Kai A. Schafft

Kai A. Shafft is professor of education and rural sociology in the College of Education at The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where he also directs the the Center for Rural Education and Communities and serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Research in Rural Education. He has served as president of the Rural Sociological Society; been a Fulbright Fellow at the Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania; and a visiting fellow at Central European University's Institute for Advanced Studies in Budapest, Hungary. Trained as a rural sociologist, Shafft has conducted research on rural poverty, student transiency, the determinants of rural childhood obesity, youth aspirations, rural brain drain, and the role of schools in rural community development. Shafft received his PhD in development sociology from Cornell University.

updated 2024