The Disruptive Effects of Equity-Oriented Policy Change On

The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

OLD DOGS AND NEW PUPPIES:

THE DISRUPTIVE EFFECTS OF EQUITY-ORIENTED POLICY CHANGE ON

LEARNING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

A Dissertation in

Educational Theory and Policy and Comparative and International Education

G. Eric McGinnis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

December 2020 ii

The dissertation of G. Eric McGinnis was reviewed and approved by the following:

Dana L. Mitra Professor of Education Educational Theory & Policy Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee

David A. Gamson Associate Professor of Education Educational Theory & Policy

Gerald K. LeTendre Professor of Education Education Policy Studies

Mark A. Brennan Professor of Agricultural and Extension Education and Applied Youth, Family, and Community Education

Kevin Kinser Department Head, Education Policy Studies Professor of Education Higher Education

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Abstract

This dissertation analyzes practitioner implementation of values-laden policy in the organizational setting. Its primary focus is on understanding the processes of learning and change that take place when practitioners’ deeply held beliefs come into conflict with values-laden policies. This study is oriented around World Scouting in the U.S. context, focusing on volunteer scout leaders of the Boy Scouts of America Inc. Employing an embedded case study approach to exploring five scout units in the northeast United States, this study explores volunteer scout leader experiences implementing new Boy Scouts of America membership policies. The new policies allow girls and individuals identifying as LGBTQ+ to participate fully in the program as youth members and scout leaders for the first time in the organization’s history. Relying on narrative interviewing, observations, and various types of document analysis, this study takes a multifaceted comparative approach to analyze the process of practitioner implementation of equity- oriented policies and how it relates to practitioner beliefs, identity and belongingness in the community setting. A layered conceptual framework which incorporates Landscapes of Practice, Communities of Practice and Critical Sensemaking addresses the forces of peer exchange and power which guides the untangling of these complex processes of social learning. Findings indicate that operationalizing organizational values in the peer exchange process enables practitioners’ faithful and consistent implementation of values- laden policy. These findings draw a link between espoused organizational values, peer exchange, and practice, together enabling practitioners to change or adapt their personal beliefs when they are in conflict with new policies. In the applied setting these findings enable organizational leaders in the policy planning process, guiding a systemic approach to policy implementation and selecting organizational interventions. Findings contribute to theory across several disciplines, with implications for the study of nonformal education implementation and evaluation, organizational leadership, and communities of practice.

Table of Contents

List of Tables ...... vii List of Figures ...... viii Acknowledgements ...... ix Chapter 1 - Introduction ...... 1 Importance of Study ...... 3 Background ...... 5 Why Scouting? ...... 7 Boy Scouts in Crisis ...... 8 Research Questions ...... 11 Chapter 2 - Scouting Context...... 13 World Organization of Scouting Movement ...... 13 Structure and Governance ...... 14 Boy Scouts of America ...... 18 Policy Change ...... 23 Shift Toward Equity ...... 26 Diversity and Scouting’s Future ...... 29 Variability in Scouting Implementation ...... 30 Chapter 3 - Literature Review ...... 33 Chapter 4 - Conceptual Framework ...... 40 Landscapes of Practice ...... 40 Critical Sensemaking...... 42 Layering of Frameworks ...... 44 Chapter 5 - Research Design and Methods ...... 51 Ethics and Positionality ...... 51 Research Design ...... 54 Typology ...... 55 Site Selection ...... 58 Methods ...... 64 Recruiting ...... 65 Setting and Data Sources ...... 67 Analysis ...... 70 Validity ...... 74

Chapter 6 - Pilot Study ...... 77 Setting and Data Sources and Analysis ...... 78 Pilot Study Findings ...... 79 Personal Belief Effects ...... 80 Channels of Influence ...... 81 Discussion ...... 86 Shaping the Study...... 91 Case Selection ...... 93 Data and Methods ...... 94 Conceptual Framing ...... 94 Concept Map ...... 95 Chapter 7 - Findings ...... 97 Burbane ...... 99 City Shadow ...... 112 Trooptopia ...... 126 Hallowcrest...... 148 The Valley ...... 171 Integration of Findings ...... 188 Norms and Governance ...... 188 The Role and Influence of The Chartered Organization ...... 199 Policy Environment ...... 203 Enabling and Constraining ...... 210 Chapter 8 - Discussion ...... 213 Policy Analysis ...... 214 Coupling ...... 216 The Chartered Organization ...... 218 Structured Avoidance ...... 228 Will, Capacity, Fidelity and Implementation ...... 232 BSA and Race ...... 241 Community of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix ...... 243 Defining Participant Roles ...... 246 Disrupting the Community of Practice...... 249 Baseline Participation ...... 250 Shifts in Participation ...... 252

Shifts in Trajectory ...... 257 Opportunities for Intervention ...... 261 Chapter 9 - Implications ...... 266 Diversity in Practitioner-oriented Organizations ...... 266 Community of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix ...... 269 Disruption of Learning Communities ...... 271 Changing Practitioner Beliefs ...... 271 Systemic Support ...... 273 The Study of Nonformal Education ...... 274 References ...... 278 Appendix A - Excerpt of Charter & Bylaws of the BSA ...... 296 Appendix B - Excerpt of Rules & Regulations of the BSA ...... 298 Appendix C - Scout Leader Code of Conduct ...... 300 Appendix D - Chartered Organization Agreement ...... 301 Appendix E - Scout Leader Survey ...... 303 Appendix F - Semi-Structured Interview Protocol ...... 306 Appendix G - Observation Checklist ...... 307 Appendix H - Codebook ...... 308

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List of Tables

Table 2.1: Essential Elements of Scouting 16 Table 5.1: Linked Scouts BSA Troops Meting Typology Criteria 63 Table 5.2: Case Selection of Linked Scouts BSA Units 63 Table 5.3: Scout Leader Participants by Scout Unit and Role 67 Table 6.1: Pilot Study Findings and Modifications 92 Table 7.1: Enablers & Constraints of New Membership Policy Implementation 212

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1: World Scouting Governance Hierarchy 15 Figure 2.2: Boy Scouts of America Governance Structure 19 Figure 2.3: Regions of the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. 21 Figure 4.1: Landscape of Practice Concept Map 47 Figure 4.2: Linear Concept Map 49 Figure 4.3: Landscapes of Influence on Practitioner Learning 50 Figure 5.1 BSA Northeast Region Girl-led Scouts BSA Troops as of May 9, 2019 60 Figure 5.2: Scout Unit Participation 61 Figure 5.3: Scout Unit Responses by Role 62 Figure 5.4: Linking Data Sources and Layered Theoretical Framework 65 Figure 6.1: Pilot Study Concept Map 96 Figure 8.1: Community of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix 244 Figure 8.2: Pre-Policy Community of Practice Participation 251 Figure 8.3: Policy-Induced Shifts in Community of Practice Participation 254 Figure 8.4: Policy-Induced Shifts in Community of Practice Trajectory 257

Acknowledgements Pursuing a doctorate is described by those who have undertaken the journey in a variety of ways. Many of my colleagues reference notions of endurance and perseverance as core traits possessed by the foolhardy few who set their sights on achieving the highest rank recognized by the academy. Certainly, these individual traits contain some enduring truth, which explain how a doctorate is earned. Yet, they fail to explain why anyone – myself included – would ever embark on such an unpleasant

expedition. Therefore, to properly acknowledge the benefactors of my journey – for without these benefactors, I would never have reached the trailhead, nor found my bearings, nor thought the obstacles along the way surmountable – I must explore both the

hows and the whys of my pursuit.

A heart of generativity beats within those who pursue the creation of knowledge.

While for some it manifests in an unyielding pursuit of a goal or set of goals, it seems to

me that a curious mind and a desire to help others fuel the engine that drives one to take

on such an onerous task. In my own journey, a deeply engrained hopefulness and a desire

to make a difference, in some way, for future generations led me on this scholarly path

and contributed greatly to my success.

The seeds of hopefulness and generativity were first sewn in me by my parents,

Jerry and Margi, and were reinforced by a family ethos that values helping others and

educational attainment. Beating within my family’s ethos is a heart filled with faith, hope,

and love. Together, these virtues formed the fertile ground where the curiosity and

confidence I needed to embark on this journey took root.

As the child and grandchild of educators, education as practice has been a guiding

light and the inspiration driving so many of my pursuits. Therefore, it is without question

that I owe much of my desire and conviction on this journey to my family of educators

and scholars – those who came long before me and those who I now join in solidarity. Of note, Alice Schott, my aunt and godmother, first showed me that a Ph.D. was a possible

and desirable career path. Her example was reinforced by her niece, my cousin, Maria

Conroy and then by my sister-in-law Dyana Mason, who like Alice, earned a Ph.D. as a

means to a career change. Their examples are complimented by my close family and

friends who sustained me on my journey in so many ways – Jerry, Margi, Laura, and

Steve McGinnis, my immediate family who are the best, most loving, and supportive

people I will ever know; my cousin Ed Kerber, who continuously reminds me to stay true

to myself and to be who I am supposed to be; Jeff Gallo, my brother from another mother

and lifelong doppelganger in both spirit and appearance; and Josh Gray, my partner in

crime, exalted experiences in music, and now academia. They each lined the trail, assured

me of my footing, and picked me up when I faltered. I am forever in their debt.

None of what I accomplished, or ever hope to accomplish, would be possible

without the lovely Amelia. Her openness to my considering a major career pivot is

second only to her cheerleading and support throughout the process. She took on so much

more than her fair share of household responsibilities, child rearing and financial support

of our family, and did so with such care and delight. Through her kind and knowing spirit

I learned more about myself through this process, which changed me for the better –

which in turn changed us for the better. Amelia is my favorite person in this world, and

rightfully so.

Amelia’s sacrifices and loving approach allowed me to be present for Connor and

Declan when it mattered most. I’m afraid that they were all too often waiting in the wings for me to spend time with them, yet were consistently patient, understanding and supportive, even when it was difficult. My deepest hope is that they take to heart the positive lessons of this journey for our family – the importance of giving selflessly, forgiving countlessly, and loving unconditionally. With these lessons in hand, they are destined for greatness.

It is well accepted that soldiers in battle develop deeply held bonds with their comrades in arms, forged by trust and shared extreme experiences. So it is that I share similar bonds with the members of my Ph.D. cohort – Nanre Nafziger, my little sister who keeps me woke; Mayli Zapata, who is a consistent source of calm perspective, and

Jenn Thoman, who reminded me to care for myself – and several others who we invited into our academic circle along the way. They supported me in practical matters as well

as in my scholarly formation, challenging my thinking and expanding my academic

palate well beyond my white, male, cisgender, straight, Catholic, middleclass self. My

cohort influenced the lens through which I see the world, nudging me ever closer to

activism in my scholarship and personal endeavors. While I have not yet joined their

stature as an embattled activist, they have each left their fingerprints on me. I trust them

to recognize it in my work now and in the future.

When I think of the faculty who guided my journey, I am reminded of the

Rudyard Kipling quote, “Many wear the robes, but few walk the way.” I have been

blessed to be surrounded by mentor-scholars of such high quality and integrity. It is

through their example and guidance that I hope to carry on the obligation of knowledge

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creation. Reaching back to 2010, Ted Alter, my master’s thesis advisor and mentor,

simultaneously encouraged and tried to talk me out of pursuing a Ph.D. Soon after he

connected me with Mark Brennan, who first encouraged me to reach for the stars. At a

crucial time in 2015 Ted and Mark connected me with the Educational Theory and Policy

program and Dana Mitra, who became my primary advisor and mentor. Dana encouraged

me through the entire doctoral process, ensuring I had everything I needed to be

successful, guiding my every step, and providing me with several prominent

opportunities in the education field. Through coursework and my role with the American

Journal of Education Gerry LeTendre and David Gamson each became trusted advisors,

helping to shape my professional and academic pursuits. They, along with several other

scholars at Penn State and the administrative staff in the Education Policy Studies

department, shaped the form and function of my experience in immeasurably positive

ways. I am thankful and committed to pay their investments in me forward.

My journey and this dissertation could not have existed in my wildest dreams

without my formative experiences in Scouting. My engagement as a youth in the Boy

Scouts of America provided me the structure to learn and lead, testing my skills and

abilities in a safe and encouraging environment. It started with my parents’ willingness to

invest in Scouting and continued with their support of my progress, as well as that of my

siblings Laura and Steve. The investment paid off, as we each earned the highest achievements in Scouting in the United States – Eagle Scout and Gold Award.

At the core of my success in Scouting are the countless volunteer scout leaders who selflessly supported, encouraged and guided my journey first as a youth and then adult. First among many is Rich Dempsey – my Cubmaster at Pack 88 in Dunmore, PA

xiii and then as my Scoutmaster in Troop 12 in Scranton, PA. Mr. D. saw me through my entire career as a scout, from the burgeoning Tiger Cub program in first grade to driving me to my Eagle Scout board of review in high school. His influence on me is palpable; ever-present when I’m working with youth and other scouters in my current roles as a scout leader and as a Scouting researcher. When I think of generativity and selflessness, I think of Rich Dempsey.

Today, I continue Rich’s legacy working alongside the scouters of Pack 67 and

Troop 367 and others in the Nittany Mountain District of Pennsylvania’s Juniata Valley

Boy Scout Council. These leaders supported my efforts and stepped in when my studies and research prevented my full engagement in the local program. They embody the essence of Scouting and share a part in whatever this study and future studies hope to accomplish.

My introduction to the scholarly study of Scouting started with Josh Kirby, an accomplished scouter on the world stage and scholar, whose interest and encouragement assured my decision to make Scouting the focus of my dissertation. Josh also introduced me to Eduard Vallory, a foremost scholar of World Scouting, who provided me access to his work and made as sound case for the study the Scouting movement on a global scale.

Their investments in me had a substantial influence on how I envisioned this and future studies.

Finally, I am ever grateful for the scouters in the Scouts BSA units who participated in this study. Their dedication to their roles and connection to the Scouting movement is energizing to me. At a time of great uncertainty for the Boy Scouts of

America organization, their keen insights and openness to discussing sensitive topics

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generated the rich data which brings meaning and life to this study. A predominantly

optimistic and pragmatic bunch, their Scouting spirit gives hope to the future of the

Scouting movement in the United States.

While this journey felt very lonely at times, it was not a solitary endeavor. In retrospect, every moment was linked forward, backward and sideways to others. And not

‘others’, such as the ethereal shoulders of those who created knowledge before me. But real people, who know and care about me, and who I, in turn, know and care about. It was a community of care, encouragement, and generativity that set me on this journey and that saw me through to its completion. Having reached the zenith is surely an accomplishment worthy of accolade and celebration. It is also, ironically enough, quite humbling to have achieved so much through this journey, knowing that I owe my entire success to so many others. And yet, I have arrived – a little worn, a little wiser, and clad

in gratefulness.

Chapter 1

Introduction This dissertation analyzes practitioner implementation of values-laden policies in

the organizational setting, focusing, in particular, on understanding patterns of

practitioner learning and change when their deeply-held beliefs conflict with

organizational values. This study focuses on Scouting in the U.S. context, concentrating

on the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. From the organizational perspective it examines the

role of structure, policy environment, and interventions on practitioner implementation of

policy. From the practitioner perspective, it explores the processes that enable and

constrain practitioners’ negotiation of personal beliefs to align with organizational values.

I draw on a social learning theoretical framework to better understand the nexus of

influence among individual beliefs, identity, experience and practice on practitioner

implementation of operational policy.

Findings from this research indicate that practitioners whose personal beliefs

conflict with values-laden policies require peer support and organizational interventions

to be able to implement the policies with fidelity. A combination of peer exchange, practice, and operationalization of organizational values facilitate practitioners

overcoming conflicts with beliefs, enabling their faithful implementation of values-laden policy. Organizational leaders must develop support systems that foster peer exchange focused on consensus building around questions of policy implementation and allow for practitioner observation of and participation in practice of newly implemented policies.

Organizations must also operationalize their espoused values by connecting them with the values-laden policies. The purpose of operationalizing values is to create a framework of discernment to guide peer exchange. The use of the framework as part of the peer

exchange process provides structure for practitioners to bring their personal beliefs into

alignment with organizational values. This process builds consensus around

implementation among practitioners that is aligned with espoused organizational values.

Findings also show the disruptive effect of policy reform on practitioner

communities when reforms stimulate shifts in power and agency within the organization.

When equity-oriented policy reforms enable practitioners to emerge from the margins into full participation, it can have the opposite marginalizing effect on longtime practitioners. This shift of power builds tensions between newly empowered and newly marginalized practitioners within an organization. These tensions disrupt the community of practice when the deeply held beliefs of marginalized practitioners conflict with the

values associated with the equity-oriented policies. These findings enable organizational

leaders to anticipate policy-induced shifts of power and create interventions to support

the emergence of newly empowered practitioners and to help newly marginalized

practitioners to align their personal beliefs with the espoused values of the organization.

This dissertation also introduces a new analysis tool for the study of practitioner

implementation of policy, the Communities of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix (CoPPE

Matrix). The matrix works through a community of practice lens, mapping practitioner

belonging within the community or organization and tensions between personal beliefs

and espoused values of the community or organization. This tool is designed to help

organizational leaders anticipate unintended consequences of policy reform and to

provide them insights into practitioner participation patterns during the implementation

process. The CoPPE Matrix aims to support organizational leaders in policy making and

implementation decision-making and to provide them insights into the selection of

organizational interventions that enable policy implementation and quell disruptions

among practitioners.

