Rural education policies: advances and challenges

This article analyzes the guidelines for rural education from the double perspective of its advances and challenges. On the one hand, advances can be clearly seen in the development of guidelines based on a conception of an emancipative and citizen-oriented education. On the other hand, the challenges are evident in the diffi culties faced by rural schools in terms of dealing with the socio-cultural context of their students; the implementation of state and municipal nucleating policies that result in the displacement of schools from rural areas to cities or small villages; and commuting thousands of children from rural areas to the city, which, besides driving subjects away from their contexts, also fosters migratory processes and collides with the guidelines for rural education established in the early XXI century. From the theoretical viewpoint, our work is grounded on documents and bibliographical references concerning rural education.