Kai A. Schafft

Kai A. Shafft is professor of education and rural sociology in the College of Education at Penn State University (PSU). Dr. Schafft directs the the Center for Rural Education and Communities (CCREC) at PSU and serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Research in Rural Education. He recently served as president of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS). Dr. Shafft was also a Fulbright Fellow at the Transilvania University of Brasov in Romania and a visiting fellow at Central European University's Institute for Advanced Studies in Budapest, Hungary. Trained as a rural sociologist, his research broadly examines the relationship between social inequality, spatial inequality, and rural development. He 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. Dr. Shafft holds a PhD and MS in development sociology jointly from Cornell University along with an MA in English from the University of Maine and a BA in Humanities from The Evergreen State College.

updated 2024