Educating the countryside, governing the nation: reconfiguring rural schooling and governance from imperial to contemporary China

Abstract The closure of rural schools is a stark symbol of community decline amid rapid urbanization. In China, approximately 80% of rural primary schools have closed since 2001. While existing literature explores the impacts of school closures on resource allocation and community vitality, limited attention has been given to the historical evolution of the relationship between rural schools and rural governance, which fundamentally shapes their contemporary dynamics. Focusing on China, and drawing on historical analysis and policy review, this study investigates how rural schools have historically interacted with governance structures and functioned as critical nodes for institutional integration, social capital formation, and cultural continuity. This paper develops a tripartite analytical framework based on an institutional, networked, and cultural assemblage, which traces the dynamic relationship between schools and governance across five historical periods: the traditional imperial era, the Republican period, Socialist reconstruction (1949–1978), the reform era (1978–2012), and the contemporary rural revitalization (2012–present). Findings reveal that rural schools have long operated not merely as educational sites but as multifunctional infrastructures, especially social infrastructure, that are deeply embedded in local governance, relational networks, and cultural reproduction. Historically, their roles shifted from instruments of sociopolitical control to conduits of individualized rural-urban mobility, and more recently, to contested sites of place-based revitalization. Theoretically, the study advances a governance-centered perspective, moving beyond instrumentalist accounts of rural schooling. Empirically, it provides a longitudinal analysis of the dynamic entanglement between education and state-society relations. Ultimately, the paper calls for a reimagining of rural schools worldwide, viewing them not merely as service providers but as foundational infrastructures that support cultural continuity and institutional resilience amid global rural decline.