A trialogue about method in rural education

This three-way conversation or 'trialogue' demonstrates that people come to research in rural education in a variety of ways, with the personal journey of the researcher impacting on research questions, how the research is conceptualised and the importance ascribed to research problems. Mike and John became committed to rural education through their first appointments as teachers, while Pam's commitment comes from being a lifelong rural resident. We each continue to participate in our rural communities and have concerns about policies for education in rural communities and for the future wellbeing of rural communities. In what we have called a 'trialogue', we reflect on how we became researchers of/in rural education and share some of our research priorities and then move to discussion about our individual and collective understanding of researcher objectivity. We conclude with an exchange about rural education research in an era of globalization, including measures of educational outcomes, the importance of understanding and fore grounding the complexity of rural education and taking 'radical hope' into rural education. We have decided to use this 'trialogue' approach as a tool both to help us make explicit the views that underpin and shape our research, and to stimulate those interested in learning more about rural research.