Teacher Social Networks and Professional Community in Small Autonomous High Schools

• In Event: 63.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

The decentralization of school governance—often blended with market dynamics—has become a prominent strategy for lifting the performance of urban schools. This approach rests upon several assumptions, primarily that freedom from bureaucratic regulation will improve teacher community and result in more effective and efficient use of instructional resources. But do small autonomous high schools host such favorable social-organizational conditions? What drives teacher collaborative relationships in decentralized schools? And do these relations account for between-school and between-teacher variation in teacher trust and shared responsibility for student learning? To examine these core questions I draw on survey data from 416 teachers situated in 20 small autonomous high schools, along with in-depth qualitative data on three schools.
Research Questions
1. What are the patterns of teacher collaboration in small autonomous charter and pilot high schools?
2. What accounts for varying characteristics of teachers’ collaborative networks in small autonomous high schools?
a. To what extent does the informal structure reflect the principal’s efforts to formally organize collaboration?
b. To what extent are these relationships driven by attributes of individual teachers themselves?
3. What is the relationship between the patterns of teacher collaboration and teachers’ perception of school climate (relational trust and collective responsibility)?
Research Design
• Survey of all teachers in 20 Los Angeles schools (n=416; 92% response rate)
• Survey included:
Social network data
Collective responsibility scale
Relational trust scale
Demographic variables
• Interview and observation data from 3 schools
• Analysis I: p2 network modeling of teacher advice ties
• Analysis II: HLM estimating collective responsibility and relational trust

Author

• Anisah Waite, University of Virginia