Importance of Study This study is important for several reasons with implications for both theory and practice. It contributes to theory across disciplines spanning nonprofit management, nonformal education, education leadership, organizational theory, communities of

practice. It contributes to practice in ways that help organizational leaders in the policy

planning process and to anticipate the need for organizational interventions. This study

also provides a roadmap to guide the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. as the organization

navigates the policy implementation process.

In the theoretical realm this study extends the current research on the process of

practitioner implementation of values-laden policies in nonformal, youth development

settings. Understanding how the practitioner implementation process relates to policy and

organizational values fills a gap in the nonformal education evaluation literature. This

avoids the complexity of practitioner influence on implementation in favor of an input-

output model of evaluation (Durlak & DuPre, 2008; Durlak, 1998, 2017).

The study also extends the current research on policy implementation and the

important relationship between espoused organizational values, peer exchange and

practice. This linking is especially important when implementing values-laden policies,

as it facilitates the process of consensus building among practitioners, provides a

framework to enable practitioners to align their personal beliefs with organizational

values, and allows them to put those beliefs into practice. Understanding the importance

of a values framework in peer exchange expands on the study of educational policy

implementation in the formal setting, which acknowledges the important role of practice

and peer exchange in changing practitioners’ stance on policies, but is limited in its

exploration of alignment between organizational values and practitioner beliefs.

This study contributes a new framework of analysis which has the potential for

multidisciplinary application, particularly in practitioner-oriented fields of study. The framework brings understanding to the relationship between practitioner belonging and practitioner alignment of beliefs with organizational values in an organizational context.

The framework provides a practitioner-oriented approach to policy implementation, which informs organizational approaches to the policy planning process.

In the practice realm this study provides practitioner-oriented organizations insights into understanding the disruptive effect equity-oriented policy reform can have on the ways practitioners carry out their roles. Use of the practitioner-oriented CoPPE

Matrix in policy planning can help organizations anticipate conflicts among practitioner groups and devise interventions. The study also underscores the importance of organizations clearly defining their espoused values and operationalizing those values as part of the policy implementation process.

This study also contributes greatly to the overall study of Scouting. While

Scouting exists in some form in more than 97% of United Nations member nations

(WOSM, n.d.a), research on Scouting tends to be limited to national level studies, rarely expanding into the cross-national comparative realm (Farrell, 2012; Vallory, 2012). In addition to contributing to a deeper understanding of Scouting in the U.S. context, this study provides a culturally-responsive framework to enable cross-national comparative studies of scout leaders. Multinational studies will contribute greatly to the study of

Scouting worldwide, bringing a depth of understanding to scout leader roles in the

implementation process and informing policy-making at the World Scouting level.

Background The data and setting for this study are drawn from Scouting, a large, multinational

youth development movement that operates globally. This dissertation focuses

specifically on Scouting in the United States, through an embedded case study of the Boy

Scouts of America, Inc. (BSA). The BSA relies completely on volunteer practitioners,

known as scout leaders, to deliver programming and implement operational policy at the

local level. Recent equity-oriented changes to membership policies in the BSA provide

an intriguing backdrop to learn more about the practitioner implementation process from

both an organizational and individual vantage point. The study intends to bring a deeper

level of understanding to the ways practitioners negotiate their personal beliefs with

organizational values, the ways organizations enable and constrain that negotiation

process, and the context and process that support practitioners to shift their beliefs toward

equity.

Leaders of education-oriented organizations have long been challenged to bring

consistency to the implementation of curricula and policy. These organizations are reliant on practitioners’ discretion in the implementation process, allowing them to make unanticipated and unknown adaptations to programming and policy. As organizations make changes to curricula and operational policies, practitioners are called to change their approach to practice. Practitioner identity, beliefs, and experiences shape their perception of proposed changes in curricula and policies, leading to variability in implementation.

For educational organizations with a strong connection between their curriculum

and the organization’s espoused values, such as Scouting, 4-H, and private religious

schools to name a few, the alignment of organizational values and practitioner

implementation of policy and program is of paramount importance. When practitioners’

beliefs and identity conflict with the espoused values of an organization or with aspects

of a values-laden policy, it causes a tension in the implementation process. These

tensions between practitioner belief and identity and organizational values manifest in a plethora of ways that, at their best, cause slight variations in program delivery, and at worst result in practitioners delivering curricula and implementing policy contrary to organizational values.

The process of shifting organizations toward equity is mottled with culturally- charged landmines, placing organizational leaders on the frontlines of social reform. With the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and a growing number of Supreme

Court rulings protecting LGBTQ+ rights, there is pressure for organizations to revisit their equity policies. Public discourse through social media are rife with conflict and divisiveness on topics related to racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ equity. These conflicts are rooted in differences between individuals, manifest in their identities, beliefs, and experiences.

For practitioner-oriented organizations, particularly youth development programs who rely on volunteers to deliver programs across a diversity of cultural settings, the idea of equity-oriented policy reform is daunting. The revisiting of policies may result in changes to the ways practitioners are expected to enact equity-oriented policies or shift into a policy reform cycle. Equity-oriented reforms bring substantial challenges to the

implementation process for practitioners with deeply held beliefs and identifies that

conflict with values associated with racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ equity. Research does

not yet provide a good understanding of how to deliver a standardized youth development

program in ways that are sensitive to issues of diversity and difference in local cultural

and social contexts (Hershberg et al., 2015). Absent this understanding, organizational leaders who are called to deliver consistent programming in national and international organizations are left to manage variability in implementation and inconsistent program outcomes without guidance to address social and cultural barriers. As practitioner-reliant organizations look inward to address issues of equity it raises important questions about fidelity of implementation and the nature of interventions required to support socially and culturally sensitive implementation.

Why Scouting? Scouting was chosen because of its global scale, shared practice across nations and cultures, and its orientation around volunteer practitioners. Scouting reaches more young people through nonformal education than any other youth-serving movement or organization in the world, totaling roughly 54 million youth worldwide (WOSM, n.d.a;

Vallory, 2012 pp.1-5). Since 1920 Scouting, which was first introduced in Great Britain in 1908, has existed on six continents and in at least 84% of countries recognized by the

League of Nations and the United Nations (WOSM, 2016). Scouting is based on a shared structure, purpose, method, and values, which connects members and brings some consistency to practice everywhere it exists.

Originally developed as a program to develop character and nationalism among boys, from its earliest days scouting has been a documented contributor to several social movements. While varying in circumstance and cultural context, each of these

8 movements resulted in a noted shift toward democratization and colonial independence in countries and regions such as colonial Africa, Israel, India, Egypt, Spain (Catalonia), and

Argentina (Proctor and Block, 2009; Vallory, 2012; Parsons, 2004; Shapira and Peleg,

1984; Farrell, 2012). From this global perspective, Scouting's formal and informal involvement with and support of these social movements raises questions about differences in the way that the Scouting program is implemented in those countries, the role and influence of the national Scouting infrastructure on implementation, and the role and influence of scout leaders on implementation. From the global perspective this study orients downward to the national level, focusing on the Boy Scouts of America, Inc which is an organization who recently enacted equity-oriented policy changes. The context of implementation of these new policies is at the heart of this study.

Boy Scouts in Crisis The Boy Scouts of America, Inc. (BSA) has existed formally in the U.S. since

1910 and is an organization woven into the fabric of a bygone and nostalgic American ethos (Mechling, 2004, 2007). Part of the World Scouting movement, the BSA has among the largest memberships of any country with 1.7 million youth members and more than 800,000 registered adult leaders who deliver programming (Stech Ferek, 2018; BSA,

2016a). The program is administered in local scout units by volunteer scout leaders in partnership with local chartering organizations, who are typically religious and civic organizations. These chartered organizations provide meeting facilities and are tasked with oversight of program delivery and approving volunteers scout leaders to run the program.

Despite being one of the largest youth development organizations in the U.S., steady declines in membership since the 1980’s and legal actions related to

discriminatory membership practices and child abuse settlements have brought the BSA

to the point of crisis. The battles over belief in God, the participation of LGBTQ+

members and leaders, and girl membership in Scouting has been fought in the courts as

well as in the media since the beginning of the Civil Rights era (Daley, 2017; Kaminer,

2013; Bierbauer, 2000; Arneil, 2010). As a more progressive society emerged from the

1960’s, the BSA clung to its traditional roots, restricting membership of LGBTQ+ leaders and youth, girls, and atheists. The organization became a cultural battleground, suppressing scout leaders and boys who urged the alignment with secular cultural norms and fending off concerns from World Scouting that the restrictions conflicted Scouting’s espoused values of acceptance.

While slow to change, BSA appears more closely aligned with cultural norms in the U.S. now than in the years since the civil rights movement (Arneil, 2010). By the end of 2015 the BSA relaxed its traditional approach to social policies, allowing LGBTQ+

youth to join, creating a channel for LGBTQ+ scout leaders to participate, and backing

away from conflicts with regard to religion and belief in God (Lee, 2017). In 2017, the

BSA announced a staged acceptance of girls into the Cub Scouts and renamed Boy

Scouts, the program for older youth, to Scouts BSA. By February 2019, the BSA had

fully welcomed girls into the organization.

The timing and urgency of BSA’s equity-oriented policy reform was not

motivated by changing social norms, but by financial concerns. The LGBTQ+ policies

and a more relaxed approach to belief in God was coerced through the public influence of

corporate threats to withdrawal their sponsorship funding (Dade, 2013). The welcoming

of girls at this time was motivated by the financial pressure of looming child abuse

10 settlements, aiming to quell declining numbers and increase membership (Woodruff,

2017).

The change in membership policies has not stopped the bleeding for the BSA. In

2018 the Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which prior to 2020 represented roughly

20% of the youth membership in the BSA, announced that it would sever its relationship with the BSA at the end of 2019. In addition, changes in statutes of limitations for prosecuting sexual abuse in children have brought on a flood of individual and class action lawsuits seeking settlement (Siemaszko, 2019). The BSA began taking steps toward Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in preparation for a cathartic financial blow expected in 2020 related to the collection of fewer membership fees and legal settlements

(Stech-Ferek, 2018). On February 18, 2020, the BSA declared bankruptcy.

With the substantial disruption of the BSA at the national level, there has been much speculation about the effects on the program itself (Schmidt & Epstein, 2019).

Preparations for bankruptcy protected the core operations of the program with the organization initially experiencing minimal loss of staff and infrastructure. With programming delivered by volunteer scout leaders and charter organizations providing support and oversight at the local level, and a robust structure of representative volunteer governance, the BSA programs have persisted.

This study acknowledges the importance of the scout leader as the primary implementer of programming and operational policy. It also recognizes the importance of both formal and informal channels of influence on practitioner implementation processes.

The next section lays out the guiding questions for this study, which serve to explore program implementation from a practitioner-oriented perspective.

Research Questions This study is motivated by several overarching questions related to the

intermingling of individuals’ fixed beliefs and knowledge, and the role of learning in

bringing change to individuals’ fixed beliefs. From the social learning perspective these

fixed beliefs are engrained through the complex interaction of identity, practice and

experience. Put colloquially: how do old dogs learn new tricks?; why can some old dogs

learn new tricks and others cannot?; and what are the enabling and constraining factors for old dogs learning new tricks? While the term old dogs carries with it the connotation that fixed beliefs are related to age, social learning theory orients us toward the role of motivation in change. Therefore, underlying these questions are woven a complex tapestry of social forces of internal and external motivations which prove difficult to untangle.

This study is oriented around how volunteer scout leaders interpret and implement

equity-oriented membership policies in Boy Scouts of America, Inc. programs. The study

is framed in social learning theories of Landscape of Practice, Community of Practice,

and Critical Sensemaking. Its approach analyzes practitioner identity, experiences and

beliefs in the broad context of peer exchange both within and beyond the scout leader

community of practitioners. Of key importance is the study’s attention to shifts of power

within the policy reform environment.

These are the research questions that this study endeavors to answer.

1. To what extent/how does the Scout leader perception and practice of their role

align with the BSA's new policies and vision of Scouting?

2. To what extent/how has Scout leader perception and practice of their role

changed since the new policies were announced and enacted?

3. In what ways/how have Scout leaders relied upon BSA formal and informal

communications, resources and support networks since the new policies were

announced and enacted?

4. What broader conditions enable or constrain the practice of the Scout leaders’

roles since the new policies were announced and enacted?

The next chapter explores the context of Scouting in more detail, both from a global level and within the U.S. Chapter 3 discusses the literature that provides the foundation for this study. Chapter 4 builds on Chapter 3 to explore the conceptual framing of the study, and explains the importance of the layered framework used in this study. Chapter 5 lays out the study’s design, methods, and process of analysis – an embedded case study with multiple sources of data. Chapter 6 discusses the pilot study and how it came to influence changes to the larger study. Chapter 7 lays out the findings of five embedded cases and the main themes generated by the data. Chapter 8 discusses the findings, in particular through an organizational analysis of policies and the relationship between the policy environment and practitioner implementation of policy.

Chapter 9 lays out the major implications of the study, followed by references and appendices.

Chapter 2

Scouting Context Building an understanding of the ways practitioners interpret and implement values-laden policies into practice is especially important to organizations whose

espoused values are central to their purpose. This study concentrates on one such entity,

Scouting, manifest in the World Organization of Scouting Movement (WOSM) and the

Boy Scouts of America, Inc. organization in the U.S. This chapter provides details about the Scouting context that inform the scope and possibilities of the implications of this

study for cross-cultural and comparative international organizational research. The

chapter includes a brief history of the origins of Scouting at the world level and in the

U.S. and defines the structure, governance, and core elements of Scouting.

World Organization of Scouting Movement The Scouting movement was started by Col. Robert Baden-Powell, a British

military officer, in the last decade of the nineteenth century. He developed a Scouting

handbook while overseeing military operations in Africa to help build character and

discipline among African boys (Baden-Powell, 1907; Jeal, 2001). Upon his return to

Britain, Baden-Powell’s Scouts was developed into a viable program to help build

character and discipline among British adolescent boys. The core tenants of Baden-

Powell’s Scouting organization were built upon the Scout Oath and Scout Law, voluntary

adult leadership, public service (“do a good turn daily”), a military-styled uniform, and

the process of earning badges to achieve rank – all elements that remain at the core of scouting today (Murray, 1937, pp. 1-14; Wyland, 1934; BSA, 2016a, 2015).

The WOSM was created in 1920 at the behest of the League of Nations in the aftermath of World War I to focus efforts on peacekeeping, emphasizing the notion that

investments in cross-national/cultural experiences will prevent subsequent world conflicts

(MacLeod, 1983; Warren, 1986; Nagy, 1984; Vallory, 2012). Scouting was designed to

build youth leadership skills, increase civic engagement at the local level, and provide

opportunities for international interaction and build cultural tolerance (Nagy, 1984).

Scouting proliferated quickly, driven by the translation and international distribution of

Baden Powel’s book, Scouting for Boys (Murray, 1937). By 1920, the Scouting movement had come to exist in more than 70% of countries recognized by the League of

Nations, having expanded relatively quickly since its inception in 1907.

With no governance or quality measures in place, the implementation of Scouting occurred at the whim of the volunteer leaders which resulted in inconsistent implementation and interpretation of the principles, purpose, and method (Vallory, 2012).

The WOSM connected Scouting at the global level through a representative governance structure and for the first time, Scouting was able to define and, to some extent, enforce the implementation of its purpose, ideals, and methods consistently (Nagy, 1984, Vallory,

2012). This coordination of scouting provided hope for establishing consistency of the

Scouting program across cultures and the opportunity for massive global impact (Nagy,

1984, Vallory, 2012; WOSM, 2005).

Structure and Governance The WOSM is the largest international Scouting organization and is comprised of

171 National Scout Organizations (NSOs), divided into six regions. The WOSM’s structure is modeled after the United Nations’ representative governance which is supported through scout-related organizations and a robust committee structure (Figure

2.1). The highest policy-making body of the WOSM is the World Scout Conference, which is comprised of up to six adult and youth representatives from each of the NSOs.

The World Scout Conference assembles triennially to consider policies related to

program standards, to take action to support the Scouting Movement, to admit new

member countries, and to elect the members of the World Scout Committee (WOSM,

n.d.a).

The World Scout Committee is the WOSM’s board of directors responsible for

directing and supervising the work of the World Scout Bureau (WSB). The WSB is the

implementation arm of the WOSM, which is led by the Secretary General of the WOSM

and supported by approximately 120 staffers. The WSB is tasked with supporting world and regional events, promoting Scouting, especially in countries where it does not exist, maintaining relationships with NSOs and other international youth-serving organizations

(WOSM, n.d.b).

Table 2.1: Essential Elements of Scouting Independently organized and self-governed at the national level. Set apart from government and may not be a function of any another organization. Requirements of Non-partisan with no affiliation with political movements or Scouting organizations. Youth must provide substantial part of program delivery and leadership. Led by non-paid volunteers, supported by a small paid staff. Open to all* (mediated by local cultures and customs) To contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual potentials as Purpose individuals, as responsible citizens, and as members of their local, national, and international communities.

Duty to God: belief in the spiritual forces of life Principles Duty to Others: loyalty to country, promotion of peace, and respect of fellow man and of nature. Duty to Self: responsibility for self-development

Commitment to shared principles Learning by doing Teamwork Educational Method Intergenerational programming Progressive self-development Nature and the outdoors Shared symbolic framework (i.e. badges, fleur-de-lis/tri-foil, neckerchief).

Vallory, E. (2012) World Scouting: Educating for Global Citizenship.

At the national level, NSOs coordinate and bring consistency to programming in their country. While the number of paid staff varies from country to country, like the

WOSM, governance at the national level is comprised of volunteer scout leaders and youth members. NSOs contribute funding to support the work of the WBS, an amount based on the number of scouts registered in each country. This creates an environment where countries with more scouts typically have greater influence over shaping policy.

