Mary Uhl-Bien’s Relational Leadership Theory;
Social Constructivism;
Hallinger & Murphy’s Instructional Leadership
The research is structured as a comparative, multiple qualitative case study. The purpose of the multicase study was to explore the perceptions of educators working in four schools located in a Central Southwest state. Mary Uhl-Bien’s Relational Leadership Theory and the components of inclusivity, empowerment, purposefulness, ethical behaviors, and process orientation, and Hallinger & Murphy’s Instructional Leadership and the components of defining a school’s mission, managing the instructional program, and promoting a positive school learning climate will be applied to data collection and analysis to better understand how communication practices influence perceptions of school culture, belonging, and collaboration.
The four purposefully selected schools were selected using the following criteria: one urban elementary blue ribbon awarded school, one urban elementary school identified for school improvement for two consecutive years within the last three years, one urban high school identified as high performing based on the state’s accountability tool, and one middle school identified for school improvement for two consecutive years within the last three years. The multicase study research sought to purposefully select 20 participants, five from each school: one to two administrative leaders (principal, assistant principal, instructional coach, lead special education teacher), two to three teachers (mix of grade levels including at least one alternatively certified, one early career teacher, and one veteran teacher), and one to two parents or community partner representatives. Research site approval by superintendents and Informed Consent signed forms will be acquired after receiving the university’s IRB approval. Pseudonyms will be used to protect all participants, aligning with strategies that promote credibility and trustworthiness.
Data collection is occurring in the Fall of 2025, and sources will be triangulated. Data collection sources include participant interviews, adapted version of the open academic resource PBISapps (2022) School Climate Survey, nonparticipant observations, and document review. Semi-structured interviews (15 question interview protocol) were held and recorded via Zoom. A Zoom transcription was created and shared with participants to provide an opportunity to edit or approve the interview question responses. Observations of staff meetings, PLC meetings, morning and after school huddles, morning and afternoon duty areas, and one classroom observation per site was recorded on an observation protocol and in a field journal. Document review includes examples of staff memorandums, meeting agendas, school newsletters, school site reports, district communication policies, samples of classroom communications to parents, and communication examples to community partner representatives. Thematic analysis will follow the structure outlined by Kalpokaite and Radivojevic (2019). Analysis will begin with organization and familiarity: multiple rounds of reading, precoding actions include developing a codebook and organizing with a round of memo coding. Inductive coding will structure first and second cycle pattern coding. Etic, emic, and in vivo coding will lead to identifying patterns and emerging within case and cross-case categories and themes. Categories and themes will be integrated into findings to present findings through answering research questions in a narrative analysis, and present data connections through a theoretical and thematic analysis. Nvivo software and manual coding integrating organizational tools of Google Docs and Google Spreadsheet will combine to complete the thematic analysis process.
Four research questions guide the study: How do educators working in public school settings within a Central Southwest state describe the use of communication that impacts school culture and climate? How do educators in public school settings within a Central Southwest state describe successful approaches to integrating inclusive communication practices that impact school culture and climate? How do educators in public school settings within a Central Southwest state describe challenges and barriers to integrating inclusive communication practices that impact school culture nd climate? How do educators describe the connections to inclusivity, empowerment, purposefulness, ethical behaviors, and process orientation, and defining a school’s mission, managing the instructional program, and promoting a positive school learning climate with communication practices among peers and with students?
Credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability will be supported using purposeful sampling, triangulation, member checks, peer debriefing, rich thick descriptions, and an audit trail. Ethical considerations supporting the Belmont Report principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice, include treating each participant fairly support fair and transparent requests and required signatures, avoiding undue influence in selection, ensuring autonomy in making decisions to participate, protecting collected data, appropriately completing the study with a report to the university's IRB, and destroying all files five years after the study's completion.
Document collection is being conducted now and participant followups include survey completion after that is determined by November 1, 2025. The data collection is expected to be complete by November 30, 2025-December 15, 2025. Analysis and early findings construction is expected by February 2026 and drafting the paper is expected by March - April, 2026. Early data collection (completed interviews and school non-participant observations) indicates the analysis will support the need to provide educators with training on inclusive communication practices and to embed ongoing training with PLCs and in whole school workshop formats. The drafted presentation will occur in May-June.
Case studies provide an opportunity to capture rich, contextualized data from real-time experiences in our educational environments. As much of the nation’s public discourse penetrates the work of educational leaders in school settings, researchers are even more accountable for addressing practices that impact students’ optimal learning environments. The research is significant to both theory and practice, as it addresses a gap in current research.
