A school community is often more than meets the eye. With more research highlighting the benefits of school-community partnerships, the notion of what constitutes community in an elementary school setting leaves much room to be further examined. In this study, community is considered through two lenses: a geographically-defined community and a sense of community defined by mutual sensibilities, goals, and practices (Weathers, 2011; Wenger, 1998). The purpose of this study was to understand faculty and staff perceptions of community in a challenged urban elementary school. A qualitative research methodology with a phenomenological approach was used in this case study. Participants included the faculty, staff, and the leadership team currently employed at an elementary school. Data collection methods included semi-structured interviews, participant conversations, observations, artifacts, and document analysis. These methods were used to capture the phenomenon and experiences of people working in and with the school. Three themes emerged from the data, describing who and what contribute to community in a challenged urban elementary school: (a) members of the community, (b) the prioritization of students at the school, and (c) the intractable problems that exist within the school, both on micro and macro levels. Based on these findings, the main conclusion was that teachers played the biggest role in prioritizing students, as they were the community members most immersed with students on a daily basis. Additional conclusions were: (a) the level of student need is high, (b) intractable problems challenge the development of community, and (c) principal and teacher turnover challenge the development of community. / Doctor of Philosophy / A school community is often more than meets the eye. With more research highlighting the benefits of school-community partnerships, the notion of what constitutes community in an elementary school setting leaves much room to be further examined. In this study, community is considered through two lenses: a geographically-defined community and a sense of community defined by mutual interests, goals, and practices. The purpose of this study was to understand faculty and staff perceptions of community in a challenged urban elementary school. I conducted my research at an elementary school in the Southeastern part of the United States. I focused on the faculty, staff, and the leadership team at the elementary school. I interviewed faculty and staff, had conversations, observed within the school, took photos, and examined documents that helped me better understand the school and its community. In my findings, I described who and what contribute to community: (a) members of the community, (b) the prioritization of students at the school, and (c) the intractable problems that exist within the school. The main conclusion in this study was that teachers played the biggest role in prioritizing students, as they were the community members most immersed with students on a daily basis. Additional conclusions were: (a) the level of student need is high, (b) intractable problems challenge the development of community, and (c) principal and teacher turnover challenge the development of community.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/111787 |
| Date | 09 September 2022 |
| Creators | Fielder, Emily Wade |
| Contributors | Education, Vocational-Technical, Doolittle, Peter E., Jones, Brett D., Baum Walker, Liesl M., Magliaro, Susan G. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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