The foundation of the Scouting curriculum is guided by the WOSM’s purposes,

requirements, principles and methods of Scouting. The elements that define Scouting worldwide and help to differentiate it from other youth development efforts are known as the essential elements of Scouting (Vallory, 2012) (Table 2.1). These essentials are the

cornerstone on which the Scouting movement was built and are required for Scouting to

exist everywhere in the world, as outlined in the WOSM constitution (2008). The

essentials are divided into four categories, the requirements, purpose, principles and

method of Scouting.

Today Scouting exists in 97% of countries and engages more than 54 million

youth annually (WOSM, n.d.c), and is officially recognized in more than 84% of countries (Vallory, 2012; McGinnis & Pendola, 2018). Scouting is not formally recognized in several countries with totalitarian governments that do not allow the program to exist or require the program to be a function of the government, which is not allowed by the WOSM (Vallory, 2012). Even though not formally recognized, Scouting exists in some form in all but five countries in the world (WOSM, n.d.c).

The next section shifts from the global to national level, exploring the Boy Scouts

of America, Inc., which is the focus of this embedded case study. The section provides a

brief history of the BSA, details of its structure and governance, concluding with the

BSA’s recent policy decisions which are at the heart of this study. The nature of how the

BSA is situated in the U.S. culture is the most important contextual element to the

framing of this study.

Boy Scouts of America Baden-Powell’s military fame provided the Scouting movement with a central

charismatic leader who helped it spread to the Americas. The U.S. was fertile ground for

the Scouting movement to take hold, as existing boy-focused programming had been

highly successful, most notably the Y.M.C.A.’s boys programs which began in the

1870’s (Macleod, 1983, p. ix). The Scouting movement grew in several places, where

charismatic leaders, inspired by Baden-Powell, provided leadership. By 1905 several fledgling organizations existed, the most prominent of which were Ernest Thompson

Seton's "Indians" and Daniel Carter Beard's "Sons of Daniel Boone”.

Interest in the Scouting movement among the business community helped to propel it forward as well. Chicago publisher, William Boyce, was introduced to Baden-

Powell’s scouts on a trip to London where he was led through the fog by a boy, who would not accept gratuity for his help. So moved by this gesture, Boyce learned as much as he could about scouting before his return to the U.S. Boyce saw an opportunity in scouting that would support one of the major challenges of the publishing industry at that time. As a publisher, Boyce employed more than 20,000 boys the Chicago metropolitan area to deliver and sell newspapers. Providing character building programs for this segment of the workforce would help to occupy their free time and make them more productive employees (Murray, 1937, pp. 15-48). Soon after his return to the U.S., Boyce registered the name “Boy Scouts of America” and began funding the movement.

By 1908, scout troops had been popping up throughout the United States, many organized by Y.M.C.As, who found scouting to be a natural complement to their fifty years of boys programming. While not one of their official programs, the Y.M.C.A directed their staff to encourage the organization of scout troops across the county.

Scouting was becoming a movement across the U.S., yet there were inconsistencies with how the program was being carried out, due to a lack of standardization and leadership at the national level. (Macleod, 1983, p. 4).

Seton, a personal friend of Baden-Powell and one of the most charismatic leaders of the American Scouting movement, saw the need for national leadership and embarked on a mission to create a national organization for the U.S. In 1910 he, Boyce and others organized a meeting in New York City of several key leaders of regionalized Scouting organizations, national leaders in youth development, industrial leaders, and philanthropic financiers to bring the Scouting movement under the control of a single organization. By June of 1910 all of the major factions in scouting were united under the

Boy Scouts of America, an executive board was established, philanthropic funding was in place, and a headquarters was identified – in the New York offices of the Y.M.C.A.

(Murray, 1937, pp. 15-48).

At its inception, the BSA adopted a simple organizational model which

centralizes many functions related to communication, program coordination, and

membership – a structure still in place today (Macleod, 1983, p. 150-155). The model

relies on volunteer leaders, called scoutmasters, providing leadership to “troops” of

adolescent boys, with each troop supported by a partner organization. By 1920, Boy

Scouts grew to nearly 400,000 adolescent boys and more than 30,000 adult volunteers

(Macleod, 1983, p. 154), with activities located primarily in urban areas in the mid-west

and northeast United States.

Today, with a membership estimated to be roughly 1.5 million youth and 800,000

scout leaders in the U.S., the BSA has the second largest membership in the world. The

BSA provides programming to youth aged 5 to 18, through the Cub Scout, Scouts BSA

(formerly Boy Scouts), Explorer, Venturing, and Sea Scouts programs (BSA, 2015).

While the program curriculum has received updates throughout the organization’s history, it has remained consistent to its founding purposes of building character and self-

reliance among youth.

The BSA’s structure of governance is representative in nature from the local scout

unit committee to the BSA National Council, mirroring that of the WOSM (Figure 2.2).

The National Council is highest policy-making body of the BSA and acts as the board of

directors for the BSA. Membership of the National Council is comprised of

representatives from each of the four regions of the U.S. (Figure 2.3), which are divided

further into sections. Governance for these four regions is drawn from members of the

more than 260 Council level boards. Council board members are drawn from scout

leaders at the district and unit level.

The BSA organization is responsible for the promotion and support of scouting in the U.S. and is staffed by approximately 4,000 employees operating out of national, regional, council and district offices (BSA, n.d.a). Many of these staffers are scout professionals tasked with providing support to district, council, and regional governing boards, promoting scouting programs in their areas, and helping to connect the BSA with other youth serving organizations. Scout professionals are the primary information conduit between scout leaders and the BSA organization.

Scout units is the delivery structure for the scouting program and operate in partnership with a chartered organization. The chartered organization is responsible for program oversight, selecting and approving scout unit leadership, and agrees to provide, at bare minimum, facilities for the scout unit to hold meetings. These chartered organizations may be secular or non-secular in nature, and are granted the ability to adapt the program at the scout unit level within parameters. In most cases these adaptations are

related to religious practices, although this study provides further insight into the nature

of the chartered organizations’ roles.

Scout leaders are responsible for program delivery and oversight at the local level, with each unit required to have leaders in key positions and a unit committee to operate.

For the Scouts BSA program, formerly known as Boy Scouts, the key positions are

Scoutmaster, Committee Chair, and Chartered Organization Representative (COR). The

scoutmaster is responsible for program delivery, the committee chair for program

administration, and COR to provide institutional oversight as liaison to the chartered

organization.

In many ways the BSA is much different than its counterparts in other countries.

The BSA’s quick and substantial spread in the U.S. was made possible in part by the

structure, which required scout units to be “sponsored” by chartering organizations

(Macleod, 1983; Wyland, 1937). The nature of this sponsorship is different than found

elsewhere in the world, whereby these partner organizations are responsible for quality

and oversight of program implementation. The BSA also has the largest number of

professional staff working with the organization, exceeding the number of paid staff at

the global level by 40-fold.

The BSA’s program is highly regarded within the World Scouting community, yet

many have raised concerns that the BSA’s charter structure, the number of professional

staff, and restrictive membership policies are in conflict with the essential elements of

Scouting. As one of the largest financial contributors to the WSB the BSA has

traditionally wielded substantial influence over governance at the world level. Up to this

point, concerns about the BSA’s alignment with Scouting’s essentials have not been

acted upon in formal ways by the World Scout Conference or the World Scout

Committee.

The essential elements require the scouting to be independent and autonomous of

other organizations, which is impeded by the chartered organization’s influence over

program implementation. Additionally, Scouting is required to be volunteer run. While

the BSA’s volunteer structure is germane to the operation of the program, the substantial

infrastructure of scout professionals employed throughout the country is a point of

contention. Also of note, the essential elements of Scouting require the Scouting

membership to be accessible to all. Until 2015 the BSA restricted membership based on sexual orientation, blocking LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders. The next section explores the nature of that policy change and subsequent changes that welcomed girls into the organization.

Policy Change Since the 1960’s Scouting in the United States felt the push and pull of culture as it relates to its place as a youth movement in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. On one hand is the popularity of the program and encouraging investments in modern elements to appeal to parents and children in today’s society. i.e. STEM Scouts. On the other hand, is a more traditionalistic approach, which brings the notion of Scouting “back to basics” as a character-building movement that embraces military hierarchy and self- reliance learned through camping and hiking (Proctor & Block, 2009). These sometimes- competing aspects of the Scouting movement play out in different ways both within and across Boy Scouts of America.

In December of 2014 and October of 2017, the BSA made announcements of

policy changes, unprecedented in the 100+ years of the organization – it would allow

LGBTQ+ youth and adults and girls to join (Woodruff, 2017). While the LGBTQ+ policy

was enacted swiftly, the integration of girls into the program was done in stages. Starting in the fall of 2018 the BSA welcomed young girls, age 5 to 11, to participate fully in the

Cub Scout program, giving them the same Scouting experience as their male counterparts. In turn, middle school and high school aged girls were offered membership

in Boy Scouts, beginning in February 2019. An organization synonymous with machismo

and male paternalism (Mechling, 2002), the BSA policy shift raises important questions

about what welcoming girls into its ranks means for the landscape of Scouting in the

U.S., in particular with the BSA’s relationship with Girl Scouts of the USA.

The BSA and Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) operate independently in the U.S.

Scouting model, a complicating factor as BSA moves toward co-ed programming while

GSUSA remains girl-only. It raises questions related to the benefits of continuing to

maintain a girls-only Scouting organization and what effect a co-ed option will have on

the two organizations’ abilities to work together. More deeply, however, it raises

questions about what changes in culture and program will occur for the BSA to

effectively incorporate girls into a youth movement that has catered to boys, nearly

exclusively, for more than 100 years.

While co-ed Scouting is novel in the U.S. context, it is not a new concept. On the

global level, the Scouting movement has offered opportunities to both boys and girls

since its 1907 inception, although most countries initially developed separate-sex

programs– typically known as Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. Beginning in the 1970s

cultural and economic forces led to the blending of Scouting into co-ed troops, whereby

girls and boys could join the same scouting organization at the local level (WOSM,

1977). While separate-sex Scouting remained normative in the U.S. and most developing

countries, Scouting in Europe and much of the global north began co-ed programming at

all age levels (Vallory, 2012).

In the United States, Scouting has traditionally existed as two separate organizations each serving boys and girls separately – the BSA and the GSUSA. Both

are part of the Scouting Movement, although the GSUSA is not a recognized as a member of the WOSM, aligning instead with its sibling organization, the World

Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). Today BSA and GSUSA together comprise one of the largest youth development movements in the United States, second only to 4-H (Lerner, Almerigi, Theokas, & Lerner, 2011; Warren, 1986, 2009).

Despite their shared alignment with the essential elements of Scouting, the BSA

and GSUSA have had a tense existence. Boy Scouts of America was established in 1910

soon after the movement was conceptualized in England. After massive interest on the

part of girls, approval was granted to create an all-girls organization which eventually

became Girl Scouts of the United States of America in 1912. The BSA petitioned the US

Congress for a national charter to recognize the organization, which was granted in 1916.

BSA national leadership went on to successfully lobby Congress to block federal

recognition of the GSUSA, which delayed granting of their charter until 1950 (Murray,

1937; Macleod, 1983).

The boys and girls Scouting movements materialized for different reasons in the

U.S., with the boy’s movement emerging to combat a perceived “feminizing of boys” and

Girl Scouts, a continuation of the U.S. suffrage movement of the early 20th Century

(Mechling, 2004). With these different origins in mind, it is no surprise that the

organizations evolved in different ways and with different goals. BSA began its mission

to masculinize boys and young men, while GSUSA took on the mission of empowering

girls and young women, pushing the boundaries of women’s role and place in American

society (Rothschild, 1981, p.117). The differences between the programs’ origins and the

BSA’s actions to suppress the GSUSA’s charter led to animosity amongst the national

leaders of each of the programs, and a lack of collaboration between the program that

persists to present day (Arniel, 2010; Rothschild, 1981; Woodruff, 2017).

Shift Toward Equity The context related BSA’s decision to welcome girls and LGBTQ+ scouts is important to this study, as it provides insight into the complex negotiation between local cultural norms, and the ability and will of the BSA to enact equity-oriented policies. The creation of the policies are rooted in broadening social acceptance of girls participating in activities traditionally reserved for boys, and LGBTQ+ individuals in general. The decision to welcome LGBTQ+ individuals was related primarily to shifts in legal interpretations of equity and pressure from corporate funders, which are ongoing (Lee,

2017). The decision to welcome girls is more complicated. Here I provide a brief overview of the timeline and driving issues that moved BSA to welcome girls into their ranks.

The socially conservative agendas of the BSA’s religious partners create a complicated landscape for Scouting to make any changes to participation policies or programing that align with an increasingly progressive and secular society. More than

65% of all scout units in the U.S. are chartered with religious organizations, with 40% chartered with socially conservative religious partners (BSA, 2016a). These organizations, such as the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), Catholic Church, and

Conference of Southern Baptists, help to shape the values promoted through the BSA and

comprise an important bevy of partners who support traditional BSA programs at the

local level. Without their support – physical plant, funding, and volunteers – the Scouting

program resources would be strained beyond belief (Dade, 2013).

Lawsuits and intense public discourse have surrounded the BSA since the civil

rights era with regard to the three “G’s” – “God, Gays and Girls”. As society changed, the

BSA clung to its traditional roots, suppressing the desires of many leaders and boys who

urged the organization to align itself with more secular cultural norms. The battles over

belief in God and the participation of homosexuals as members and leaders, and girl

membership in Scouting has been fought in the courts as well as in the media (Daley,

2017; Kaminer, 2013; Bierbauer, 2000).

While slow to change (Arneil, 2010), BSA appears more closely aligned with

cultural norms in the U.S. now than in the years since the civil rights movement. By the

end of 2015 the BSA relaxed its traditional approach to social policies, allowing

LGBTQ+ youth and leaders to participate and backing away from conflicts with regard to

religion and belief in God (Lee, 2017). The internal shift of programs and policies has not

been easy for BSA, and to a great extent, was coerced through the public influence of

corporate threats to withdrawal their sponsorship funding and looming legal battles

(Dade, 2013).

A troubling backdrop, of course, is the declining membership of BSA, which has continued since the 1980’s. Some connect this decline in membership directly to the changes in the U.S. brought about by the civil-rights movement of the 1960’s., leading parents to not enroll their children in organizations with traditional values, which they

28 deemed to be outdated (Turner, Strong, & Posner, 2010; Arneil, 2010). In 1979, BSA moved its headquarters from New York City to Irving, Texas, thus doubling down on their embodiment of traditional values (Arneil, 2010), a literal shift from the progressive northeast.

The decision to invite girls into the BSA program does not appear to be solely driven by social demands, as was the driving force behind offering membership to

LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders. Instead, welcoming girls may simply serve the purpose of quelling BSA’s declining enrollments. This is an important consideration, as motivations to address the specific needs of girls now in the program may be relevant only to the extent that allows for the retention and recruitment of new girl members.

Scouts Canada, which successfully transitioned completely to a co-ed program in

1998, may have also influenced the BSA’s decision to open its ranks to girls in 2017.

Similar to the U.S. context, declining Scout memberships in Canada required an expansion of program offerings to girls to stay viable. Also similar to the U.S. context, a separate, and long-standing girls-only Scout organization, Girl Guides of Canada, continues to operate alongside coed Scouts Canada (Crossman, 2017).

The decisions to allow girls and LGBTQ+ members and leaders strained the relationship between the BSA and the Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The LDS church is a longstanding partner of the BSA having adapted the Scouting program to deliver as the LDS youth ministry program for boys. After more than 103 years of partnership, the LDS church decided to leave the BSA program, in part because the new membership policies did not allow the Church to restrict participation of LGBTQ+ scouts any longer (Wendell, 2018). The structured leaving at the end of 2019 resulted in the

BSA losing roughly 20% of its youth members and 40% of its scout units, as well as the

financial support generated by membership fees.

Adding to the BSA’s financial troubles is the looming of bankruptcy brought on through class action lawsuits related to the sexual abuse of children. The BSA spent much of 2019 culling staff and reorganizing to protect assets in anticipation of filing for bankruptcy, which occurred in February 2020 (Ly, 2020). With abuse victims filing lawsuits against local councils, much like patterns seen in the child abuse victims approach to the Catholic Church, the BSA’s financial troubles are far from over (Kelly,

2020). With much of the professional infrastructure of the BSA in question, volunteer leaders are poised to take on more responsibilities of program operations.

Diversity and Scouting’s Future Scouting in the U.S. is well-known as a youth development program for boys with

a history of welcoming youth from different racial and religious backgrounds (Jordan,

2016). This model of inclusion was developed early in the scouting’s history to promote

growth in the program and was facilitated by the system of chartering (Jordan, 2017).

This approach to inclusion created a diverse but segregated landscape of Scouting, which

persists today (Jordan, 2016).

Demographic trends in the United States affect the BSA’s potential for

organizational growth and its relationship to the racial composition of youth

membership. While the BSA has not published data about the racial composition of its

membership, the BSA’s “Environmental Scan 2014” tells us that the organization

considers race to be important to its future (BSA, n.d.b). U.S. projections through 2050

for youth race indicate trends of decline in the proportion of the youth population who

identify as white and African American. Demographic trends also project substantial

growth among Asian and Latinx youth, predicting that Latinx youth will outnumber

white youth for the first time in the U.S. by 2050. What is clear from the demographic

projections and the BSA’s recommendations for future growth is that the organization is

focused on engaging Latinx and Asian youth and families. As the BSA considers ways to

court Latinx and Asian youth and families to their programs, it raises the importance of

the BSA prepare the organization to be welcoming to non-white practitioners.

