Het platteland, de noodzaak voor een nieuw sociaal-ruimtelijk perspectief: stand van zaken binnen het HBO-onderzoek en onderwijs.

Current developments mean that various bodies are paying renewed attention to inequality of opportunity between regions in the Netherlands. The report Iedere Regio Telt (2023) was an important impetus for this. However, an inventory of the focus in research and education at universities of applied sciences within the socio-spatial domain shows that there is (still) little explicit attention for the countryside and its residents. Networks, curriculum components and lectorate groups largely focus on cities and neighbourhoods. In this opinion article, given the accumulation of issues that rural regions and communities are faced with, we argue for more attention to the countryside from universities of applied sciences. Given the (im)possibilities of local village communities to play a decisive, long-term role in this, more attention is also needed from this perspective from (future) social workers and thus Social Work courses and related practical research.