Understanding School Community and School Resources: Human, Material, and Social Resources Association With School Community Indicators

• In Event: Creating and Sustaining Positive School Communities

Abstract

Current quantitative empirical work is not producing satisfying explanations about how teachers influence student learning. Many attributes misrepresent the teacher influence ideas theoretically proposed in the school community and effective schools literature. If we think that teachers and school environments relate to student learning, it is crucial to understand why certain schools produce more effective learning environments than others and how school contexts affect teachers’ and students’ attitudes and behaviors. In order to better match the theory of school community effects to school effectiveness, better measures, such as more complex school resource information, need to be analyzed. This paper addresses the research question: How do the social resources of schools relate to indicators of school community?

Author

• Heather E. Price, University of Notre Dame