In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, in June 2020 the BSA

announced several steps toward bringing diversity to the forefront of the organization.

New steps include diversity-focused trainings for all scout professionals and adding a

new Diversity merit badge to the list of required merit badges to earn the BSA’s highest

rank of Eagle. While the BSA has had exclusionary practices throughout the past several

decades, early efforts of the movement set out to encourage racial and religious diversity

among its youth members, despite conservative and xenophobic pushback. B.R. Jordan,

a Scouting historian who has focused on race in Scouting’s formative years believes

recent shifts toward diversity and inclusion “is more a return to their past than a new

departure” (Zaveri, 2020).

Variability in Scouting Implementation Despite its worldwide structure and broad reach, Scouting research is typically limited to national level studies, with few attempts at conducing multinational comparative research (Farrell, 2012). Despite the universality of purpose, ideals, and program delivery method, Scouting manifests differently within nations and between nations (Vallory, 2012; Shapira and Pelig, 1984; World Scouts Foundation, 2009;

Dorsey, 2017). This study builds on the work of Eduard Vallory (2012) who conducted an evaluative study of World Scouting captured in his book World Scouting: Educating

for Global Citizenship. While focusing only on Scouting in the U.S. context, the design

and focus of this study are intentional, providing a structure to conduct comparative

international studies of Scouting and other similar practice-oriented programs.

Vallory proposes convincingly that the essence of Scouting is based on the complicated notion that requires participants to think globally, yet act locally. The coupling between thinking globally and acting locally raises questions about the range of variability in how Scouting manifests in in different places and what forces tend to influence the nature of Scouting. Scouting is often associated with uniformed boys and girls, camping, earning badges, and national patriotism (Farrell, 2012; Vallory, 2012).

While the camping and badges speak directly to the Scouting method outlined by the WOSM, the notion of civic engagement present in Scouting’s purpose manifests differently across cultures and nations. In countries with autocratic governments, for example, Scouting tends not to exist, due in part to a misalignment between national values and Scouting’s mission of globalization (McGinnis & Pendola, 2018). In the U.S. context Scouting is often related closely to love for country, care for and presentation of the American flag, and support of the military. For example, in the U.S. Scouts BSA focuses primarily on building skills related to military training, such as outdoor survival skills and knot tying (Mechling, 2004). Additionally, until the mid-1960s successful applicants to West Point, the US Army military academy, were required to attain the top rank in U.S. Scouting, Eagle Scout. Even today, attainment of the Eagle Scout rank provides applicants to the military academies an advantage in the admission process

(BSA, 2011).

Evidence from national level studies indicate that variances in how Scouting manifests locally tend to align with cultural and contextual conditions, leading to differences in types of civic engagement among scouts (Farrell, 2012; Parsons, 2004).

Prior to the formation of Israel in the mid-1940s, Jewish Boy Scout troops set up long- term camping areas which eventually established the first permanent Israeli settlements in

Palestine (Shapira and Pelig, 1984). In Egypt there are currently two political parties associated with Scouting, whose members helped to coordinate traffic and provide safety logistics during the 2008 Arab Spring uprising (Vallory, 2012). It was through their planning and logistical support that the protests did not interrupt commerce in Cairo, which led to the uprising garnering wide support of the population and the subsequent overthrow of the government (Vallory, 2012). There are also examples of civic engagement through Scouting in support of nationally oriented social programs. In several African countries where the impact of the AIDS epidemic is a primary public concern, national scouting organizations partner with government leaders to coordinate the distribution of AIDS prevention educational materials and condoms (World Scouts

Foundation, 2009).

The global and local nature of Scouting along with its volunteer leadership structure inherently brings variability to the implementation of scouting at the local level.

The next chapter presents the theoretical underpinnings of this study through an exploration of the literature. The literature takes an organizational perspective, focusing on the role of culture and practitioner beliefs and identity in implementing nonformal programming.

Chapter 3

Literature Review This study focuses on processes related to practitioner implementation of policies, bringing literature from several areas into dialog with one another to explore the complex relationship among practitioner beliefs, the espoused values of organizations, and the faithful implementation of values-laden policies. To explore these processes, I bring several areas of literature into conversation with one another. These bodies of literature are motivated by similar concerns related to the challenges of carrying out an organizational mission across multiple layers of an organization and in consideration of cultural influences. The literature highlights the challenges in measuring the influence of individuals’ beliefs, identities and experience on the implementation process. The most recent literature in youth development implementation and nonprofit management point to the important role of practitioner beliefs in the process of carrying out an organization’s mission or programming (Hershberg et al., 2015; D’Iribarne, 2009;

Mason, 2015, 2016). This concern about process motivates an examination of the mechanisms at play with regard to social learning, specifically as they relate to practitioner learning in the community setting.

National and multinational nonprofit organizations have long been challenged to implement programming that is faithful to the parent organization’s mission and ideals

(Howell et al, 2012; Khandelwal, & Mohendra, 2010). Multinational nonprofits are further challenged with maintaining the continuity of mission and ideals as they endeavor to operate in the context of a myriad of cultural and political environments (Rist, et. al,

2011; Lopez-Acevedo et. al, 2012; D’Iribarne, 2009). Understanding issues related to how organizations connect their values to program delivery is made more complex when

volunteers are the primary means of program delivery (Durlak & DuPre, 2008; King &

Safrit, 1998; Hershberg, et al, 2015).

Research supports that program implementation, the degree to which programs

are executed as planned, makes a difference with relation to the overall effectiveness of

the program (Derzon et al., 2005; Durlak, 1998). Implementation studies look at

functional and structural issues related to program fidelity and outcomes (DiMaggio and

Powell, 1988; Leach, 2006; Milofsky, 1988; Rothschild and Whitt, 1986; Stinchcombe and Smith, 1975; Taylor, 1979; Sills, 1957). The proper balance between fidelity to the original program and local adaptation of programs has been a constant debate in the field

of implementation (Bopp, Saunders & Lattimore, 2013; Ghate, 2016; Dane & Schneider,

1998; Blakely, et al, 1987) and maintaining this balance is among the most important

considerations of program implementation (Durlak, 2017). Traditionally, practitioners delivering programs for nonprofit organizations have been measured as implements of program delivery, which often underplays how practitioner beliefs and identity influence the ways they adapt the program at the point of delivery (Duerden & Witt, 2012;

Hershberg et al, 2015; Rothschild and Milofsky, 2006). The focus of program

implementation on the enumerative aspects of inputs and outputs tend to address “how”

important aspects of the program are delivered, leaving deeper questions related to

contextual and cultural influences on implementation widely unaddressed.

The concepts of coupling, accountability, and will, capacity and fidelity are

important aspects of implementation in the practitioner-oriented educational setting

(Mitra, 2018, pp. 110, 116-117). Tightly-coupled organizations have a clear mission, well defined procedures and policies, and require strict adherence to guidelines (Mitra, 2018,

35 p. 110). In educational settings organizations are limited in their ability to hold practitioners accountable for decisions related to policy implementation. Many of these limitations on implementation relate to lack of organizational and practitioner capacity related to practitioner knowledge, time, resources and energy (Schulman, 1983).

Variability in the types of accountability and the focus of accountability measures allows practitioners discretion with regard to some aspects of program delivery and policy implementation.

A substantial challenge to the effectiveness of policy mandates in education is the notion that “you can’t mandate what matters”, made famous by McLaughlin (1991, p.

147). Instead, practitioner will and capacity matter most when considering effective implementation, with practitioner beliefs and organizational incentives driving local responses (McLaughlin, 1987). Capacity is typically associated with organizational interventions, such as training and resources, and practitioners’ investment of time

(Spillane & Thompson, 1997). As organizations can identify gaps in capacity, it informs the nature and urgency of interventions needed to support effective implementation. Will is related to the alignment of practitioner beliefs with the policy, which drives them to implement.

Practitioner rely on a sensemaking process to facilitate understanding of their own beliefs in relation to the values associated with a policy. Formal and informal interactions within peer networks facilitate the sensemaking process when practitioners are called to implement new ideas into practice (Brezicha, Bergmark, & Mitra, 2015; Spillane, 1999).

Peer exchange regarding interpretations of policies help practitioners develop a consensus of understanding of the polices and make adjustments to align their attitudes and beliefs

36 with the new standards of practice (Coburn & Talbert, 2006; Copland, 2003). When practitioners develop shared understandings about a policy, practice of that policy can change practitioner beliefs (McLaughlin, 1991, p. 149). For such changes to take place requires a systemic approach to policy implementation (Mitra, 2018). In the educational organizational setting, this relates to implementation support across several systems including curriculum, training, certification, accountability and engaging peer networks as sensemaking vehicles.

Implementation issues related to local adaptation of programming are exasperated in organizations that rely on volunteer practitioners to deliver programming. While education researchers are widely supportive of professionally trained teachers having discretion to adapt policies and curricula to meet the needs of their students (Slavin,

1996; Quint et al., 2013; Klinger, Cramer, and Harry, 2006), unmonitored implementation by volunteer practitioners risks great variability in the fidelity and consistency of implementation. There are a bevy of youth development organizations that rely on volunteers to deliver programming, serving tens of millions of youth throughout the world (e.g. Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts/Guides, Girls and Boys Clubs, 4-H). Durlak

(2017) refers to these youth development programs as practice programs. These programs were not designed with evaluation and implementation measurement in mind, making measuring outcomes and controlling for confounding elements more difficult.

Evaluations of these practice programs indicate their valuable contributions to youth development (e.g., Dubois et al., 2011; Lerner et al., 2005; National After School

Association & American Institutes for Research, 2016; Quinn, 1997). Yet, their diffuse and loosely coupled structure, delivering programming through local clubs, chapters, and

37 troops, and lack of accountability regarding quality of delivery, indicates a likelihood that volunteer practitioners make adaptations to the program to align with local cultural and social norms (Durlak, 2017). This raises questions related to fidelity and how consistent practice programs implement is across cultures.

The notion of fidelity in the discussion of implementation is paramount, as practitioners are faced with values-laden policies that risk conflicting with their personal beliefs. Fidelity of implementation relates to how practitioners understand the alignment of a policy with the values associated with intent of the policy (McLaughlin & Mitra,

2001). The tangled process of practitioner sensemaking of policy and values alignment brings great variability to the implementation at the local level (McLaughlin, 1991).

When policy implementation requires substantial change of practitioner behavior, or is in conflict with prevailing local norms, policy goals go unrealized (Mitra, 2018).

Given their inability to change structural and contextual elements, large practice program implementation evaluations tend to use an input-output approach, focusing on curriculum elements, program delivery methods, and selection and training of staff and volunteers (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016, 2003; Lerner et al., 2005; Anderson-Butcher et al., 2003). This approach to implementation is supported my many evaluation models that allow practice programs to justify their grounding in research-based ideals and practice, while also providing them a framework whereby they can improve aspects of their program. Despite the clear benefit of establishing an evaluation rubric for practitioners, these models do not often address the balance between program fidelity and local adaptations necessary to align the program with local cultural and social contexts

(Durlak, 2017; Zeldin et al., 2013).

The challenges of balancing program fidelity and local adaptation is echoed in the

nonprofit organization literature, as it relates to the conveyance of organizational mission

and espoused values through various stakeholders and leaders within the organizations

(Mason, 2015, 2016). Similar to the large practice programs like 4-H and Boy and Girl

Scouting, nonprofit organizations are mission driven in nature, relying on organizational

ideals to guide purpose, vision, decision-making, and other operational elements (Chen et

al., 2013; Zeldin et al., 2013). The alignment of personal values with organizational

values is made more complex in international settings, when organizational values must

be interpreted across several different national contexts (Christiansen, 2012; Grøgaard &

Colman, 2016).

The personal beliefs and identities of organizational leaders play a substantial role in the conveyance of espoused organizational values, influencing leadership decisions, and therefore shaping the ways organizations carry out their missions and purposes

(Mason, 2015, 2016). For many national practice programs that are scaled internationally,

volunteers play a key role in delivering programming and performing administrative

functions as local heads of chapters, clubs, and, in the case of Scouting, scout units. The

dual role of volunteers in these large-scale practice programs as local administrative heads and program delivery practitioners justifies the need to measure their influence.

Of particular interest to this study is the relationship among practitioner beliefs

and identity, and how the espoused values of the organization are operationalized via

curricula and policies. Each play a vital role in youth-serving organizations, with policies

and curricula providing the roadmap for implementation and volunteer practitioners

interpreting the map. Curricula and organizational policies tend to reflect general values

across cultures, whereas practitioner beliefs and identities are much more specific in

nature. Practitioner beliefs are especially important when organizational principles,

purpose and methods are emphasized more so than the dissemination of a structured

curriculum (Zeldin et al., 2008). In addition to simply delivering program content,

volunteer practitioners in these organizations are highly influential, acting as both an

implement of program delivery and a sieve through which the organization’s principles,

purpose and method are filtered and refined (Benson et al., 2006; Tolman & Pittman,

2001). The significance of the volunteer practitioner role in the program delivery process

elevates the need to better understand the influence of volunteer identity and beliefs on

the processes of implementation of youth development programs (Durlak, 2017;

Hershberg et al., 2015).

For many youth development programs, the conveyance of organizational values

during the volunteer recruitment process carries weight in how these values are shared

during program implementation. Volunteers tend to help organizations with which their

personal values and beliefs align (Smith, 1997; Rothschild & Milosky, 2006). Yet for large national and multinational organizations, volunteers’ awareness of overarching

values and the interpretation of how they should manifest in the program are up to

interpretation. When volunteers are not aware of the organizational values, their

importance as they relate to the program, or ways in which their cognitive approach to

interpreting them differs in essence from the intent of the organization, conflicts between

volunteer and organizational values arise. Where there are conflicts between volunteer

values and that of the organization, the goals of the organization are greatly compromised

(Fiedler, 1967).

Chapter 4

Conceptual Framework This study examines scout leaders through two bodies of literature to support the research questions’ focus on practitioner policy implementation within the broad context of a large national organization with important global connections. Landscapes of

Practice and Critical Sensemaking take into account the interactive nature of learning introducing a systemic approach into understanding important processes of practitioner-

oriented learning. Together, these frameworks help to provide a lens to examine the

relationship between practitioner identity, beliefs and experiences, and learning in a

community of practice setting.

Landscapes of Practice Landscapes of Practice Theory (LoP) focuses on examining the relationship between society and the individual where learning occurs (Wenger-Trayner et al. 2014;

Omidvar & Kislov, 2014). Expanding on Wenger’s earlier Community of Practice

Theory (CoP), which is widely used to understand learning in formal learning and social environments (Wenger, 2006; Squires & Van De Vanter, 2012), LoP takes a broader systematized approach that accounts for the complex mesh of social influences on individuals’ knowledgeability and competence in the learning process (Pyrko et al.,

2019). In educational settings social networks provide an effective means of ameliorating the limiting contextual influences on formal trainings, workshops, and mentorship used to bring about learning and enact changes in implementation (Darling-Hammond and

McLaughlin 1995; Coburn & Stein, 2006; Feinman-Nemser & Parker, 1992). Learning as

part of a social process allows individuals to create and continually refine their identity as

a member of their social network (Snyder & Wenger 2004). Landscapes of practice

theory is useful in understanding how knowledge is transferred, valued, and

comprehended within and among organizations (Omidvar & Kislov, 2014; Brown and

Duguid 1991).

Embedded within LoP Theory is Wenger’s CoP (2014, p. 13; 2006, p. 118-20). In educational settings social networks provide an effective means of ameliorating the limiting contextual influences on teacher trainings, workshops, and mentorship used to bring about learning and enact changes in implementation (Darling-Hammond and

McLaughlin 1995; Coburn and Stein, 2006; Feinman-Nemser and Parker 1992).

Participation in communities of practice allows individuals to create and continually refine their identity as a member of the community (Snyder and Wenger, 2004).

The scout leader CoP is the unit of analysis for this study and provides the backdrop for understanding how scout leaders, with considerations of interventions from outside of the CoP and within the CoP. CoP theory is a bounded social network that is defined by shared practice, shared understanding of purpose of practice and shared understanding of practice (Wenger, 2006, p. 73). The scout leader CoP is defined for the purposes of this study as volunteers who carry out well defined roles within the Boy

Scouts of America (BSA) organization, are motivated by a shared desire to deliver the scouting curricula and are connected by a shared curriculum. These defining elements of the scout leaders CoP are supported by the BSA through a training regimen for new scout leaders which supports their growing into full participants in the CoP.

Scout leaders’ practice as part of a well-defined community of practitioners. Scout leaders are connected to one another by a shared method, curriculum focus, and the guiding principles captured in espoused values of scouting. Scouting’s worldwide

existence and adherence to these essential elements allow connections among scout

leaders to span national, religious, gender, race, and identity boundaries. The nature of

Scouting’s orientation toward local autonomy and scout leader discretion to adapt the

program. For some, their alignment of their personal beliefs with the espoused values of

scouting lead to their role as scout leader becoming an important part of their identity.

The reliance of Scouting on volunteers for program delivery and governance emphasizes

the role of scout leader above that of the National Scouting Organization.

Critical Sensemaking Values are ever-present in our world today, underscoring the motivations that guide cultural norms and actions (Feather, 1985; Halman and de Moor, 1994; Rokeach,

1973; Schwartz, 1992). Of primary interest to this study are the predictive aspects of how individual beliefs motivate behavior at the organizational and individual levels

(Schwartz, 2007) and how they relate to policy implementation.

