Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

7-17-1972

Abstract

The central concern of this study was to investigate and analyze student perceptions of the school bureaucracy. The findings indicated a relationship between the student characteristics of age, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and total effectiveness, and student perceptions of school bureaucracy. It was also found that students perceive the school more bureaucratically than did a panel of judges’ rating the same school.

Students in nine schools (three elementary, three junior high, and three senior high) in the Albuquerque Public School District served as subjects in this study. The schools were stratified according to the socio-economic status of the school population. At each grade level, all three socio-economic groups were represented.

Data were collected by questionnaire. Students completed a form that contained questions pertaining to their perceptions of school bureaucracy, their socio-economic status, ethnicity, sex, age and total effectiveness. Data were also collected from a panel of judges familiar with the Albuquerque Public Schools.

Relationships between student characteristics and student perceptions of school bureaucracy were analyzed using one way analysis of variance and unweighted means analysis of variance. It was only in combination with one another that student characteristics made a significant difference in student perceptions of school.

It is suggested from these findings that student perceptions reflect a degree of alienation from schools. since this was not the primary focus of this study, the following chain hypotheses are offered.

1. Student perceptions are related to their feeling of control over their own destiny (defined in this study as total effectiveness) when socio-economic status is controlled.

2. The less available characteristic of total effectiveness lodged within students is related to students' alienation from school.

Based upon data, it is suggested that student character­istics arrange themselves on a continuum from the more available (sex, age, ethnicity) to the less available (socio­economic status and total effectiveness). It is further suggested that schoolmen be cautious about using the more obvious characteristics for categorizing students, as student characteristics in combination with each other may give more reliable data for decision making.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Martin Burlingame

Second Committee Member

Leroy Condie

Third Committee Member

Ronald Eugene Blood

Fourth Committee Member

Paul Arnold Pohland

Download

Share

COinS