How can I improve my life-affirming, need-fulfilling, and performance enhancing capacity to understand and model the meaning of educational quality?

Infectious pessimism, widespread apathy, and volatile relationships: these describe the high school culture I unwittingly adopted as a first-time principal at Potsdam High School in a rural suburban town in New England. I conducted a three-year intensive self-study and participatory action research project to challenge the status quo definition of educational quality in American public high school as a statistical tool of ranking, separating students, and compliance. I sought through co-investigation with beneficiaries and stakeholders of public high school a life-affirming, need-fulfilling and performance-enhancing meaning of quality to challenge the status quo Based on action research, I created a new meta-model of the meaning of quality to guide my leadership called Transformational Quality Theory (TQT). The thesis describes how using TQT theory influenced my improvement as a school leader and educational theorist, the learning and transformation of other people, and the impact it had on improving the academic and social milieu of an impoverished American high school.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Nottingham Trent University

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Barry, WJ

Language dc:language

en