Sensemaking focuses on how individuals in organizations come to take action and that their decisions to act are linked directly to their experience and understanding of personal beliefs, self-perception and perception of others’ beliefs, and how they connect with others (Weick, 1995; Coburn, 2005; Spillane et al., 2002). In particular, sensemaking focuses on how individuals interpret policies and then take action based on their interpretation. Sensemaking is a process of understanding that relies on seven elements (Weick, 1995): 1) is grounded in identity construction; 2) it is retrospective in nature, taking into consideration past experiences and beliefs; 3) it occurs within the confines of a defined and inhibiting environment; 4) it conforms to social and cultural norms; 5) it is cyclical in nature; 6) motivation for taking action is driven by an individual’s personal beliefs and identity construction; and 7) individuals justify their

actions by selectively choosing evidence that is plausible, but not necessarily accurate.

This theoretical approach is helpful to understanding implementation in practitioner-

oriented systems because it focuses on understanding how local actors come to make

decisions and take action in the context of a tension-filled milieu of organizational values,

cultural norms, and individual beliefs and identities. In particular, it takes into account the contextual factors related to how individuals make sense of organizational values, policies, and practice and how context informs their practice as representatives of an

organization and within a broader community of practitioners.

Critical sensemaking builds on Weick’s seven dimensions, providing a framework

for how individuals make sense of their local environment while acknowledging the

influence of power. It takes into consideration the power elements across a combination

of factors such as organizational rules, the effects of societal norms, and the context in

which organizations exist when issues of power and privilege are of central importance

(Jean et al., 2010). Critical sensemaking reflects upon the influence of rule,

organizational norms, and context, and relates it to how certain types of evidence is used

to justify actions, while other evidences are delegitimized.

The critical sensemaking approach is suitable for this study as the processes it is

interested in understanding calls on practitioners to negotiate conflicts between personal

beliefs, espoused organizational values, and values-laden policies. The framework therefore must consider the power differential between the polices that monitor and enforce adherence to policies, forces that may motivate action (or inaction), and the effect on practitioners’ decision-making. It is important to this study that critical sensemaking acknowledges power differentials between marginalized practitioners in the community.

The critical sensemaking theory centers on the ways environmental factors and power differentials influence how individuals make sense of and take action within an organizational setting. The multinational comparative aspect of this study requires an additional consideration for how environmental factors, specifically individual beliefs, differ from country to country. This theoretical approach is helpful to understanding youth development program implementation because it is focused on understanding how local actors come to make decisions and take action, taking into account the contextual factors related to how individuals make sense of organizational values, policies, and practice and how context informs their practice as representatives of the organization

(Weick, 1995).

Layering of Frameworks The layering of the critical sensemaking and landscapes and communities of practice theories helps to provide a more complete picture of how individual scout leaders understand policy changes in the context of the scout leader community of practice and the BSA organization as a whole. Each of theories used in this study link in different ways to the three levels of analysis in this study related to the BSA organization, the scout leader community practice and the individual scout leader. The intent of this layered approach is to help understand scout leader learning in context of community and organization, and the ways that these contexts relate to scout leaders’ perceptions of themselves and their roles.

From the organizational perspective the LoP theory brings meaning to the contextual influences from beyond the community of practice on scout leaders’ perceptions of their roles and participation in practice in formal and informal ways. These influences take into consideration coupling between organizational interventions and

45 scout leader practice at the scout unit level. From the formal perspective coupling explores aspects of governance which include organizational structure, rules and values, communication, and compliance-oriented processes related to policy mandates and oversight. Informally, LoP provides a lens for understanding the role of multi- membership of scout leaders beyond the scout leader CoP, and the ways that scout leaders’ perceptions of their roles are influence by their participation in other communities of practice. How scout leaders negotiate the boundaries between CoP is important to understanding their perceptions of their roles within the BSA as well as their role within the scout leader CoP.

From the community perspective the CoP framework provides insight into the ways that processes within the CoP relate to the ways that scout leaders perceive their roles, belongingness, and participation in policy change. While there are no formal roles within the CoP designated to policy change, understanding the dynamics within the CoP is important to the policy implementation process. To understand these dynamics, this framework focuses specifically on the framework of practitioner participation in the CoP, which considers issues of power and belongingness as important elements in determining the ways that practitioners perceive themselves and others perceive them as members in the CoP (Wenger, 2006). The model of practitioner participation differentiates between peripherality and core participation of CoP members, as well as marginalization within the CoP. These dynamics, coupled with the social norms and organizational influences and legal requirements, shape the boundaries of the CoP and the environment where the important process of peer exchange take place.

Sensemaking enables an individual-oriented approach to understanding factors

that affect scout leader learning and decision-making, such as identity, beliefs, and experiences outside of the social environment of practice – basically, the baggage that practitioners bring to the table. The critical aspect of the sensemaking framework adds an important layer to this study that addresses power dynamics within the CoP. The notion of power is necessarily intertwined with the CoP notion of belongingness among scout leaders and marginalization. Organizational influences from outside of the CoP as viewed through the LoP lens influence the nature of marginalization within the CoP as well as the BSA organization. The equity-oriented nature of the policies at the center of this study require that attention be paid to practitioners who the policies allow to emerge from the margins and to those who feel marginalized by the policies.

Concept Map The two concept maps presented in this study represent the different units of

analysis that are part of this study. The study is oriented around scout leader practice

within their local scout units as well as scout leader participation in a broader community

of practitioners. Figure 4.1 provides a systemic view of the Landscape of Practice in

which scout leaders operate, focusing primarily on the scout leader CoP. Figure 4.2

operationalizes the research questions in the context of the scout unit, which recognizes

the embedded case study design of this study. Together, the maps provide a framework to

explore the policy environments within a highly structured organizational setting, while

also allowing for consideration of the broader context of scout leader learning which

expands beyond the formal boundaries of the BSA organization.

The concept map presented in Figure 4.1 is oriented around the Landscape of

Practice theory, which provides a field structure for understanding the context of the study. This map brings to the forefront the complex and interactive nature of social learning in the practitioner setting. The focus of this map is on understanding processes of learning rather than clearly defined channels of learning, governed by organizational roles and relationships. The process orientation allows the study to explore social learning without impedance by formal organizational structures.

The concept map captured in Figure 4.2 provides a linear approach to linking the literature to findings than is possible in the messiness of the LoP concept map. The linear map is centered on the linked Scouts BSA troops as the unit of analysis, an organizational structure where formal and informal communication and interaction regularly occur among scout leaders, scout professionals and the BSA organization.

The layered framework of the study is driven by the research questions to deepen understanding of how policy changes are interpreted at the individual level and in the context of a broad social network of learning. The right side of the map relates to the

Critical Sensemaking approach and understanding (RQ1 and RQ2) how scout leaders’ individual experiences and beliefs relate to their perception and practice of their roles, and any change that occurred after the BSA announced policy changes. The left side of the map relates to the Landscape of Practice approach and understanding (RQ3) how scout leaders rely on the members, resources and structure of the scouting to refine their understanding of the policy changes and make decisions about how to incorporate new policies into practice. In the context of the Landscape of Practice framework the study also seeks to understand (RQ4) what factors enable or constrain Scout leaders’ abilities to fulfill their roles with regard to the policy changes. The layering of these two theoretical approaches aim to tease out the influence of social and individual learning practices and scout leader background and identity on scout leaders’ perceptions and practice of their roles. Each of layer of theory is related to a layer of analysis, organizational, community, and individual, which together forms the theoretical backdrop for the findings in this study (Figure 4.3).

Chapter 5

Research Design and Methods This study explores the nature of and processes related to practitioner implementation of equity-oriented policies in the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. (BSA), a national organization embedded in the World Organization of Scouting Movement (WOSM), a global nonformal youth development movement. The study brings several bodies of literature into conversation with one another to facilitate a deeper understanding of the relationship between organizational dynamics and the social learning processes that exist within communities of practitioners. As such, this study’s research design, methods, and data sources are layered to enable analysis at the system- level, organization level, community level, and individual level. These elements provide robust framework to address the research questions driving this study.

I take a social constructivist approach that builds a deeper understanding of the contextual elements and their influence on processes related to how practitioners perceive and practice their roles. This approach relies on garnering the views of individuals to help derive meaning of organizational constructs and practitioner experiences, taking into account cultural and organizational norms (Creswell, 2013, p. 24-25; Maxwell, 2013). This interpretive understanding of the data is necessary to construct the environmental factors that shape scout leader understanding of their role and practice in a complex volunteer organization and youth development setting.

Ethics and Positionality In qualitative approaches to research, the researcher is the lens through which data

is interpreted (Creswell, 2013; Maxwell, 2013). My experience with youth development

programs both as a participant, volunteer, staffer and trainer, provides me with an array

of insights into nonformal youth development programs in the U.S. setting. This

knowledge helps to shape the way I see gaps in both programs needs and the literature,

52 which drives a practitioner-oriented approach to the study of processes related to organizational and interactional theories.

For nearly a decade I worked with the Cooperative Extension system in

Pennsylvania during which time I developed volunteer and staff training programs, wrote grants and solicited funds, in particular, in support of the 4-H Youth Development

Program. Through this work I came to have an understanding of the importance of evaluation and implementation in the process of delivering programs to youth. It was the relationship between applied social science research and delivering quality youth programs in 4-H that served as a driving force for my interest in conducting educational research.

I also have had a lifelong experience with the Boy Scouts of America, Inc.

Scouting has been an important part of my formation in my youth and adolescence, and as a father and community leader. Starting at age 6 as a Tiger Scout I progressed through the Scouting program to eventually earn the highest rank of Eagle Scout by age 17. My father served as a Cubmaster and Boy Scout leader for me and my brother, who also earned the rank of Eagle Scout. My mother was a volunteer leader for Girl Scouts of the

U.S.A. and my sister earned the Gold Award, the top award in Girl Scouting. I spent my youth surrounded by volunteer scout leaders who exemplified the espoused values of

Scouting for me throughout my formative years; mentors who provided fine examples of how to be a positive influence on others and a proactive and participatory member of my community. When my children came of age, they joined Cub Scouts and I soon took on the volunteer role of assistant den leader, den leader, and eventually cubmaster. I

53 currently serve as a committee chair for a Cub Scout unit and an assistant scoutmaster for a Scouts BSA unit.

Through my volunteer work with Scouting I became aware of the existence and varied impact of Scouting on six continents and in many countries. What I thought was purely an American phenomenon, of sorts, turns out to exist in many places, in many different ways, and engaging literally tens of millions of youth and adults each year. The global viewpoint of Scouting expanded my interpretation of what I saw in the U.S. context as organizational challenges for a program reaching white middle-class youth, to that of possibilities to address important concerns in the most fragile regions of the world.

The scalability and cross-cultural reach of Scouting emphasizes the importance of studying its processes, both for the purpose of improving Scouting and for deepening our understanding of the processes at work in youth development programs.

While this study’s focus is on the process of practitioner implementation, my experiences and general affinity for Scouting raise important considerations related to researcher bias. I suggest that there is value in the findings of a study conducted by a researcher who knows and understands an organization intimately well, just as there is value in the research findings of a complete outsider. My intention is to conduct a balanced study that is improved somewhat by my relationship with Scouting. I have taken special care to use my insider’s perspective on Scouting to select a research design and approach to sampling that ameliorates organizational biases that may affect the diversity of data sources and representativeness of findings. In my analysis of the results I will engage outside reviewers to provide feedback related to these concerns, both from researchers and practitioners of World Scouting and those outside of the Scouting realm.

I also engage in member checking of transcript data to allow for participant reflection and

refinement of comments.

Research Design This study explores the guiding research questions through an embedded case

study of the WOSM, with scout units and scout leaders within those units as the units of

analysis in this study (Yin, 2014). Embedded within the WOSM is the Boy Scouts of

America, Inc. (BSA), one of the 174 National Scouting Organizations that comprise the

WOSM. Further embedded within the BSA are thousands of scout units scattered

throughout the U.S. Within each scout unit are scout leaders, who are volunteer

practitioners responsible for delivering and overseeing the program at the local level.

The embedded case study design allows for several levels of comparative

analysis, between scout units and among scout leaders, within and beyond the scout units

where they are embedded. This study focuses on five cases of scout units in the BSA’s

northeast region, which roughly encompasses the states north and east of Washington

D.C. Naming of scout units as cases allows for a comparative analysis at the

organizational level, which drives findings of variability and sameness among scout

units, helping to untangle organizational influences from social influences during

analysis. The design also presents a total of 33 scout leaders embedded within each of the

scout units as individual cases. The choice to recognize scout leaders as embedded cases

in this study is reflective of their participation in Scouting beyond the constraints of the

organizational structure, which was motivated by findings from the pilot study.

Identifying scout leaders as individual cases allows for the exploration of variability of

scout leaders practice through the layered lens of Landscapes and Community of Practice and Critical Sensemaking.

Typology The five scout units were selected based on a typology that was generated from

pilot study findings. Scout units for this study are in the Scouts BSA program, formerly

known as Boy Scouts, which serves youth from age 11 to 17. The first selection criteria

for this typology was designed to ensure that participating scout units would have

implemented at least some aspect of the new membership policies at the center of this

study – welcoming LGBTQ+ members and leaders and welcoming girl members.

The typology for case selection is oriented around amplifying differences between

scout units and providing a framework for a robust cross-case analysis. Exploring these differences in analysis helps to bring depth and insight into the learning processes related to scout leader perception of their roles and practice of policy implementation.

Understanding how these differences play out within the shared context of Scouting helps bring clarity to the ways the organizational and community settings influence scout leaders’ practice. Findings related to the diversity explored in this study provide valuable insights for future study of Scouting and other similar organizations. These insights inform decisions about study design, methods, and site selection, as well as helping to guide the focus of future research.

The pilot study indicated that scout leaders tend not to discuss sexuality within their scout units and consider it a private matter. Therefore, even though the policies require welcoming of LGBTQ+ youth, scout leaders’ reluctance to discuss sexuality in the program would make identifying scout units who have LGBTQ+ scouts or leaders would be difficult, if not impossible. It also raises ethical considerations with regard to protection of individuals identifying as LGBTQ+. Turning my attention to the girl membership policies, I found that information about scout units who have implemented

the girls membership policy was publicly available on the Scouting.org member

recruitment website. I determined that implementation of the girl membership policy

would be the requirement for case selection, given the public nature and easy

accessibility of the girls scout unit data.

I further refined the typology to require for scout units to participate they must be

“linked”, meaning that they have both a boy-led and girl-led Scouts BSA troop that share a chartered organization and a single committee to oversee the program. The decision to require scout units to be linked was driven by the framework of this study, which includes power dynamics through the critical sensemaking lens. The pilot study findings as well as much of the Scouting literature supported the notion that the BSA’s decision to welcome girls into the Scouts BSA program would create tensions between a history rooted in the masculinization of boys and the emergence of women and girls into full participation in the organization. As such, linked scout units are on the front lines where these conflicts play out within scout units, and important to the design of this study.

In addition to the linked scout unit criteria, the typology emphasized the importance of rurality, secular nature of the chartered organization, and racial homogeneity in the selection of scout units. The orientation of this study around organizational values and practitioner beliefs drove the selection of these additional criteria, with the intent bringing variability among cases to the forefront of the analysis.

Rurality criteria enables analysis to extend across differences in the prevailing cultural norms that span the rural-urban spectrum. Rurality was determined through the use of the

Rural-Urban Continuum Codes which were developed by the United States Department

of Agriculture (USDA, 2015). The codes classify counties according to population density and metropolitan influence.

The justification for diversity among charter organizations is similarly rooted and important to unpacking the complex influence of the BSA organizational structure on volunteers. The Scouting program is delivered by volunteer leaders who, in conjunction with a chartering organization, establishes a local scouting unit. The existence of

Scouting at the local level in the U.S. relies heavily on the relationship with these chartering groups, which are often religious organizations (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples). The charter organizations provide physical plant, financial, and volunteer support, as well as a source for new member recruiting. The charter-scout unit relationship allows the charter organization to adapt elements of the Scouting program to better align with their faith/religious traditions and norms.

The choice to focus only on linked scout units had several effects on the study.

First, it ensured that the scout unit have active programs and a solid leadership corps that are connected to Scouting beyond their local scout unit and have an active relationship with their chartered organization. The decision to start a girl-led troop within an already existing boy-led troop required scout leaders at the unit level to work collaboratively with local scout professionals in the BSA, garner support and approval from their chartered organization, and garner support and approval from other scout leaders in their scout unit.

Second, linked troops limited the pool of possible scout units substantially, making it more difficult to find diversity based on other typology criteria. The linked scout unit criteria did limit the available pool of participants and required several additional rounds of solicitation. Yet, this restriction criteria did not require an expansion

of the study beyond the BSA’s northeast region and produced an acceptably diverse pool

of possible participants.

Third, the timing of this study is extremely important, as it enabled the collection

of practitioners’ reflections in the midst of the implementation process, which allowed for deep analysis of the forces at play as they came to understand their role and participation.

Linked units were very early in their existence at the time of solicitation of participation

and data collection. The implementation of the girls membership policy was first

possible for Scouts BSA units on February 1, 2019. With solicitation to participate

occurring in June of 2019 and data collection starting in August of 2019, the findings

reflect the early stages of policy implementation, allowing the data to speak to

practitioner processes in the midst of implementation.

Site Selection Identification, solicitation, and selection of scout units to participate in this study

was a multi-part process. It required approval from Penn State’s institutional review

board (IRB), coordination with the BSA’s research team, the collection and organizing of

publicly available data, and the development of a scout unit survey and solicitation

materials. The study received IRB approval in the spring of 2019, which enabled the site

selection process to begin in April 2019. The five scout units participating in this study

were finalized by early August 2019 with data collection beginning soon after.

