art in a post-industrial, post-coal context.
The lecture will be held in English and it will also be possible to join online via the BigBlueBottom platform: https://blue.ujep.cz/b/jan-uqx-rlc-xiq
Kai A. Schafft is Professor of Education and Rural Sociology at Penn State University (USA), where he directs the Center for Rural Education and Communities. His research focuses on the relationship between social inequality, spatial inequality, and rural development. He is no stranger to Central and Eastern Europe, having spent time in Budapest, Hungary, and Transylvania University of Braşov, Romania, with the support of a Fulbright scholarship.
Our university welcomes Kai A. Schafft, who has arrived with the support of the J. E. Purkyně Visiting Scholar Programme. Kai Schafft is an expert in rural sociology from Penn State University, Department of Education Policy Studies. Kai Schafft is coming to mentor a working group of academics from the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Education, and Faculty of Arts, as well as some of their student collaborators who are looking into social and spatial inequalities in education and human resources, led by Silvie R. Kučerová from the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science. The stay is based on many years of professional cooperation between Kai A. Schafft and Silvie R. Kučerová and on the occasion of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Penn State and UJEP at the beginning of 2025. Further research activities of the existing team will certainly follow, as Kai A. Schafft will be involved in a research project on peripheral areas funded by the J. A. Komenský Operational Program (OP JAK) starting on January 1, 2026.