About

Mara Casey Tieken’s research centers on racial and educational equity in rural schools and communities. Her recently published book—Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges and What it Costs Them (University of Chicago Press)—focuses on the college experiences of rural, first-generation students; it argues that place is an overlooked factor that shapes educational opportunity. Her previous book Why Rural Schools Matter (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), an ethnographic study of two rural Arkansas communities, examines how rural schools create community and shape the racial landscapes of these towns. She is currently working on a project, funded by the Spencer Foundation and the Reed Foundation, that examines the impacts of school closure on rural Black communities, and she has designed a website with tools for communities threatened with school closure. She is also involved in the work of the National Education Research and Development Center for Improving Rural Postsecondary Education; she is co-Principal Investigator on a study of rural- serving college access organizations.

Tieken also writes about rural demographics, race and rural politics, and community organizing for education reform. Her work has been published in Review of Educational Research, Rural Sociology, Harvard Educational Review, American Educational Research Journal, Peabody Journal of Education, and Sociological Focus, and she is an associate editor of the Journal of Research in Rural Education. She was a member of the National Academies committee on K-12 STEM Education and Workforce Development in Rural Areas; its 2025 report makes recommendations to federal, state, and local stakeholders to advance STEM education and workforce development. She also frequently publishes op-eds about race and rurality, rural school closure, and education politics.

Tieken was the 2016 recipient of the Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty and the 2024 recipient of Bates’s Kroepsch Award for excellence in teaching. Before receiving her doctorate in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she taught third grade and adult basic education in rural Tennessee.