The Rural Affinity Advantage: Reimagining Schools as Entrepreneurship Incubators

This article, which combines research with lived experience, discusses how youth entrepreneurship education stands as a promising pedagogy in rural contexts. The author situates the research by sharing experiences teaching in rural schools at a time of declining enrollment and rampant outmigration. The article then explores educational pathways, through entrepreneurship education, that rural educators may follow to contribute to the cause of rural sustainability. Entrepreneurialism is positioned as a useful set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that rural youth can use to better dictate the terms of their future, and schools are envisioned as entrepreneurship incubators.