This research aims to unearth the educational challenges experienced by teachers and communities in rural Turkey. The research employs Nancy Fraser’s three dimensional justice approach – distribution, recognition and participation – to frame these challenges and to argue that rural challenges go beyond economic rationalities and concerns of infrastructure and resources. The study draws its data from 29 in-depth interviews with 20 teachers working in 16 different villages; 9 interviews with community members; and 2 focus group interviews, 1 with rural dwelling women and the other with rural dwelling men. The findings point out four significant difficulties that impede community and educational development: scarcity of resources; insufficient understanding of social, cultural and economic contexts that constrain educational attempts; lack of collaboration between teacher and communities; and irrelevant education. The study concludes by scrutinising how these difficulties interact with one another and result in marginalisation or casting out of rural lives.