Austria has many small rural primary schools, due to topological conditions and a political support for small and very small rural schools: Sixty percent of the nationwide primary schools are schools with fewer than 100 pupils; 40% have fewer than 50 and six percent fewer than 20 pupils (Statistik Austria, 2015). In this presentation insights into small rural schools will be provided, based on the project ‚Small Schools in Rural Regions‘ (2012-2015) and current research in the Western part of Austria. Case studies of 10 small rural schools show that head teachers and teachers welcome the degree of autonomy they have to create a school and experience that together with the small nature of the schools make it possible to implement new ideas easily (Raggl et al., 2015; Raggl, 2015). The presentation draws on ethnographic research conducted in three small village schools which have been going through a process of change over the last years by developing a special profile. Two of them have transformed from “traditional” village schools to committed Montessori Schools (Raggl, forthcoming). The head teachers have found a niche to change the small schools according to their own values and pedagogical ideas. The ethnographic project explores the working of these schools and in particular the opportunities, challenges and consequences of their transformations. The findings reveal that changing the village school into a school with a special profile helps to market the school: Up to half of the pupils are coming from outside the village. The schools have been threatened by school closure and the high intake from pupils from outside and the parental support made it possible to secure the existence of the school. At the same time some of the parents of the village are critical about the high intake from pupils from outside. The change seems to have created a gap between ‘villagers’ and ‘outsiders‘. The Montessori pedagogy exemplifies an example of the global in the local. The global brand Montessori (Ulrich, 2015) seems to be a solution for small rural schools that are fighting for their existence and need to increase the numbers of children by attracting parents from outside their catchment area. At the same time the often perceived benefits of small rural schools, such as offering more individual attention to each child, seem to be in line with the Montessori approach. However, the global brand seems to take away something of their uniqueness as local village schools.

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