This descriptive, correlational study investigated small learning community campuses‘ teachers‘ perceptions and traditional high school campuses‘ teachers‘ perceptions of eight factors as measured by the Cultural Awareness and Beliefs Inventory (CABI): (1) cultural awareness, (2) teacher beliefs, (3) school climate, (4) culturally responsive classroom management, (5) home and community support, (6) curriculum and instruction strategies, (7) cultural sensitivity, and (8) teacher efficacy. Further, the statistical differences between teachers‘ perceptions were explored as related to ethnicity and gender. The relationship between teachers‘ perceptions as measured by the CABI and student achievement as measured by the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) Ninth Grade Reading Test was examined. The data were collected from eight secondary campuses in a large urban school district in the southwest United States: four small learning community campuses and four traditional high school campuses.
This descriptive, correlational study of ninth grade teachers‘ perceptions of cultural awareness and beliefs yielded unexpected results when delineated by the campus group in which the teacher was employed. The data found statistically significant differences between Small Learning Community campuses‘ and Traditional High School campuses‘ teachers‘ perceptions of school climate by campus group, by ethnicity and campus group, and finally by gender and campus group. Two additional factors of the CABI reported statistically significant difference when delineated by ethnicity: cultural awareness and teacher efficacy. The relationships between teachers‘ perceptions of the eight factors and the TAKS for ninth grade reading reported negative correlations for the small learning campus groups‘ teachers and a mixed results for the traditional high school campus groups‘ teachers with five negative correlations and three positive correlations for HCS, CI, and CS. In the final analysis, these results countered the expected responses given the research on small learning communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-12-8565 |
| Date | 2010 December 1900 |
| Creators | Yandell, Shanah Lea |
| Contributors | Carter, Dr. Norvella, Knight, Dr. Stephanie |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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