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Educational Leadership

Kai Schafft

Educational and professional background of Kai Schafft.

Kai Schafft

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Associate 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 Associate 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

 

Schafft, K.A., & Kulcsar, L.J. (forthcoming 2011). The demography of race and ethnicity in Hungary. In Rogelio Saenz (Ed.) The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity. New York: Springer.

Shucksmith, M., & Schafft, K. A. (forthcoming 2011) Understanding social exclusion in European and U.S. rural contexts. In M. Shucksmith, D. L. Brown, S. Shortall, J. Vergunst, & M. Warner (Eds.) Rural Transformations and Rural Policies in the UK and US.

Brown, D. L., & Schafft, K. A. (2011). Rural People and Communities in the Twenty-first Century: Resilience and Transformation. Cambridge: Polity Press. (book)

Schafft, K. A., & Harmon, H. (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, (pp. 245-260). Thousand Oaks: Sage. (Book chapter)

Schafft, K.A., & Jackson, A. (Eds.) (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). (book)

Schafft, K. A., Hinrichs, C., & Bloom, D. (2010). Pennsylvania farm-to-school programs and the articulation of local context. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 5(1), 23-40.

Foulkes, M., & Schafft, K. A. (2010). Migration and the effects of poverty concentration within counties and minor civil divisions. Rural Sociology, 75(1), 90-110.

Schafft, K. A., Jensen, E. B., & Hinrichs, C. C. (2009) Food deserts and overweight schoolchildren: Evidence from Pennsylvania. Rural Sociology, 74(2), 153-177.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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., & 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. (Principal author)

Schafft, K. A., & Brown, D. L. (2003). Social capital, social networks, and social power. Social Epistemology, 17(4), 329-342. (Principal author)

Brown, D. L., & Schafft, K. A. (2002). Population deconcentration in Hungary during the post-socialist transformation. Journal of Rural Studies, 18(3), 133-144. (Equal contributions by authors)

Schafft, K. A., & Brown, D. L. (2000). Social capital and grassroots development: The case of Roma self-governance in Hungary. Social Problems, 47(2), 201-219. (Principal author)

 

Courses Taught


Professional Experience & Activities


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