Post-school education in shrinking rural regions: experiences and solutions from Scotland and Sweden Authors Nathalie Tent Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6618-7045 Josefina Syssner Linköping University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7607-7029 Ingo Mose Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6226-4496 Frank Rennie University of the Highlands and Islands https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7935-9985 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.1692 Keywords: Post-school education, shrinkage, rural development, resources, Sweden, Scotland Abstract Abstract Against the backdrop of shrinking populations, new strategies for maintaining services of general interest in European rural areas are required at both a European and a German level. With regard to this, the field of post-school education as a service of general interest is seen as playing an important role with considerable effects on regional development processes. Educational institutions, traditionally highly centralised, have been shown to influence decisions on staying in or leaving rural areas and thus can further intensify regional demographic developments. In this paper, we examine two examples of post-school educational opportunities in Scotland and Sweden that have been able to establish themselves in a rural setting affected by shrinking trends. Our interpretation is that the continued stability of these examples is due to the ability of local actors to utilise local resources in a meaningful way. The aim of this paper is therefore to contribute to a structured understanding of how local actors manage limited resources to provide services of general interest in the environment of rural, sparsely populated regions in the long term. To enable a systematised analysis of our data, we use an analytical framework originally developed to understand the resources generated by informal planning practices in rural areas. 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In: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36, 2, 261–280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01095.x Downloads PDF HTML XML Published Issue publication date 2024-04-30 (version 2)Published online first 2023-11-01 (version 1) Versions 2024-04-30 (2) 2023-11-01 (1) Issue Vol. 82 No. 2 (2024) Section Research Article License Copyright (c) 2023 Nathalie Tent, Josefina Syssner, Ingo Mose, Frank Rennie This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Articles in Raumforschung und Raumordnung – Spatial Research and Planning are published under a Creative Commons license. From Vol. 79 No. 2 (2021), the license applied is CC BY 4.0. From Vol. 77 No. 1 to Vol. 79 No.1, articles were published under a CC BY-SA license. Earlier volumes have been re-published by oekom 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0. How to Cite 1.Tent N, Syssner J, Mose I, Rennie F. 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