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Kai Schafft

Dr. Kai A. Schafft

Professor of Education (EDLDR & Rural Soc)

Phone: 814-863-2031

302F Rackley Building
University Park, PA 16802

Department(s)

  • Education Policy Studies

Program(s)

  • Educational Leadership Program, DEd, M.Ed
  • Comparative and International Education, Dual-title

Center(s)

  • Center on Rural Education and Communities (CREC)

Biography

Kai Schafft is a Professor of Education and Rural Sociology at Penn State University. Dr. Schafft directs the College's Center for Rural Education and Communities and serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Research in Rural Education.  Trained as a rural sociologist, with his Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University, his research broadly examines the relationship between social inequality, spatial inequality, and rural development. Dr. Schafft has also conducted research on rural poverty, student transiency, the determinants of rural childhood obesity, youth aspirations, and rural brain drain, and the role of schools in rural community development. More recent work has examined the school and community impacts of unconventional gas development within Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale play, as well as education and the contexts for youth development within post-socialist contexts. During the spring of 2015, Dr. Schafft was a visiting fellow at Central European University's Institute for Advanced Studies in Budapest, Hungary, where he conducted research on the social and political implications of Hungary's nationality self-government system for Hungary’s Roma minority. He served as President of the Rural Sociological Society (2019-21) and in 2023-24 was a Fulbright Fellow at the Transilvania University of Brasov in Romania where he researched educational policy and the social inclusion/exclusion of Roma youth.

Media

Books:

  • Schafft, K.A., Stanić, S., Horvatek, R., & Maselli, A. (Eds.) (2021). Rural youth at the crossroads: Transitional societies in Central Europe and beyond. New York: Routledge.
  • Brown, D. L., & Schafft, K. A. (2019).  Rural people and communities in the twenty-first century: Resilience and transformation (revised and updated second edition). Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • 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).
  • Narayan, D., Patel, P., Schafft, K., Rademacher, A., & Koch-Schulte, S. (2000).  Voices of the poor: Can anyone hear us?  New York: Oxford.

Areas of Expertise

Education Types

Rural Education

Educational Studies

International Education

Methodological Research

Multiple Methods
Qualitative Research

Social Issues

Comparative and International Education

Most Recent Papers

  • Schafft, K.A., Salca, I., & Peine, E.K. (accepted). Public art and critical literacies of place: The case of the Petrila Coal Mine in Romania’s Jiu Valley. Handbook on Rural and Remote Education, Harmon, H. & Johnson, J. (eds.). Northampton, MA: Elgar Publishing.
  • Seelig, J., & Schafft, K.A. (accepted). Rethinking rural education: Community change, conceptual shifts, and implications for educational practice. Research Handbook in Rural Sociology, Tickamyer, A. & Sachs, C. (eds.). Northampton, MA: Elgar Publishing.
  • Almes, J., & Schafft, K.A. (accepted). Schooling geographies and the political economy of space:  The case of school districts in Pennsylvania. Handbook on Geographies of Education. Kucerova, S. (ed.). Northampton, MA: Elgar Publishing.
  • Mueller, J.T., Tickamyer, A., Thiede, B.C., Schafft, K., Graefe, A. (2024). Social and political correlates of adult and dependent-child COVID-19 vaccination behavior in rural America. Preventive Medicine Reports. In-press, accepted April, 2024
  • Schafft, K.A., & Maselli, A. (2022). Shifting population dynamics and the implications for rural schools. Pp. 52-61 in Handbook on Rural Education in the United States. Azano, A., Eppley, K, & Biddle C. (Eds.). New York: Bloomsbury.
  • Sherman, J., & Schafft, K.A. (2022) “Turning their backs on kids”: Inclusions, exclusions, and the contradictions of schooling in gentrifying rural communities. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 8(3), 150-171. (Invited submission)
  • Schafft, K.A. (2021). Rurality and crises of democracy: What can rural sociology offer the present moment? (presidential address) Rural Sociology, 83(3), 419-443.
  • Carrillo, I., Quisumbing King, K., & Schafft, K.A. (2021) Race, ethnicity, and twenty-first century rural sociological imaginings: A special issue introduction. Rural Sociology, 83(3), 419-443.
  • Burfoot-Rochford, I., & Schafft, K.A. (2021) “This is a good neighborhood. This ain’t no Pittsburgh!”: Conflicting narratives of opioid misuse within rural school districts and communities. American Journal of Education, 128(1), 1-28.