Prior to identifying the pool of linked scout units, I met with the BSA’s head of

the research team and two of her associate researchers. The primary purpose of the

meeting was to alert them of the study and to request their general support as

collaborators. The team acquiesced to my conducting of the study, as the legal challenges

facing the BSA restricted the team’s access to the organization’s lawyers, and therefore

59 they were unable to formally endorse or promote it. They instead made several recommendations that would serve to encourage scout unit participation in the study and help with identifying new girls Scouts BSA troops. Of note, they suggested the use of scout leader Facebook groups for solicitation and alerted me that the BSA’s member recruiting site is updated daily with new girls troops and is the most accurate resource in the organization for tracking. They also requested adding several questions related to scout leader training, which they anticipated would be helpful to their understanding of another study of scout leaders they are conducting currently.

Soon after the meeting with the BSA research team I created a survey tool to identify scout units, email and social media solicitations, and built a website to provide an overview of the study (https://scoutleaderstudy.weebly.com/). The website served two primary purposes. First to legitimize the study for skeptical scout leaders and encourage their participation. Skepticism of those outside of the BSA organization was high at the time this study was conducted as news stories of child abuse and bankruptcy proceedings were being published weekly. The second reason for the website was to provide me an easy way to disseminate information about the study via social media and for scout leaders to share within their scout units to garner quick consensus to approve participation in the study.

Using the mapping search tool on the BSA’s member recruiting website (BSA, n.d.c) I identified all of the Scouts BSA troops for girls in the BSA’s northeast region.

From there, I identified girls troops that shared a chartered organization with boys troops through a matching process. As of May 9, 2020, I identified 238 linked scout units in the

BSA’s northeast region (Figure 5.1). Among those linked troops, I was able to collect

60 email addresses for scout leaders representing 174 of those scout units from the BSA’s website or troop’s websites and social media pages.

The next step in the process was surveying the linked scout units. The purpose of the survey was to further refine the eligible participants based on the typology. The survey asked for scout leaders to confirm their location and linked status, and to share details about the racial homogeneity, number of registered scouts by gender, number of annual activities, number of males and females in scout leader roles, and the secularity of their chartered organization. The survey was created in Survey Monkey and was emailed to the 174 scout leaders. Of the 174 emails sent I received 94 complete surveys, a response rate of 54%. In addition, I provided a link to the survey on a closed Facebook group for Scouts BSA Female Troop Volunteers which had 3982 members at the time the survey link was shared. From the Facebook solicitation I received 80 additional responses, a 2% response rate (Figure 5.2). Of the total 174 girl-led units responding to the survey, 77 met the criteria of fit which required Scouts BSA troops linked and located

61 in the BSA’s northeast region. Of these 77 units, 9 responses were solicited through a

Facebook post and 68 through direct email.

Nearly all survey respondents were registered scout leaders with the scout unit for which they were reporting (Figure 5.3). Key leaders of the troop in roles of either committee chair, scoutmaster or chartered organization representative providing 91% of responses. The remaining responses were provided by other registered scout leaders (8%) and a scout professional (1%).

I then sorted the 77 scout units who met the criteria by the typology prescribed by

the study for the selection of cases. Sorting criteria included racial homogeneity of scout

unit’s leadership, secularity of the chartered organization, and rural/non-rural geography.

Results indicated that there was substantial enough response to consider to further

diversify the typology to include rural, suburban/small town, and urban troops separately

(Table 5.1). Response from rural troops was minimal at less than 4% of responses, which is related to the smaller number of Scouts BSA troops in rural areas and the smaller proportion of girl-led troops in those rural areas and not an indicator of suppressed response rates. As such, I expanded the typology to include an urban category.

Table 5.1: Linked Scouts BSA Troops Meeting Typology Criteria (%) n=77

WHITE MAJORITY NON-WHITE MAJORITY NO MAJORITY

Secular Non-Secular Secular Non-Secular Secular Non-Secular

Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Non-Rural Rural Non-Rural Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Rural Rural Rural

1 20 2 41 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 3

(1%) (26%) (2%) (53%) (0%) (1%) (0%) (1%) (0%) (4%) (0%) (4%)

**Missing data for troops who did not provide racial/ethnic composition responses are not included in this table (n=5) (6.5%)

While most of the scout units claimed majority-white leadership (83%), 8 troops reported non-white majority and no-majority race/ethnicity (11%) and 5 troops failed to provide responses related to racial/ethnic composition (6.5%). Responses identified few girl-led Scouts BSA troops in rural areas (3%) with all rural respondents indicating that their troops have a white majority of adult leaders. There was greater parity in responses from secular and non-secular troops, with 32% of respondents chartered by secular organizations and 68% chartered by non-secular organizations.

Table 5.2: Case Selection of Linked Scouts BSA Units n=5

WHITE MAJORITY NON-WHITE MAJORITY NO MAJORITY

Secular Non-Secular Secular Non-Secular Secular Non-Secular

Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Non- Rural Rural Rural Rural* Rural Rural

1 1 1 1 1

*Urban

Through a thorough review of the survey responses I identified the mix of 12 scout units to participate in this study based on the diversity established in the typology.

Based on the criteria of the typology, I strategically invited scout units to participate in

the study with a goal of engaging five scout units to represent different aspects of each of

the typology. The final selection of scout units to participate in the study include diversity

on the basis of homogeneity of scout leader race within the unit, rurality of the unit, and

secularity of the chartered organization (Table 5.2). The breakdown of scout units based

on these criteria are three scout units with a white majority of scout leaders, one with a

non-white majority, and one with no majority of scout leader race. Three scout units have

non-secular chartered organizations, with the remaining two having secular chartered

organizations. One of the scout units is located in a rural area, with three located in the

suburbs, and one classified as urban.

Methods Using methods typical in case study research, I collected data through narrative

interviewing, short answer surveys, document analysis, and field observations. I

conducted semi-structured interviews and short-answer survey with scout leaders in each of the scout units. I then explored documents and materials that relate to how volunteer scout leaders come to understand and perceive their roles and practice (Appendix A, B,

C). These documents include the Bylaws and Rules and Regulations of BSA, policy guides for unit leaders and chartered organizations, the espoused values of the BSA captured in the Scout Oath and Scout Law (BSA, 2009), and position specific trainings for Scoutmasters, Assistant Scoutmasters and Committee Chairs. All of these materials are available to the public and accessible online via the BSA’s official websites

Scouting.org and myScouting.org.

The blend of these types of measures is important to operationalizing the

Communities of Practice Participation framework (Figure 4.3) which is the lens dedicated in this study to understanding the relationship of participation and marginalization within

the CoP on scout leader perceptions of their role and policy implementation practice. The data sources in this study enabled triangulation between organizational effects explained by the documents, community-effects explained by observations and semi-structured

interviews, and individual effects explained by both semi-structured interviews and

survey results. (Figure 5.4). Together these data sources build a complete picture of the

practice environment that defines boundaries between each level and is oriented

downward to the scout leader. Through a social learning lens, triangulation of data

allowed for a robust analysis of the ways the organization and community influence the

ways that scout leaders carry out their roles.

Recruiting Once a scout unit agreed to participate in the study, I worked closely with one of the key

leaders in each unit to schedule dates and times to conduct observations and interview

66 scout leaders within their units. I spent between 3 and 4 days with each scout unit conducting interviews of scout leaders and observing scout leader committee meetings, for some units spread out over two site visits. The number of scout leaders in each unit varied greatly with some units with more than 50 registered leaders and others with as few as six. This variability led to a greater number of participants from some scout units than others.

Scout leaders in each unit were recruited via email to participate during scheduled visits to their scout unit, with no obligation to participate (Table 5.3). Participating scout leaders were required to have direct experience with Scouting both prior to and after the announcement of policy changes in 2015 and have direct experience implementing the policy changes, in particular with regard to accepting girls into scouting. The number of adult leaders interviewed in each scout unit was bracketed on the lower end by the total number of registered leaders in the scout unit and on the higher end when responses reached a theoretical saturation. Scout leaders in key roles for each scout unit participated in interviews to address concerns of internal validity, bringing some consistency of data sources from each scout unit for later comparative analysis. These roles included committee chair, scoutmaster for both boys and girls troops, and chartered organization representatives. I ensured there was balance between the program-oriented and administrative-oriented nature of scout leader roles within scout units and more broadly across the study to add to the level consistency.

Table 5.3: Scout Leader Participants by Scout Unit and Role (n=33) WHITE MAJORITY NON-WHITE NO MAJORITY MAJORITY Secular Non-Secular Non-Secular Secular Suburban Rural Suburban Urban Suburban

Trooptopia The Valley Hallowcrest City Shadow Burbane Program Admin Program Admin Program Admin Program Admin Program Admin 5 6 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3

Setting and Data Sources Scout leaders who agreed to be part of the study participated in a 60-minute interview, conducted at a location of their choice that would allow for a private and candid conversation or conducted via Zoom, a secure proprietary video conferencing platform. Locations included meeting rooms at located in the facilities of the scout unit’s chartered organization, meeting room in public libraries in the town where the scout unit is located and coffee shops.

Prior to beginning questioning, participants were provided an informed consent document which explained the study and their rights as a participant in the study. The

IRB determined that the nature of risk in this study did not require participants to provide a signed acknowledgement of receiving the informed consent document. The interviewer emphasized orally before beginning the interview that the participant was under no obligation to participate in the study and that they can end the interview at any time for any reason.

The interviews had two parts, starting with a short-answer written survey followed by a semi-structured oral interview. The written survey (Appendix E) collected focused on collecting data regarding participants’ background in scouting, leadership roles and training experiences. It also collected data that provided insights into participant identity focusing on belonging, political beliefs, and religiosity. The survey was used by

the interviewer to guide the oral interview process as well as for later data analysis. Paper

surveys were assigned a unique numeric identifier immediately upon completion which

decoupled the identity of the participant from their responses which was also denoted by

the numerical identifier for the scout unit.

The interviewer read a brief statement prior to conducting the oral interviews,

reiterating the participant rights and risks associated with participating in the interview

process outlined in the informed consent document and asking permission to begin

recording the interview. The semi-structured interviews were guided by eight questions which focused on participants’ relationship with Scouting, reaction to the membership policies, experiences incorporating the policies into practice, and constraining or enabling factors related to their experiences (Appendix F). The nature of the guiding questions

Within the structure of the interview each participant was provided the most recently amended copies of the “Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America, Inc.” and of the

“Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scout of America Inc.”, each approved by the BSA

National Executive Board in June 2018. Participants were asked to read the highlighted excerpts of each of these governing documents and respond to questions about them. The highlighted sections each addressed aspects of the new membership policies which

defined participation and responsibilities for youth and adult participants in the BSA’s

programming.

Each interview was audio recorded on a portable audio recording device and

saved onto a secure cloud drive hosted by Penn State University through a licensing

agreement with BOX Inc. The saved audio files were each assigned a numeric identifier

which matched the identifier used on written surveys. The shared identifiers allowed for

later linking of the written and oral responses, and situating these data within a specific

scout unit to enable analysis.

Audio recordings were transcribed using Temi, an online, computer generated

transcribing service. The transcribed data was cleaned of technical errors and any

identifiers, such as names, locations, and scout unit numbers. Within one month of the

interview the scrubbed transcripts were provided to the participants for member check to

verify the accuracy of the transcription and to allow for participants to refine their

responses and given the opportunity to opt out of the study. Member checking was

conducted via email which linked the identity of the participant to the audio file identifier

on a spreadsheet held in same secure server where the audio files were stored. Once

participants responded to their member check, their email address was deleted and no

longer able to be linked to their interview and survey data. None participants opted out

of the study and none provided any substantial corrections, clarifications or refinements

their transcripts.

In addition to interviews, data for this study was generated from field notes

collected from observations (Appendix G). I observed at least one committee meeting for each of the scout units, with some scout units providing more than one opportunity for observations. These committee meetings were attended by scout leaders and generally focused on planning future programs, reporting out of past programs. The purpose of observing these meetings was to capture data on scout leaders in a peer interactive setting within the scout unit to align with the communities of practice aspect of this study’s framing. While collecting data I was positioned away from the discussion, recording hand written field notes in a notebook. My only interaction with the meeting attendees was

70 when I was introduced before the official start of the meeting to provide the informed consent to all participants and to provide a brief overview of the study. Data collected in my field notes recorded scout leader roles, seating arrangements, room descriptions, key topics, and general notes with regard to peer exchange, power and marginalization. My field notes were scanned and saved digitally on the aforementioned secure server.

Additional sources of data for this study include documents which were drawn from web-based and written sources. The document data in this study facilitated analysis of the BSA’s formal interventions and processes as they relate to scout leader practice of their roles. Written sources include the Scout Leader Code of Conduct and Chartered

Organizations agreement and overview documents (Appendix C, D). The BSA’s online training modules comprises the totality of web-based data contributing to this study, which I have access to as a registered scout leader in the BSA.

Scout leader online trainings have two components, one which is role specific and the other addressing safety requirements of the program. I examined role specific trainings for scoutmasters, committee chairs, committee members, and chartered organizational representatives through taking each course. I also participated in the Youth

Protection Training. Completion of the trainings required more than 10 hours, during which time I collected hand written field notes. My field notes focused on the relationship of the trainings to the espoused values of Scouting and the governing documents of the BSA, focusing specifically on broader issues of equity and power.

Analysis Using qualitative analytical methods, I analyzed the transcribed interviews, written surveys, field notes, and governance documents in NVivo 12, a computer-assisted data analysis software system. I organized the data using a matrix approach, which

allowed for analysis of the data from several different perspectives and at several

different levels. To facilitate this approach, I identified each participant in the study as a

separate case, linking data from their written survey and transcribed interviews. I then

embedded each of the participant cases within each of the five scout units, which I then

categorized as separate cases. This structure within NVivo allowed for the creation of

queries which enabled a complex coding strategy and more robust analysis of data.

I completed two initial rounds of coding on the interview data, focusing on all interviews from each scout unit. I started with initial coding to identify any broad themes and then used a grounded pattern matching logic guided by predictions of how scout leaders use formal and informal processes and sources of information to bring new member policies into practice (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Saldaña, 2015; Yin, 2014).

The second round of grounded coding was guided by the theoretical framework, research design and pilot study findings, which led to my organization of themes into three levels of influence at the organizational, community, and individual levels. This organizational structure helped to orient the analysis around separate levels of findings related to the

BSA’s influence, community influence, and scout leader levels. The themes associated with the organizational effects were driven by the LoP framework, which helped to define the bounds of and formal influences on scout leader practice primarily influenced by the BSA, although with consideration of chartered organizations and World Scouting.

The community-level effects were driven by the CoP Practitioner Participation model

(Wenger, 2006) which brings into consideration the nature of scout leader participation within the CoP as well as issues of marginalization and peer exchange. Individual effects were guided by the Critical Sensemaking framework, which brings into consideration

72 experiences, identity, and linkages to issues of power present throughout the system. The final step in the initial coding process was organizing the themes generated in the first round of grounded coding under the headings guided by the layered theory and design of the study.

I then proceeded to auto-Code the data within each scout unit, looking to identify additional themes I may have bypassed in the manual coding process. The auto-code function in NVivo detects shared themes based on word frequencies in the interview transcripts and survey responses and differences in tone. I conducted auto-coding for all data, and then by each scout unit separately to identify differences between scout units.

The primary differences generated from this process indicated that the tone was generally more negative in The Valley, compared to other scout units in the study. From this, I added a set of themes related to approach to conflict among scout leaders and recoded all of the interview transcripts to capture this theme.

I conducted a fourth round of coding of the interview data guided specifically by the layered community of practice and critical sensemaking framework to explore how leaders perceptions and approaches related to the espoused values of Scouting captured in the Scout Oath and Scout Law. The decision to code themes related to the espoused values of Scouting was based on findings from the pilot study which indicated a strong link between scout leader interpretation of policy implementation and their operationalization of the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. I decided to conduct a special round of coding for these themes because they did not align easily with the structure of the grounded approach in the early rounds of coding. Also, through the memoing process,

I found that scout leader reliance on the espoused values of Scouting varied between

73 scout units and that coding it as a final step would bring patterns of similarity and difference to the forefront more readily, thus facilitating a more consistent coding.

Together these four rounds of coding produced a codebook which identified and nested the major themes generated by these data (Appendix H), and aligned the themes with both the theoretical framework and design of the study.

To enable analysis at the case level – both individual scout leaders and scout unit levels – I linked the research questions for this study to the themes that they are associated. There was much overlapping between research questions, with many themes relating to more than one research question. This linking of the research questions to themes enabled the cross-case comparison of scout units using simple search functions in

NVivo. The cross-case analysis of individual scout leaders as cases required a more complicated use of NVivo’s query functions.

Using the query function in NVivo, I conducted an additional layer of analysis which focused on cross-case analysis of scout leaders which enabled comparisons based on scout leader characteristics, such as gender, scout leader role, scouting experience, political alignment, and religiosity. The purpose of this analytical approach is to provide insights into the idiosyncratic nature of difference between scout leaders and between scout units in this study and to help link important statements that speak to these differences. These leader characteristics were provided in the survey data, with each participant’s responses linked to their individual case in NVivo. I conducted queries based on these scout leader characteristics which compared themes associated with each of the research questions. The queries included comparisons between male and female scout leaders between administrative and program-oriented scout leader roles, between

74 scouters with unit-only experience in Scouting and those with experience outside of the scout unit, between scout leaders with conservative religious and political beliefs and all other scout leaders. This approach to analysis generated several of the important findings of this study related to power and marginalization withing practitioner communities and larger themes of organizational interventions in policy implementation.

