In the Interreg research project “Small Schools in Alpine Regions” (2012-2015) research was carried out in small rural primary schools in Austria (Vorarlberg) and two Suisse cantons (Grisons and St. Gallen). In the three regions are a lot of small rural primary schools with less than 50 pupil: In Vorarlberg 40%, in Grisons 60% and in the canton St. Gallen 23%. All of these small schools have multi-grade classes because of the low number of pupils. We were interested in teachers’ experiences to work in a small rural primary school and how they are organizing the learning in these multi-grade classes. We were also interested in students’ perspectives. In this paper the main focus is on the teaching practices used in the participating schools from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Different types of dealing with the age-heterogeneity in these schools can be identified: (1) teacher centered practices and age/grade orientation, (2) teacher centered practices and age orientation combined with child centered practices (e.g. working with a weekly plan), (3) multi-age approaches with many common learning activities of all children and (4)a highly individualized learning. Methods The project has a mixed method approach. First a questionnaire study was carried out with all head teachers and teachers of the small schools in the three regions. Then we carried out case studies in 10 small schools in each region. The case studies contained 29 interviews with head teachers and 46 teachers, 30 group interviews, participant observation and document analysis (homepage of the school, school brochure, etc.).

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