Leveraging Social, Cultural and Economic Resources to Transform Rural School Habitus, a Bourdieuan Systematic Review

Rural schools often operate within complex educational fields shaped by material, structural, and institutional constraints that influence teaching and learning opportunities. Although previous research has extensively documented resource limitations in rural education, deficit-oriented perspectives may overlook locally embedded resources that support school improvement. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus, and field, this systematic review synthesizes evidence from 44 studies published between 2000 and 2025 to examine how rural schools mobilize social, cultural, and economic forms of capital to transform educational practice. Using PRISMA 2020-guided procedures, the included studies were analyzed through thematic synthesis informed by a Bourdieuan theoretical lens. Findings indicate that rural schools possess diverse yet often underrecognized forms of capital embedded in community relationships, local knowledge, teacher expertise, alumni networks, and context-specific practices. However, the educational value of these resources depends on institutional conditions that enable their recognition, mobilization, and conversion within rural schooling fields. Based on these findings, the review proposes the Transformative Rural School Habitus Model (TRSHM), which conceptualizes how interactions among different forms of capital, conversion mechanisms, and institutional practices contribute to habitus transformation. The model provides a theoretically grounded framework for understanding rural school improvement as a relational process involving both resource mobilization and changes in the conditions through which resources become valued and utilized.