Validity Several aspects of this study raise important questions about the study’s internal and external validity. I address questions about internal validity related to the potential for researcher bias in conducting the study. I then address external validity questions related to the applicability of findings to the BSA organization as well as to other organizations.

As a current scout leader, my peer relationship with the interview participants provides an easy pathway for building rapport and gaining confidence of interview participants. My volunteer role in the BSA also provides me insight into the typical processes and organization of Scouting, which informs the design of the study and provides some access to scout professionals and high-level volunteers who may not be evident to those outside of the organization. My close relationship to Scouting requires careful attention to address concerns of researcher bias by raising my level of self- awareness through the process of reflection and reflexivity. In addition, I engaged researchers and subject experts within and outside of the BSA to review and reflex with me throughout the process of design, data collection, and analysis. Together these processes enable be to understand the data and findings from a personal perspective, blending insider, outsider and personal perspectives.

The choice to limit the boundaries of this study to the BSA’s northeast region

risked skewing the data in ways that would not be generalizable to the rest of the country

or to other organizations based on racial, religious, and prevailing cultural norms.

Broadening the reach of the study to a nation-wide sampling of scout units would require

a shift in the methods chosen for this study thus reducing the quality and depth of the

findings. I developed a typology for the study to capture key elements of diversity found

within the BSA organization. The final selection of scout units is diverse with regard to

religious affiliation, racial composition, and rurality. The scout leader participants

represent a diversity of religious, racial, and political backgrounds as well. While some

aspects of cultural differences in scout units may be exaggerated in other parts of the

country, the typology and diversity sampling approach within the northeast region

provide enough diversity to justify the generalization of findings across the organization.

The racial composition of youth membership in the BSA is not representative of the racial composition of the U.S. This misalignment raises concerns about how well findings from this study will be applicable to organizations outside Scouting and the study’s ability to contribute to the discussion of theory. I incorporated a purposive sampling approach to the selection of cases which included racial homogeneity as a selection criterion. The five scout units selected to participate in the study represent diverse compositions of scout leaders: a Latinx majority, no majority (a blend of Asian,

Caucasian, and Indian scout leaders), and three white-majority scout units. The diversity between cases enables this study to address the role of race as part of comparative between-scout unit analysis.

The next chapter explores the pilot study, which helped to shape the methods, design and analysis for this study. It provides an overview of the methods as well the findings. It concludes with the contributions of the pilot study to this study.

Chapter 6

Pilot Study The preliminary findings captured in the pilot study focus on identifying the important factors related to how scout leaders come to understand and practice their roles.

Data for this pilot study was collected in the spring of 2019 through semi-structured interviews of volunteer scout leaders with regard to their experiences interpreting the

BSA’s new membership polices enacted between 2014 and 2019. Additional data was sourced from documents which included WOSM’s essential elements of Scouting

(Vallroy, 2012), the BSA Scout Oath and Scout Law (BSA, 2009), the Rules and

Regulations and the Charter and Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA, 2018a,

2018b).

A pilot sample of current unit scout leaders were recruited via email, through recommendations by scout professionals in the BSA’s northeast region and additional participants were recruited through snowballing methods. Participants in the pilot study

(n=5) currently hold volunteer roles in scout units of Scoutmaster, Cubmaster or

Committee Chair and represent scout units located in suburban and rural settings in the

BSA’s northeast region. Participant scout leader experience ranged between 3 and 15 years and two women and three men were included in the sample. Three of the participants represent scout units who pledged to accept girl members into their scout units, although none currently have any girl members. The chartered organizations represented in the sample of participants were all non-secular and included two

Methodist, two Catholic, and one Presbyterian.

Setting and Data Sources and Analysis Recruits were asked to participate in a 60-minute interview, conducted at a location of their choice that would allow for a private and candid conversation. Four interviews were conducted in person, in a private area of a public or community-use building with one interview conducted via Zoom, an online video conferencing service.

The interviews were semi-structured in nature and focused on volunteer experiences interpreting organizational policies. Each participant was provided a copy of the Rules and Regulations document and asked to review two sections related to membership policies, which were highlighted in yellow. The nature of the enacted questions focused on participants’ meaningful experiences in Scouting, reaction to the membership policies, experiences incorporating the policies into practice, and constraining or enabling factors related to their experiences.

Each interview was audio recorded and transcribed using Temi, an online, computer generated transcribing service. The transcribed data was cleaned of technical errors and identifiers and provided to the participant for member check, to verify the accuracy of the transcription and to allow for participants to refine their responses. None of the pilot participants opted out of the study at any time during the process and no substantial corrections, clarifications or refinements were made to the transcripts.

Using qualitative analytical methods, I analyzed the transcribed interviews in

NVivo, a computer-assisted data analysis software system, and triangulated these data with the WOSM essential elements of Scouting, Scout Oath and Scout Law, and the

Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. I completed two rounds of coding on the pilot interview data starting with initial coding to identify any broad themes and then used a pattern matching logic guided by predictions of how scout leaders use

79 formal and informal processes and sources of information to bring new member policies into practice (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Saldaña, 2015; Yin, 2014). For this pilot study,

I conducted an additional round of coding on the interview data guided by the layered

Community of Practice and Sensemaking framework to explore how leaders’ perceptions and approaches related to the essential elements of Scouting. These coded data led me to develop themes reflecting two primary areas of findings which focus on organizational effects and personal belief effects. These findings went on to guide refinements to the follow-on study.

Pilot Study Findings The findings presented here provide initial insights into several different contextual aspects at play as scout leaders endeavor to implement new membership policies within their scout units. While the pilot data reflects only a small sample of scout leaders, the analysis of the data supports the parsing of contextual influences that are particular to the organizational influence of the BSA from those contextual influences that are more directly related to the process of interpreting policies and implementation of the program. As such, these findings are not intended to provide a definitive insight into the contextual influences on scout leader perceptions and practice of delivering youth development programs, but instead to act as a guidepost for instructing and refining the design, focus and analysis of the larger follow-on study as well as future studies of this type.

The findings are organized into two primary areas of measurement related to exploring the constraining and enabling factors related to how scout leaders perceive and practice their role. First, I focus on the relationship of the volunteer Scout leader’s perception of their role in in relation to the WOSM’s essential elements of Scouting and

their personal experience with Scouting. Second, I look into channels of influence on

scout leaders’ understanding of the new membership policies and how they bring them

into practice.

Personal Belief Effects The effects of personal experiences of volunteer scout leaders on policy change

provides insights into how personal contextual elements affect the implementation and

adaptation choices scout leaders make. At the heart these findings is understanding the

ways that scouting and its essential elements conflict with scout leaders’ personal beliefs

and how these conflicts manifest in the policy implementation process.

Experience Replication Themes tend to highlight the potential importance of personal beliefs related to sexuality and sexual identification as an indicator of conflict. More generally, however, conflict may also be closely related to leaders’ desires to replicate their experience as a youth in scouting for the scouts in their unit. Substantial value is placed on learning from past experiences as scouts and then carrying them forward. Many aspects of the Scouting program have changed little since its establishment in the U.S. in 1910 (Mechling, 2007).

The theme of experience replication seems to orient around the essential elements of

Scouting and the lack of substantial policy changes in U.S. Scouting at the national level prior to 2015. In instances where leaders’ past experiences in Scouting are in conflict with recent policy changes, leaders tend to avoid the policies, either through choosing programs or anticipating events that would trigger the policies and bypassing them.

In the U.S., recent changes in membership policies regarding youth and adult members have created a flashpoint to examine this area of conflict and decision-making.

Policies related to allowing girls to join scout units and units to allow LGBTQ+ leaders

81 and youth are areas of conflict between leader values and organizational values and conflict among leaders. in the U.S. setting. Among participants in this pilot study, several lead units that decided not to allow girls to join when given the option. In each case, these unit leaders cited a personal disagreement with the policy and preference for separate programs for boys and girls. The decision for their units not to allow girl members in each case was related to the personal beliefs of the unit leaders and was not influenced or overturned by the charter organization. While unit leaders were generally open to allowing girls if there was interest, there was no effort to recruit or encourage girl members.

Deferring to Program The approach to nondiscrimination of LGBTQ+ youth and adult members and leaders was somewhat more nuanced and not clearly related to the theme of experience replication. Leaders were generally supportive of the nondiscrimination stance of the national organization, linking the values directly to the essential elements of Scouting.

Leaders consistently made reference to the attributes of the twelve points of the Scout

Law naming honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, friendliness, and courteousness as parts of the Scouting program that align with this policy change. In every instance where leaders indicated an aspect of personal belief in conflict with the policy regarding

LGBTQ+ identity, they indicated support of the policy and deferred to the essential elements of Scouting and, in particular, the Scout Law.

Channels of Influence While leader interpretation of these specific membership policies in the U.S. context are complex in nature and require further study, the general patterns of influence on leader perceptions and practice identify underlying processes of interest. These

82 flashpoint issues point to distinct learning channels that are likely to exist in Scouting in cultures and countries outside of the U.S. and therefore provide insights into the approach to international study of Scouting. The prominent channels relate specifically to the influence of the national organization and the influence of peer leaders.

Peer Effects The value of tradition is quite strong at the scout unit level in U.S. setting, which relates to closely to the unit leaders’ approaches to understanding of their roles, their approach to program delivery, and how they perceive and value information. Personal experiences with Scouting, either as a youth or from tenure as a longtime leader provide the framework for how leaders perceive both their role and practice of their role.

Differences in leaders’ experiences in Scouting may motivate different expectations for how he or she approaches leadership, the focus of the program, unit relationship with the charter organization and the Scouting organization beyond the local unit, among others. The way that leaders approach their roles tends to be influenced greatly by peer leaders and parents within their own units as well. It is among the peer leaders at the unit level that discussion and consensus is built around how to approach interpretations of policies in ways that fit with the norms of the Scout unit. When discussing how to approach nondiscrimination of LGBTQ+ youth, one leader shared the approach they took in his troop:

I had longer conversations with a lot of leaders in our troop back when they

[BSA] first made that decision. And the one thing that we all kind of agreed on is,

first of all, there's really, there's really no room for sexual behavior in scouting.

The peer influence at the unit level appears to be an element that shapes the norms for

that unit. How the unit decides to interpret policies varies in its alignment with the

essential elements of Scouting however.

Where there are generations of families in leader positions in a unit, the culture of that unit is strongly affected. The culture of the unit tends to shape its members, where those who align with the values search it out and those who do not are either driven out or never join. This allows for the perpetuation of both desirable cultural elements as well as the persistence of elements that do not align well with the essential elements of Scouting.

When justifying the decision not to welcome girls into her unit, one leader shared:

I hate to say, but I feel like the perception of what [unit] is, is that it's a very old

school troop for boys only. This is the deal. They're not changing. So some people

are for that and some people that we might attract will go elsewhere, but I think

that's the overall perception

While this finding indicates channels for scout units to avoid implementing policies,

there is a tendency for leaders to defer to the espoused values of Scouting when their

personal beliefs are in conflict with aspects of the program or national policies. This was

most evident when leaders considered implementation strategies for the new

membership policies. When these policies raised concerns about conflict within their

units, between their unit and charter organization, or between their unit and the national

organization, they would rely on the essential elements of Scouting as a guide. One

leader discusses his justification for supporting LGBTQ+ scout members:

…we look at the…12 points of the Scout Law…how the program should help

mold you shouldn't really change. And I do think it's an honesty point. Are we

talking about being trustworthy and loyal?.…if we don’t have a policy that allows

gay scouts then we're asking someone to be dishonest. So I think it's better that we

are honest and be accepting and understanding and help people.

Organizational Effects The Boy Scouts of America, Inc. is unique when compared with national scouting

organizations in other countries. It differs in in two primary ways that relate to its

organizational structure and the quality of connection between local scout units and the

national organization. In the U.S. setting, local scout units are each chartered by a

community or religious group. These groups provide the vast majority of resources to

deliver the program and also have representation in the local unit which has the potential

to shape the nature of the program. This local control, particularly on the part of religious

organizations, has led to adaptations to the program. These adaptations have resulted in

inconsistent application of World Scouting’s stance on nondiscrimination, related in

particular to girl and LGBTQ+ members (Vallory, 2012).

Also unique to the U.S. is the amount of professionalization of scout, which

World Scouting indicates should be primarily volunteer-led in nature. Scouting in the

U.S. is highly professionalized, with scout professionals acting as the primary conduit between scout leaders in the scout units and the national organization. The disconnect between the national organization and local scout leaders creates tension when policy decisions at the national level interfere with unit leaders’ autonomy to deliver their program in traditional ways.

These two areas of U.S. differentiation provide a backdrop for training and structural elements affecting the implementation and adaptation choices of volunteer leaders, possibly in different ways when compared to other countries. Volunteer training

85 in the U.S. context is highly formalized, with prescribed online and in-person trainings for each position. These trainings provide an overview of information related to aspects of each volunteer’s role and responsibilities within the organizations. This amounts to more than 10 hours of online training for unit leaders covering such topics as youth protection from abuse, to understanding organizational structure, roles and policies, to severe weather preparedness. Unit leaders indicate that most often, the trainings provide you enough detail to make decisions under typical circumstances, but often require clarification from district-level volunteers or professional staff.

If you're not going to make [trainings] so that it is one hundred percent clear on

exactly how they have to handle [policies], you…put [leaders] in a position where

they have to ask questions. [Training] s’gotta be either really vague, like it is right

now, or it has to be very intensive.

Depending on the nature of the issue or clarification needed, unit leaders may prefer to avoid asking for help outside of the unit. This results in a pattern of avoidance with regard to certain policies.

I think the majority of scout leaders have really taken a ‘don't ask, don't tell

approach’[to LGBTQ+ membership and leaders]….if I don't ask you and you

don't tell me I don't have to deal with it. You have a lot of leaders in that boat

where they're hoping they just don't have to deal with it.

Training also takes place at monthly district roundtable meetings, which are intended to provide a forum for disseminating information to the units about district and national concerns. Scout leaders indicate that the meetings are not as valuable as they could be, with attendees often reluctant to contribute and most units not attending at all.

There's decent communication through roundtable. I think…my perception being

a new person at roundtable…is that some people just don't want to talk and they're

kind of a bump on a log. So it doesn't really tell us much about what's working

and what's not.

Scout leaders tend to see quality of communication, particularly of training information

and policy changes, to be of central concern with regard to conflict between the national

organization and local scout units. They tend to describe the Scouting organization

outside of their scout units as constraining their ability to deliver their program,

referencing gaps in the amount of information they need to implement policies and

deliver programs and too much emphasis on ineffective trainings.

Discussion The findings from pilot study provide insights into refining this follow-on study and future cross-national studies of scouting. As such, the discussion focuses on elements of the findings that relate to channels of influence and patterns of understanding and implementing policies. I will outline ways that this pilot study hopes to inform the larger study of volunteer interpretation of new member policies.

The primary processes of understanding related to how volunteer leaders perceive their roles from a Scouting perspective are related to their experiences as a youth in

Scouting, as a scout leader, and the predominance of a traditionalistic culture within their scout unit. Findings here indicate that there is an alignment of Scout leaders’ experiences as youth in Scouting and how they approach their role as a unit leader. Therefore, differences between individual’s Scouting experiences as youth may serve as a vital indicator of the how the he or she may approach their role as a volunteer Scout leader and an important aspect of background on which to focus data collection in the larger study.

Volunteer scout leaders use two primary guideposts in the practice of their

program. First are the essential elements of Scouting captured in the Scout Oath, Scout

Law and the Scout method as prescribed by the WOSM and interpreted by national Scout

organizations. The findings in this pilot indicate that when there is conflict between

leaders’ values and Scouting policies, that the leader defers to the essential elements of

Scouting. The larger study will benefit from exploring the push and pull between

individual beliefs and the espoused values of Scouting when they are in conflict.

Second is the interaction, learning and consensus of interpretation among peer

leaders. These points of understanding support Vallory’s notion (2012) that Scouting

occurs only at the unit level. Therefore, the larger study may benefit from using the scout

unit as the unit of analysis within the embedded case, as opposed to centering the study

on higher levels of the scout organization. Given the difference in organizational

structures likely between national scouting organizations, a unit-level focus will allow for

similar cross-cultural comparisons.

Findings from pilot data indicate that scout leaders tend not to have an

understanding of given policies when their scout unit is not affected by those policies.

Therefore, to examine how scout leaders are interpreting and learning about recently

enacted membership policies, the design of the study should focus on scout units that have an active knowledge of these policies. Identification of scout units who have direct working experience with member policies related to sexuality of youth and leaders will be difficult to target through purposive sampling techniques. The small sample (n=5) in the pilot study did identify one such Scouts BSA troop, which may be an indicator of the prevalence of experience. However, the pilot findings also identified an organizational

culture and policy-structure that constrains scout leaders’ openness to discussing

sexuality in Scouting, with leaders in other scout units, district-level volunteers or

council-level scout professionals. Pilot findings generally supported these patterns of

interaction more broadly, with unit leaders choosing to avoid situations which would

require interaction outside of their unit for the purpose of gaining clarification on

policies. Therefore, the sampling approach will rely on identifying scout units through

recommendations from organizational insiders and the use of snowballing techniques.

