In an era of comprehensive school reform, it appears that the voice of teachers is seldom solicited or recognized in the process of planning and implementing school-wide reform. The primary purpose of this study was to report the lived experiences of teachers at Timberton North High School (pseudonym) as it related to the Smaller Learning Community (SLC) reform initiative. Research questions addressed how the faculty experienced the SLC initiative and how their experiences were different from their perceived notion of what SLCs were trying to accomplish and in what ways SLCs initiated a socially constructed understanding of educational purposes. This study utilized a social constructivist lens to identify the nuances of reform and the interplay of effects upon the social, historical, and cultural constructs as they existed on the Timberton North campus and in the minds of the faculty members who participated.
The lived experience of the faculty members who participated in this study could be summed up in terms of frustration. The concept of frustration was manifest throughout the data as a unifying thread of a socially constructed understanding. Members of the faculty who formally and informally participated cited various evidences to substantiate their position of frustration, which proved invaluable to the success of this research. The theme of frustration, coupled with disaggregated subthemes, offers a hermeneutic understanding as to what was experienced on the Timberton North Campus. An additional theme of “hope” emerged from the data, as each of the faculty members expressed, in one way or another that something good would come as a result of their SLC efforts in the future.
There is considerable attention given in this study to the way the SLC concept was first articulated by the school and district and what was actually realized on the Timberton North campus. This further situates the lived experience within the context of the themes. The themes that were derived in this study have also been situated into the current literature that elaborates on issues of teacher emotionality, educational policy, administrative leadership, and educational reform in general. This particular study is primarily beneficial to those who participated. However, this piece of research will provide some breadth to the growing body of research that involves how teachers influence comprehensive high school reform agendas.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-1984 |
| Date | 01 May 2011 |
| Creators | Nye, Richard K. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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