An Ethnographic Look at the Role of Staff's Relational Trust in Student Discipline

• In Event: 35.077 - Pushing Beyond Zero: Issues in Zero-Tolerance School Discipline and Positive Discipline Alternatives

Abstract

Objective
Research targeting students’ experiences with school discipline primarily relies on quantitative analyses of survey data (Arum, 2003). Some studies examine the nature of relationships among staff members, referred to as relational trust (Bryk and Scheider, 2002). Yet studies of staff members rarely report the effects of staff relationships on students’ outcomes beyond academic test scores (Bryk and Schneider, 2002). This study responds to the need for qualitatively exploring students’ experiences in an afterschool setting that is unaffected by zero tolerance discipline policies and involves interactions with many different adults, which allows for observation of a range of disciplinary approaches. Research on school discipline indicates that students and their families’ perceptions of discipline are based on the balance between fairness and strictness (Arum, 2003). I examine the degree to which relational trust among staff members affects student discipline and ask How does relational trust among staff members affect students’ clarity of disciplinary expectations for their behavior and final products in an after school program?

Theoretical Framework
Organizations in which strong relational trust exists among staff are more likely to create positive learning environments for students (Bryk and Schneider, 2002). Relational trust is defined as an individual’s perceptions of their own and others’ competencies, roles and responsibilities in an organization and the confidence that others will act as they expect (Bryk and Schneider, 2002). Relational trust influences norms and rules within a school. Students’ perceptions of fairness of rules and disciplinary approaches are rooted in a set of internalized norms that develop within a school community (Arum, 2003; Durkheim, 1947).

Methods
Using data from a nine-month ethnographic study of a teen filmmaking after school program in a large U.S. city, I examine relationships among staff members and how those relationships affect the clarity of behavioral expectations for students, as measured by students’ and staff’s accounts. I spent an average of twelve hours a week at Film Buffs and conducted 30 interviews with all five staff members and all 25 student participants. I will use Dedoose software to code fieldnotes and interview transcripts in order to develop themes for examining for whom and under what conditions relational trust was present and how, if at all, staff relationships affected disciplinary decisions.

Data sources
During my observations, I jotted notes by hand and promptly transformed jottings into detailed fieldnotes. I also wrote down verbal exchanges among staff and students and conversations people had with me as soon as the conversations had ended. I interviewed students about their relationships with adults by asking questions about approaches to discipline. I asked staff about how they saw their roles with respect to discipline.

Significance
Relational trust is an important link in understanding how practitioners enact zero tolerance discipline policies (Lipsky, 1980). Employing ethnographic work and interviews to document students’ interactions with adults provides unique access to the nuances of staff relationships and how they influence the consistency and fairness of student discipline.

Author

• Jessica Lipschultz, New York University