A Case Study Of Formal And Informal Learning Among Displaced Mountain Residents From Greene County, Virginia
Open Access
- Author:
- Stark, Mary
- Graduate Program:
- Educational Leadership
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 02, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Jacqueline A Stefkovich, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jacqueline A Stefkovich, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Edward J Fuller, Committee Member
Jacqueline J A Reid Walsh, Committee Member
Frederick Dudley Loomis Jr., Committee Member - Keywords:
- formal learning
informal learning
mountain people
rural education
resettlement
Greene County
Virginia - Abstract:
- In the 1930s, while in the midst of a severe economic depression, life in the rural mountains of Virginia was far removed from events in more populated and progressive areas of the United States. While much of the Commonwealth of Virginia had spent the approximately fifty years following the Civil War focused on re-building and establishing new economic endeavors in the state, in the mountains of Virginia much of the population continued to work as farmers and loggers, unaware of the modern adaptations occurring beyond their borders. As the U.S. looked for ways to put people back to work and create a sense of unity and pride, the concept of a new national park was introduced and various locations were suggested. The decision to create a new park close to the nation’s capital created the opportunity for an intersection of the mountain culture and outside modern ideals. As the Commonwealth and federal government worked with developers to build the new Park, those inhabiting the mountain lands were forced to uproot themselves and resettle in the “lowlands”. An examination of what knowledge and information, obtained in formal and informal ways, provided the means for the mountain people of Greene County, Virginia to evolve from isolated mountaineers to residents of the lowlands of rural Virginia. This narrative inquiry, framed by conflict theory, and collected as individual interviews to gather oral histories, examination of personal correspondence, and listening to additional interviews gathered by other researchers, tells the story of the Greene County mountain people and their learning experiences. From lessons taught by mission school teachers, to agricultural and medical knowledge passed down from older generation to young, the stories analyzed and related in this research explain the lives of the mountain people and show the importance they placed on both literacy gained in formal schooling and survival skills such as planting and food preservation taught by parent and grandparents. That importance, related in almost every field observation, is combined with obstacles that still exist between the mountain people and those in positions of authority, where an air of unawareness about the mountain culture still leads to policy implementation that is not effective for the County’s population. This research highlights some of those obstacles and seeks to provide insights to help resolve the conflict and improve educational opportunities for all of the County’s population. As one interview subject told me her father used to say, “Planting a garden is easy, gettin’ it to grow is the hard part.” The findings and conclusions from this research outline some potential ways of helping to allow the garden to grow.