Competing Values, Competing Narratives: Rural Education Politics in Dual Arenas
Open Access
- Author:
- McHenry-Sorber, Erin C.
- Graduate Program:
- Educational Leadership
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- July 25, 2011
- Committee Members:
- Kai Arthur Schafft, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Kai Arthur Schafft, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Nona Ann Prestine, Committee Member
Dana Lynn Mitra, Committee Member
Jacqueline Edmondson, Committee Member - Keywords:
- rural education
local education politics
micropolitics
teacher strike
collective bargaining
unions
educational leadership - Abstract:
- The harmonious coexistence of rural schools and their communities is a common perception that pervades the American mindset. However, many rural communities and their schools experience factionalization. Mountainville School District provides an exemplary case for studying rural school-community fragmentation and discord. Mountainville experienced its first teacher strike in district history during a contentious collective bargaining process that spanned from 2005 to 2009. Using Mountainville as a revelatory case, this grounded theory study explores the origins of school-community conflict, the processes through which it is exacerbated and resolved, and the effects of conflict on school-community relations. The grounded theory resulting from this study explains how macro and micro social and economic contexts contribute to community fragmentation and competing values and interests regarding education at the local level. The theory also shows the ways in which opposing political coalitions vie for values legitimacy and power over educational decision-making, including negotiations in the formal policy arena and political power struggles in the informal arena. In the informal arena, coalitions consolidate political power around competing hegemonic narratives of the rural community. The centrality of competing narratives in this grounded theory is more appropriate for the study of rural school-community engagement than traditional notions of micropolitics because in rural communities, community identity is tied to the local school. Furthermore, because of the importance of community identity to rural populations, the politicization of this identity through the propagation of competing hegemonic narratives can result in social exclusion of community members and have lasting negative effects on rural communities and schools.