A review of research yields nine conclusions concerning mathematics achievement among rural and urban students. Among them are that currently a national rural vs. non-rural mathematics achievement gap does not exist; at the state level, a rural vs. non-rural achievement gap exists in 40 percent of the states, and that gap is evenly split between favoring and not favoring rural students; and schooling conditions account for about 70 percent of the variance associated with the rural/non-rural state-level achievement gap. It would seem that portrayals of rural inferiority derive from cultural and ideological dominance, even hegemony, and from a long line of misinterpretations of available evidence. Qualitative research yields a better understanding of the importance of locale than most quantitative research, because it investigates the meanings attached to circumstances, places, and other phenomena. The meaningfulness of rural places (and of rurally attuned education) is more likely to exhibit itself in variation, interaction, contradiction, and even paradox than in simple measures of difference on conventionally valued quantities. Future research into the circumstances of rural mathematics education (structural features, equity, adequacy, collective purpose) must consider the meanings of "rural lifeways" as it frames and pursues salient questions. Consideration of these meanings is tantamount to valuing and respecting them, since they are so widely devalued. (Contains 26 references.) (TD)