This study examines how socioeconomic conditions shape learning outcomes in rural schooling contexts through a narrative review of the recent empirical literature. Studies published between 2020 and 2026 were identified through thorough systematic searches of EBSCOhost, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Following screening and eligibility assessment, 50 empirical studies were included in the final synthesis. The review explores how household economic resources, parental education and involvement, and community and institutional conditions interact to influence literacy, numeracy, attendance, grade progression, and educational persistence in rural schools. The findings reveal strong convergence across the literature that structural socioeconomic disadvantage contributes to unequal learning outcomes by limiting access to educational resources, constraining school and institutional capacity, and weakening formal and informal support systems. At the same time, the evidence points to substantial contextual variation and conditionality. The effects of household and parental characteristics are mediated by school quality, governance coherence, and community support structures, while institutional improvements generate uneven outcomes across different rural settings. Building on these patterns, the study develops a multi-level conceptual framework that illustrates how convergence, divergence, and conditionality interact within rural education systems. The review argues that rural educational inequality emerges from the dynamic interaction of socioeconomic and institutional mechanisms rather than from isolated determinants, underscoring the importance of integrated, context-sensitive policy interventions that advance social sustainability objectives.
Matsieli et al. (2026) studied this question.