Kai Schafft
Educational and professional background of Kai Schafft.
Kai Schafft
Assistant Professor of Education
Editor, Journal of Research in Rural Education
Director, Center on Rural Education and Communities
Current Vita
310B Rackley Building
University Park, PA 16802
Email: kas45@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2031
Introduction
Dr. Schafft is an Assistant Professor of Education in the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University and the director of Penn State's Center on Rural Education and Communities. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Development Sociology. Trained as a rural sociologist, his work focuses broadly on the intersection between social inequality and spatial inequality. His major areas of research include the interrelationship between rural poverty and student transiency, contexts for rural youth development, farm-to-school program implementation, and rural health outcomes. His other work has examined participatory community development, political mobilization and social exclusion within Hungarian Gypsy (Roma) communities, and population redistribution in post-socialist Hungary.
Areas of Expertise
- Community Sociology
- Rural Education
- Poverty and Inequality
- Mixed Research Methodologies
Selected Publications (Full CV available here)
Brown, D. L., & Schafft, K. A. (forthcoming, 2010). Understanding rural societies: Continuity and change in a global age. Cambridge: Polity Press. (Second author)
Schafft, K. A., & Jackson, A. (Eds.), (forthcoming, 2010). Rural education for the twenty-first century: Identity, place, and community in a globalizing world. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press (Rural Studies Series).
Foulkes, M., & Schafft, K. A. (forthcoming 2010). Migration and the effects of poverty concentration within counties and minor civil divisions. Rural Sociology.
Schafft, K. A., & Harmon, H. (forthcoming, April, 2010). The role of education in community development. In J. W. Robinson, Jr. & G. P. Green (Eds.), Introduction to Community Development: Theory, Practice, and Service-Learning, Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Schafft, K. A., Jensen, E. B., & Hinrichs, C. C. (2009) Food deserts and overweight schoolchildren: Evidence from Pennsylvania. Rural Sociology, 74(2), 153-177.
Schafft, K. A., & Prins, E. S. (2009) Poverty, residential mobility and persistence across urban and rural family literacy programs in Pennsylvania. Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal, 3, 3-12.
Harmon, H. & Schafft, K .A. (2009) Rural school leadership for collaborative community development. The Rural Educator, 30(3), 4-9.
Bagdonis, J., Hinrichs, C. C., & Schafft, K. A. (2009). The emergence and framing of farm-to-school initiatives: Civic engagement, health and sustainable agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values, 26, 107-119 .
Prins, E. S., & Schafft, K. S. (2009). Individual and Structural Attributions for Poverty and Persistence in Family Literacy Programs: The Resurgence of the Culture of Poverty. Teachers College Record, 111(9), 2280-2310.
Prins, E., Toso, B. W., & Schafft, K. (2009). “It feels like a little family to me”: Social interaction and support for women in adult education and family literacy. Adult Education Quarterly. 59(4): 335-352.
Alter, T., Bridger, J., Sager, S., Schafft, K., & Shuffstall, W. (2007). Getting connected: Broadband services a key to a vibrant rural America. Rural Realities, 2(3):1-10.
Schafft, K. A. (2006). Poverty, residential mobility and student transiency within a rural New York school district. Rural Sociology, 71(2), 212-231.
Schafft, K. A. (2005). The incidence and impacts of student transiency in upstate New York’s rural school districts. The Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(15), 1-13.
Finlayson, A. C., Lyson, T. A., Pleasant, A., Schafft, K. A., & Torres, R. J. (2005). The ‘invisible hand’: Neoclassical economics and the ordering of society. Critical Sociology, 31(4), 515-536.
Schafft, K. A., & Greenwood, D. J. (2003). The promises and dilemmas of participation: Action research, search conference methodology and community development. Journal of the Community Development Society, 34(1), 18-35.
Courses Taught
Professional Experience & Activities
- Co-Director, Center on Rural Education and Communities, Penn State University.
- Editor, Journal of Research in Rural Education (as of January 2008).
Education
- Ph.D. Cornell University, January 2003. Development Sociology. Dissertation: Tracking Incidence of Residential Mobility Among Poor Families in Upstate New York Through Public School Enrollments: Economic Change, Housing Insecurity and "Poverty Migration"
- M.A. University of Maine, Orono, 1991. English Literature
- B.A. The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, 1986. Interdisciplinary Studies