This presentation takes as a starting point the dominance of urban studies in educational research and the metrocentricity that operates nationally and internationally in relation to educational policy making. It draws on a recently completed research project investigating youth’s presentations and experiences of education in different rural researched places (Öhrn & Beach, Eds, 2019). The project explored the under-researched rural dimension by use of ethnographic data from six different schools in six different types of rural area. The data are used in the presentation to discuss rural understandings and responses to socio-spatial issues, and focusses especially on gender issues. Gender (and class) dimensions appear in terms of both the education opportunities experienced by pupils, the choices they are able to (and do) make, and educational outcomes. This is perhaps unsurprising, for as indicated earlier by Forsberg (1998) the presence of intensive capitalist production in a place always has very important consequences for the local historical and gendered division of labour and all other subsequent social relationships. But nevertheless in the present investigation gender relations seem to be less stereotyped than in much previous rural research, and they also appear to be related to other aspects of social structures, social relations and structuration processes than those of the economy alone (also Forsey, 2015; Pini & Leach, 2016).