Accountable for Caring: Cultivating Teachers Who Care in Urban High Schools

• In Event: On the Effectiveness of Educational Factors: Do Tracking, Teaching, Caring, Equity Promotion, and Policy Matter?

Abstract

One approach to schooling that effectively fosters students’ academic, social, and emotional learning is an ethic of care (Noddings, 1984). This comparative case study documents the ways in which teachers at two highly-effective and two less-effective urban high schools care for students and the contextual factors that help or hinder caring. The study analyzed 81 teacher interviews, 24 student interviews, and 10 student focus groups conducted during the 2010 – 2011 school year. Although participants from all four schools emphasized an uncaring district context, highly-effective high schools had specific classroom and school-wide practices in place that allowed authentic, caring student-teacher relationships to form. Implications for educators and school leaders are discussed.

Authors

• Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Danielle Allen, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill