About

Amy Price Azano, Ph.D., is a professor of adolescent literacy and rural education in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. She is also the founding director of the Center for Rural Education at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on rural education and adolescent literacy, with an emphasis on empowering rural school children through education. Azano has been featured in media outlets such as The Washington Post and Forbes, discussing issues related to rural communities and education. She is actively involved in academic and outreach activities aimed at improving educational practices and policies in rural settings.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Economics
• Geography
• Economic growth
• Political economy
• Gender studies
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Rural Education and Queer Identities

  2025-02-20 · 3 citations

  bookSenior author

  Microvalidations, small acts that affirm a person’s basic humanity, demonstrate to those who hold marginalized identities how they are seen, valued, and celebrated. For Queer families engaging in rural educational spaces where they may be the only family like theirs, microvalidations can be particularly meaningful. Several categories of microvalidation are effective for rural Queer families: learning and using names, expanding language, honoring parent roles, and validating seemingly small experiences. Given the particularity of rural educational spaces, these microvalidations have the potential of creating a sense of belonging for students and families that extend outside of the classroom and to an entire community.

  PublisherDOI

• Storying the FEW Nexus: A Framework for Cultivating Place-Based Integrated STEM Education in Rural Schools

  Education Sciences · 2025-06-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  When education in STEM, social science, and the humanities are disconnected from each other and from place, it is inauthentic and nonresponsive to the lived experiences of people and communities. In rural spaces, the Food–Energy–Water (FEW) Nexus, a framework for problem solving and decision-making around these central resources, is salient because of the concentration of FEW resource production and extraction present. Storying the FEW Nexus is an interdisciplinary pedagogical framework that is theoretically rooted in a critical pedagogy of place and socio-ecological systems. Storying the FEW Nexus brings together these two related but distinct frameworks, calling attention to the need for relevant, place-based, and rural-focused narratives within STEM instruction. Developed for K-12 learners in rural places, Storying the FEW Nexus positions STEM knowledge and skills as resources that, alongside local narratives, are vital to the sustainability and viability of communities with unique and intertwined environmental justice histories and current realities. The FEW Nexus is leveraged to support rural learners in developing sustainable solutions to local socio-ecological systems issues. In this conceptual paper, we review the literature base supporting this integrated approach, describe the framework within the context of these aims, and make suggestions for researchers and practitioners.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Introduction

  2025-02-20 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This book is a love letter to Queer youth and Queer educators in rural spaces. It is evidence that you are seen. That you are valued. That you matter. That you deserve to be held in love and with respect in every single damn educational context in which you find yourself. It is also a love letter to the allies who are advocating for and supporting Queer youth in rural schools. This book began as a seed that has blossomed into a wildness beyond our imaginations.

  PublisherDOI

• Addressing Equity Challenges and Expanding Opportunities in Gifted Education for Rural Multilingual Learners

  Journal of Advanced Academics · 2025-05-05 · 3 citations

  article

  Challenges related to gifted education in rural schools have been well-documented and include limited curricular opportunities and resources; inequitable gifted identification processes; the pervasive exclusion of students of color, multilingual learners (MLs), economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities in gifted programming; and a lack of gifted education resource teachers in rural schools. MLs are the fastest growing population of K-12 students in the United States, yet they remain proportionately less represented in gifted and talented programs than both students traditionally identified for gifted education as well as those from other underserved populations. Rural MLs are even less likely to be identified for gifted services and often face additional barriers even when referred for gifted programming by a teacher. This article includes an overview of the challenges and innovative responses to barriers for rural MLs in gifted programs, focusing especially on rural Latine multilingual populations.

  PublisherDOI

• Existing and resisting: Drag resiliency in rural Appalachia

  International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education · 2025-10-11

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Trends influencing the future of rural education research in the United States

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-04-15 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter considers recent trends influencing the future of rural education research in the United States. In response, various entities have established agendas, funding priorities, meetings, and educational centers. These actions signal an investment from the greater field of educational research to upend inequities within rural spaces. The chapter provides a discussion of race and rurality, shifting linguistic and demographic territories, and educator preparation in rural spaces as an entry point for examining intersecting spaces and interpreting trends influencing the future of rural education research.

  PublisherDOI

• Chapter 9: Place and Meaning-Making for Rural Students

  Lexington Books · 2024-01-01

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Reading and Writing Place

  2024-01-01

  bookSenior author

  <JATS1:p>In Reading and Writing Place: Connecting Rural Schools and Communities Erika L. Bass and Amy Price Azano suggest there is a need to add nuance to the ways we consider and engage with place in the classroom. Using a narrative writing project completed with two rural schools in two states, the authors provide an explanation of critical placed education and how students' explorations of place through writing led the authors to develop a concept of place (Big "P" and small "p" place). Students' explorations of place highlighted the how internalizations and externalizations of place impact identity formation and sense of belonging.</JATS1:p>

  PublisherDOI

• Chapter 3: A Nuanced Theory of P/place

  Lexington Books · 2024-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Reading and Writing Place

  Lexington Books · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  bookSenior author

  In <italic>Reading and Writing Place: Connecting Rural Schools and Communities</italic> Erika L. Bass and Amy Price Azano suggest there is a need to add nuance to the ways we consider and engage with place in the classroom. Using a narrative writing project completed with two rural schools in two states, the authors provide an explanation of critical placed education and how students' explorations of place through writing led the authors to develop a concept of place (Big "P" and small "p" place). Students' explorations of place highlighted the how internalizations and externalizations of place impact identity formation and sense of belonging.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Tracy C. Missett

  78 shared

• Carolyn M. Callahan

  University of Virginia

  57 shared

• Carolyn M. Callahan

  University of Louisville

  50 shared

• Annalissa V. Brodersen

  University of Virginia

  39 shared

• Melanie Caughey

  36 shared

• Mary Tackett

  35 shared

• Ann K. Schulte

  25 shared

• Devon Brenner

  24 shared

Labs

• School of EducationPI