Adolescent Alienation and Student Perceptions of School Climate

This case study of one midwestern high school explored indepth the relationships between adolescent alienation and student perceptions of school climate, with the goal of understanding those relationships and finding ways the school might change in order to decrease alienation in students. With the student sample of 214, alienation was measured by Mackey's Adolescent Alienation Scale and the measure of school climate was the Effective School Battery Student Survey. Additionally, focus groups with 14 less- and 16 more-alienated students and six teachers provided clarification of the relationships indicated by the statistical analysis of the alienation and climate scores. This combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods showed more-alienated students: (a) were more involved in unsafe activity, either as victims or aggressors; (b) felt teachers did not respect them because they were not members of status groups in school or because they were not good students; (c) saw the school as unchanging and were unfamiliar with existing school systems; (d) were hostile toward student government and felt powerless to make changes in the school; and (e) disliked many school rules, feeling teachers treated them more harshly than others for rule infractions. Thirteen specific interventions are proposed to deal directly with the needs of the more-alienated students.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Tucker-Ladd, Patricia Rose

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ward, James G.

• Education, Administration
• Education, Secondary

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9011060

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/71911