Answering the Call for Rural Music Teacher Professional Development

This chapter presents perspectives on relevant, effective, and practical professional development (PD) for rural music teachers. Recognizing the value for nuanced thinking to understand rurality itself, the first section reviews related research on teacher PD, music teacher PD, and trends in rural education. Embedded in this literature are inherent tensions and paradoxes articulated by urbanormativity that challenge but also guide teachers toward PD that they have sought for many years. One example is a teacher-centric model for music teacher PD in rural schools, discussed in the next section. This chapter then concludes with research-based applications of the model for rural music teachers, which offer relevant, effective, and practical PD to address actual professional challenges and to explore unique opportunities.