Agudelo, F. I., Cole, D., Gallant, S., & Mabee, C. (2021). Restorative justice and the
school-to-prison pipeline: A conceptual framework to address racial and ethnic
disproportionality. Children & Schools, 43(3), 141–148.
Al-Saadi, H. (2014). Demystifying ontology and epistemology in research methods,’
Research gate, 1(1), pp. 1–10.
Barnett, R. (2022). The homeless student – and recovering a sense of belonging.. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.53761/1.19.4.2
Bezyak, J., Moser, E., Iwanaga, K., Wu, J.-R., Chen, X., & Chan, F. (2020). Disability inclusion strategies: An exploratory study. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 53(2), 183–188. https://doi-org.snu.idm.oclc.org/10.3233/JVR-201095
Brady, L. M., Wang, C., Griffiths, C., Yang, J., Markus, H. R., Fryberg, S. A. (2024). A leadership-level culture cycle intervention changes teachers' culturally inclusive beliefs and practices. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A., 121(25):e2322872121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2322872121.
Civitillo, S., Göbel, K., Preusche, Z., & Jugert, P. (2021). Disentangling the effects of perceived personal and group ethnic discrimination among secondary school students: The protective role of teacher–student relationship quality and school climate. New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development, 2021(177), 77–99.
Costa, A. & Kallick, B. (2008). Learning and leading with habits of mind: 16 essential characteristics for success. ASCD.
Creswell, J. W. (2016). 30 essential skills for the qualitative researcher. SAGE
Crotty, M. (2003). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspectives in the research process (3rd ed.). Sage.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Cook-Harvey, C. M. (2018). Educating the whole child:Improving school climate to support student success. Learning Policy Institute.
Day, J. K., Fish, J. N., Grossman, A. H., & Russell, S. T. (2020). Gay-straight alliances,
inclusive policy, and school climate: LGBTQ youths’ experiences of social
support and bullying. Journal of Research on Adolescence: The Official Journal
of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 30(2), 418–430.
Eger, L., & Prášilová, M. (2020). The relation between school culture sub-categories and
expected results of learning process. Problems of Education in the 21st Century,
78(1), 48-60. https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.48
Goodwin, B. (2024). The power of high expectations. ASCD, 82(2).
Haslip, M. J., & Donaldson, L. (2021). How early childhood educators resolve workplace challenges using character strengths and model character for children in the process. Early Childhood Education Journal, 49(2), 337–348.
Howard, J., Bingener, C., Howard, T. (2021). Essential strategies for inclusive teaching. ASCD, (79)4.
Johnson, M. (2022). The power of inclusive leadership. ASCD, 80(2).
Kalpokaite, N., & Radivojevic, I. (2019). Demystifying qualitative data analysis for
novice qualitative researchers. The Qualitative Report, 24(13), 44-57.
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.4120
Knox, K. M. (2024). Taking a stand: What every school social worker should know about critical disability theory. Children & Schools, 46(3), 195–197.
Kuttner, P. J. (2023). The right to belong in school: a critical, transdisciplinary conceptualization of school belonging. AERA Open, 9. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231183407
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant
pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159–165.http://www.jstor.org/stable/1476635
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American
Educational Research Journal, 32(3): 465–491.
Major, E. (2023). Parent-teacher communication from the perspective of the educator. Central European Journal of Educational Research, 5(10). https://doi.org/10.37441/cejer/2023/5/2/13281.
McCabe, E. M., Kaskoun J., Bennett, S., Meadows-Oliver, M., Schroeder, K. (2024). Addressing school connectedness, belonging, and culturally appropriate care for newly immigrated students and families. J Pediatr Health Care, 38(2):233-239. doi: 10.1016/j.pedhc.2023.10.001.
Paulo, F. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
Privitera, G. J., & Ahlgrim-Delzell, L. (2019). Research methods for education. Sage
Publications.
Shah, M. A. (2022). Teachers as reflective practitioners: From individualism to Vygotskian social constructivism. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 68(3), 297–307.
Smala, S., McLay, K., & Gillies, R. M. (2025). Teacher relationships and social connectedness. Teachers and Teaching, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2025.2494036
Walker, K. & Kutsyuruba, B., & Cherkowski, S. (2021). Positive leadership for flourishing schools. Information Age Publishing.
Other presentations in this group:
Back
Trips and Tours