School closure and consolidation in two small rural communities in Newfoundland

Samson, Ward William (1997) School closure and consolidation in two small rural communities in Newfoundland. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The focus of this thesis is the process and turmoil that accompanies the closure of small schools in rural communities. The specific context is rural Newfoundland and Labrador. The purpose is to tell the stories of how the people of two communities attempted to fight and resist the efforts of the local school board to close and/or consolidate their schools. Using a case study methodology, the thesis traces the sequence of events starting with the initial rumours of an impending closure. For each of the communities in the study, the thesis describes the strategies the people used in their attempts to resist the school board's intentions. In the end both communities lost their battle and their small schools were closed. -- Although both community and school board sources were consulted for this thesis, the primary intention has been to tell the story of this struggle from the communities' point of view. Seldom in the history of school closure and consolidation have the views, arguments and pain caused by a closure battle survived and been recorded. The reason for this as Tyack (1974) has pointed out is that history is always written by the victors. Those defeated, generally, do not get to tell their story. Although there have been hundreds of closure battles in Newfoundland and Labrador and thousands in North America, one would be hard pressed to find sympathetic accounts of the struggle from a community's point of view. -- Given this set of circumstances, this thesis makes a significant contribution to not only our knowledge of an important rural education issue here in Newfoundland and Labrador, but in all contexts where there are or have been small community schools under siege.

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