To capture scout unit experience with policies related to girl membership, this

study recommends the purposive sampling of linked Scout BSA troops. Although

separate programs, linked troops are those where separate boy-led and girl-led troops are chartered with the same organization and share a governing committee. These linked troops were first beginning to be formed in February of 2019, which marks the earliest moment that girl-led troops were possible in Scouts BSA. Linked troops are easily identified publicly on the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. website. Focusing on these newly formed linked troops provides a data-rich environment where scout leaders are actively navigating the new membership policies with regard to nondiscrimination on the basis of gender. This sampling approach also supports the addition of observations of committee meetings of linked Scouts BSA troops, as they actively interpret and put into practice new girl-membership policies. Given the requirement of female scout leaders in girl-led

troops, focus on linked troops also provides an opportunity to garner the perspective of

longtime female leaders in Scouts BSA as they navigate the transition from boy-led to

girl-led troops, and the experiences of female leaders who are new to program-oriented

roles in Scouts BSA.

Volunteer leaders indicate that the influence of the national organization can have

a constraining effect on the delivery of the program, in so far as it limits their autonomy

to deliver programming or make program delivery more complex. The pilot study also

indicates a preference of scout leaders to align with local or unit traditions, as opposed to

aligning themselves with changes in policies or program – especially if these changes are

generated by the national organization. This preference for local traditions and autonomy

creates a tension in the relationship between unit leaders and national-level policies that

professional staff and district level volunteers are tasked with enforcing and carrying out.

To the extent that unit leaders are open to and aligned with the possibility of

change in the program in the direction that the national organization is prescribing, they

may be more likely to be proactive in their approach to policy learning, exploration, and

enactment. For unit leaders who identify as more parochial in their approach, they are

more likely to avoid policy learning, exploration, and enactment until required to, either

by the occurrence of a “triggering” event or intervention by the charter organization,

scout professionals, or district level volunteers. The larger study may benefit from exploring the tension between autonomy and dependence through the lens of experience recreation and peer effects at the unit level.

Policy avoidance by the unit leader does not necessarily mean that the they are not

aligned with the essential elements of Scouting. Scout leaders tend to justify avoiding

select policies citing the aspects of the Scout Law, thus pointing out inconsistencies

between national policies and the essential elements of Scouting. Creating a line of

enacted questioning that helps to understand the mediating role of the scout leader

90 especially in cases where national policies or local norms appear to be in conflict with the espoused values of Scouting.

Top-down processes of disseminating policies from the national level through formal channels may reinforce homegrown approaches to policy implementation at the unit level and the notion of policy avoidance. The process of avoiding policies allows for greater influence of the beliefs and identities of scout leaders in key positions, parents of scouts, and peer leaders at the scout unit level. Policy workarounds and avoidance support the notion that peer effects at the local unit level may be more important to understanding differences in leaders’ approaches to program delivery than simply focusing on formal organizational processes, which include standardized trainings, district roundtable meetings and social networks outside of the local unit.

Depth and focus on formal unit leader training may not be sufficient to change how certain leaders interpret their roles. Peer leader and parental influences at the unit level are important channels of learning as they supplement, and at times supersede, formal training and shape the alignment of unit with the essential elements of scouting.

Strong parental involvement may act as a check for volunteer scout leaders who are implementing program in ways that are in conflict with scout unit norms, local culture and practice, or the essential elements of Scouting in general. The roundtable meeting provides discussion spaces for peer learning and district level volunteers act as resources for policy clarification, although it is generally underutilized in this function. The primary value of the district level volunteers and professional staff may relate less to their roles as disseminators of information and enforcers of policies, but instead to supporting scout

leaders when unit-level conflicts arise with regard to the alignment of policy, the essential

elements of Scouting, and program norms at the unit level.

The pilot findings indicate that the national scout organization infrastructure, even in the U.S. where it is quite robust, may not have as much influence over the important aspects of program delivery at the local level as does the unit culture, which appears to be

driven by the collective experiences of leaders who are motivated to recreate their own

experiences as scouts. This reinforces the notion that Scouting exists only at the local

level (Vallroy, 2012), a perspective that downplays the importance of the national scout

organization role in the Scouting program.

Shaping the Study The findings of the pilot study support the notion of Scouting as a grassroots

organization, where the important unit of analysis is at the scout unit level. The findings

from this pilot study also indicate the importance of the peer leader relationship and

culture at the unit level. This finding is critical in guiding modifications to the follow-on

study, as it downplays the importance of the national scout organization as an influencer

on implementation of the new policies, and emphasizes leaders’ past experiences in

Scouting and peer effects at the unit level. As such, future studies interested in exploring

scout leader influence on program delivery would be well served to focus first on the

local scout unit, leaders’ prior experiences in the program, and peer influences.

The pilot study was extremely valuable in orienting the design and framing of the

follow-on study toward the processes of interest. Table 6.1 provides an overview of

specific refinements made to the larger follow-on study motivated by the findings of the pilot study. Broadly, these findings motivated the study’s shift from the district to scout unit level, requiring a reconceptualization of the overall conceptual framework. In

92 addition, the pilot findings also provided insights into the important processes of learning and interaction which helped to guide the author’s refinement of the methods and types of data collected.

Table 6.1: Pilot Study Findings and Modifications Findings Modifications Past experiences of scout leaders as youth Update survey and interview protocols to members in Scouts (boy scouts or girl scouts) measure youth experiences in Scouting (boy is an important predictor for how they or girl) and be mindful of the relationship approach and envision their current roles as between leaders' experiences and their current volunteer Scout leaders. approach to scout leadership during data analysis. When scout leaders' personal beliefs conflict Add a coding scheme to data analysis that is with new policies scout leaders push aside oriented scout leaders linking the espoused their personal beliefs and rely on the values of Scouting with their behaviors. espoused values of Scouting guide implementation.

Little interpretation of policies happens Shift study design from the district to scout among scout leaders outside of the local scout unit level through an embedded case study unit. approach.

Chartered organizations are not consistently Add a coding scheme to data analysis that is involved in the operation or oversight of scout oriented around variability of chartered units. organization involvement in the scout unit policy process.

Scout leaders navigate policy Policy avoidance is the main process of implementation through a practice of interest in the policy analysis. policy avoidance, whereby scout leaders become aware of and avoid "triggering events" that require intervention from beyond the scout unit.

Marginalization of scout leaders and members Motivated adding a critical perspective to on the basis of gender and LGBTQ+ identity sensemaking framework that integrates vary among scout units, manifest in tensions considerations of power in the social learning among leaders and between leaders and youth. process. It also motivated the creation of a typology for case selection that takes race, gender, and rurality into consideration.

Case Selection The shift from district to local scout unit motivated a rethinking of the case

selection from the perspective of diversity. Diversity is defined here though

rurality/urbanicity of the scout

units and racial homogeneity of the scout unit leaders. These aspects of diversity guided

the creation of a typology to aid the selection of cases in the broader study.

The whiteness and middle-class standard typical among scout leaders in the U.S. limits the applicability of the findings to broader more diverse audiences. To address this limitation the follow-on study will bring scout leader race into consideration when developing selection criteria for participating scout units. The goal is to include scout units with non-white racial majorities or no racial majority among scout leaders.

The timing of the follow-on study, given the very recent nature of the BSA’s rollout of the new girls membership policy, brings issues of gender equality and equity among scout leaders to the forefront. The pilot data supports that a misogynistic and hyper-masculine culture may persist, even in the most progressive of scout troops. With more women to take on program-oriented leadership roles, and girls engaged in programming, it will be important to focus on how scout leaders react to implementation of equity oriented policies. To examine the gender-tension, case selection in the follow- on study focuses on scout units who have implemented the girls membership policies in a linked troop setting – scout units who have both boy-led and girl-led troops within the same charter organization and share a single leadership troop committee. Linked troops represent the epicenter of how the gender-related membership policies are being enacted and will offer the most robust source of data, given this study’s guiding research questions.

Data and Methods The shift in case selection criteria motivated refinements of the data collection

processes and approaches to scout leader recruitment to participate in the study. For each

scout leader data collection methods will include completing a brief survey and

participating in a semi-structured interview. Scout leaders will be recruited to participate

based on their roles in the scout unit which include a balanced approach to participants in

program oriented and administrative roles. The program-oriented roles include

scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters. The administrative roles include committee

chair and chartered organization representative. This approach is modeled after case

studies in formal education settings which use a Communities of Practice framework,

where participation is role defined. i.e. teachers, principals and other administrators. To

support understanding the embeddedness of the scout unit within the BSA and larger

WOSM, the study will also include data from formal training and governing documents

provided by the BSA. The training data will be drawn from role-specific online formal

trainings which are required of all scout leaders. Finally, the follow-on study will incorporate observations of scout unit committee meetings. These observations provide insight into peer dynamics and scout leaders interacting in a practice setting.

Conceptual Framing The peer-oriented findings of the pilot study support use of a framework that reaches beyond the community of practice, to understand the influence of outside systems on scout leader practitioners. Findings supporting broadening the conceptual framework from Communities of Practice (CoP) to the Landscape of Practice (LoP). Wenger recently refined his original CoP approach, taking a systematized approach to examining and understanding the network of influences on how individuals operate and learn within

a teaching community. It also takes into greater consideration the idea of identity

formation.

Issues of marginalization related to gender and LGBTQ+ members and leaders

participation suggest adding a critical element to the conceptual framework to understand

the relationship between power, experience, and identity. The pilot study recommends

layering a critical sensemaking framework onto the LoP framework. The critical

perspective will also be helpful to understand enabling and constraining aspects of race in

policy implementation.

Concept Map The findings in this pilot study drove the creation of conceptual map indicating

the important channels and relationships when considering incorporating the LoP and

Critical Sensemaking frameworks. The map places scout leaders at the center of the

study with factors influencing identity construction at the top and functional effects along

the right side. The identity construction all occurs within the local scout unit,

emphasizing the role of past experiences in scouting, peer effects, and the leaders’

interpretations of the essential elements of scouting as important elements. Influences

from outside the local scout unit appear to be less important to the scout leader’s

perception of his or her role, but have a greater influence on the practice of their role.

Aspects of each of the within and outside-the-unit effects can be perceived as either constraining or enabling, however the outside-the-unit effects initially appear to be constraining factors in how scout leaders practice. As such, the national effects seem to be most constraining, noted in red, with training and outside peer effects taking on more enabling traits.

Chapter 7

Findings The findings from this study are presented through the introduction of each of five embedded cases, where themes and linkages with the literature are identified, ending with a roadmap of the analysis and discussion which takes place at different levels, first

comparing the cases and then exploring the policy environment. Then the study orients

downward to examine findings relevant to the scout unit environment and finally

centering on the scout leader. While the study is designed as an embedded case study with multiple sites, the findings lead the analysis toward a layered approach, which allows the findings to interact more coherently and elaborately with the Landscapes of

Practice and Critical Sensemaking frameworks. This funneling process allows for greater

understanding of the important contextual elements influencing the study, while then

enabling a more insightful and complex analysis as the study narrows its focus on the

individual scout leader. With regard to these findings, the layered data collected allowed

for analysis among scout units, within Scout units and among Scout leaders selected on a

myriad of demographic characteristics, work/life/family/scouting experiences, training,

political beliefs and religiosity.

The five case sites contributing to this study were selected based on their decision

to establish a girl-led Scouts BSA troop as soon as it was possible. The differences in the

way that each of these local scout organizations is organized makes it difficult to use a

single accurate descriptor such as scout troop, scout unit, linked troop, girl-led or boy-led

troop, as each of these descriptors carry with them specific definitions and general

connotations. Therefore, I have chosen to use a single moniker, “scout unit”, when

referring to the embedded cases in this study. While each of these scout units are unique

98 in their own right, based on organizational attributes, community partnerships, formality of operation, and robustness of program and support infrastructure, their decisions to early-adopt this program unite them in important ways. This chapter provides an introduction to these scout units to introduce themes to be explored in greater depth in later subsections and to bring understanding to where differences among them have meaning within the broader context of this study. These differences have meaning so far that they provide insight into how the organizational and cultural contexts in which they operate either acted as barriers or enablers of aspects of learning and implementation of policies. While it is clear that a major outcome is already known – that these scout units have already established girl-led troops – what is unclear is what contextual aspects influenced differences in social learning processes. These social learning processes are at the center of this study and the primary focal point in this chapter and beyond. This chapter concludes with an examination of the many meaningful similarities and differences among these scout units and scout leaders, and what that tells us about the nature of learning in community of practice settings.

The five embedded cases in this study represent a diversity sampling typology described more thoroughly in the methods chapter. They were selected to provide insights into the role and influence of the chartering organization, geographic social norms, and racial homogeneity in relation to social learning, with an understanding that deeper analysis of individual characteristics would take place elsewhere in the study. The sites are located in suburban, rural, and urban areas in four states in the northeast United

State, which are identified in this study as Burbane, City Shadow, Trooptopia,

Hallowcrest and The Valley. At each site interviews and surveys were conducted among

99 scout leaders which were selected based on their roles and level of engagement, relying first on recommendations of the committee chair from each scout unit and then using a snowballing technique to recruit additional participants. The number of participants in the interviews varied from site to site due to differences in the total number of scout leaders in each site, with a range of five to eleven scout leaders participating in each. Provided below is a description of each of the sites and the nature of the data collected there. This chapter concludes with a comparative presentation of the findings and the themes generated across, between and within the five scout units.

Burbane Burbane was among one of the first scout units to indicate interest in participating in this study and my data collection included spending three days with their leaders which included observing a unit committee meeting, interviewing adult scout leaders in a local community library, and sharing a family dinner with a couple leaders in one of their homes. Additional information about Burbane was collected via the internet and included news articles published about the scout unit, information found on the scout unit website, and the websites of Burbane’s scout district and council websites.

This scout unit provides a clear picture of the enablers and barriers to policy enactment, particularly with regard to the ways female scout leaders are shifting their roles within the volunteer scout leader community of practice. The themes that are generated in this case relate to the emergence of female leaders from administrative roles on the periphery of the community of practice, to fully engaged roles in program delivery. The leadership approach taken by both male and female leaders in this case bring to the forefront tensions between male and female leaders. In this case we see an authoritarian approach to leadership on the part of the male leaders, which frames the

100 program leader role in terms of scout-related skills and knowledge. This framing is a limiting factor for female leaders who do not possess or perceive they possess adequate scout-related skills and knowledge to full participation in the community of practice, thus subjugating them to the male expertise. This pattern is seen elsewhere in this study, although plays out most clearly in this case.

Burbane is also a case of early adoption of nondiscrimination practices on the basis of sexual orientation, well before the formal policy changes were made on the national level by the BSA. Throughout this study sexual orientation of members and leaders is widely accepted among the scout leaders, often referencing that the shift toward nondiscrimination was long past due. In this case we see how BSA volunteer and staff learning across the landscape of practice influence decisions to implement membership policies in ways that conflict with the national BSA organization, and what justifications these scout leaders rely upon for these decisions.

Burbane is located in what has become a bedroom community close to the center of a major metropolitan area in the northeast United States. The community of approximately 100,000 has a racial composition of roughly 7% Black, 33% Asian, and

59% white, which is reflected in both the youth membership and adult leadership of the scout unit, having no majority of a single race among its adult leaders. The scout unit has roughly 40 youth members, which includes nine girl members at the time of data collection in August 2019. Burbane established their girl-led troop on the first day it was possible on February 1, 2019. It is important to note that this scout unit has had a long history of including girls in their program, long before national policies allowed them to do so in a formal way. In addition, this scout unit has a more than 10-year history of

101 welcoming all leaders and scouts regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or secular/agnostic beliefs. These practices were supported to a great extent, either by assertion or acquiescence, by district and council-level professional leadership, which places this scout unit, district and council distinctly at odds with the National Council of the BSA and its membership policies prior to 2015.

Adult leaders throughout this study are typically parents of current or past youth members and are categorized into two types of roles, administrative and program oriented, although you will note leaders managing both administrative and programmatic responsibilities throughout this study. The three primary volunteer roles for any scout unit are Committee Chair, which oversees the administrative aspects of the scout unit, the

Scoutmaster, which is responsible for program delivery, and the Chartered Organization

Representative, which links the scout unit with its chartering organization. While there is diversity among the parents and leaders in Burbane, those who participated in interviews each identified as white and included two male and three female leaders. The female leaders included two committee members and the girls troop scoutmaster, with male leaders in the roles of boys troop scoutmaster and chartered organization representative.

A majority of Burbane’s adult leadership is comprised of women who take on administrative positions as members of the troop committee, which includes the committee chair position and several of the members focused on fundraising and planning of troop activities. The Chartered Organization Representative, a former

Scoutmaster for the boy-led troop, and the current Scoutmaster for the boy-led troop are both male and provide much of the vision and direction for how the program is run. With the addition of girl members in Scout BSA, the policy requires at least one registered

102 female leader be present for any scouting activity where a girl member is present. To help meet this need, a few female leaders who have male and female children as members in the troop have agreed to step into Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster roles.

Burbane is one of two scout units in this study that are chartered by a trust which exists solely to provide support to its dedicated scout units. For Burbane, their chartered trust is only responsible for the scout unit included in this study. While scout units chartered with trusts are secular in nature, Burbane is associated with a local community

Christian church which provides meeting space and use of physical plant in exchange for service projects conducted by the scout unit or individual scouts throughout the year. The

Burbane’s committee chair is a member of this church and serves as an important link between the organizations.

Under the new membership policies allowing girl members in Scouts BSA troops, there is no requirement for any scout unit to welcome girl members. To be able to welcome girls into an existing Scouts BSA program, a chartered organization must support the creation of a new girls-only troop which is intended to be a separate entity from the existing boys-only troop. With chartered organization approval, the new girls- only troop must have its own Scoutmaster and committee members, although it may share a committee chair with the boys-only troop. Finally, a minimum number of new girl members is required to establish a new girls-only troop. While there is some variation from council to council in the number of members required and other aspects of the process, this is how a girl-led troop is established.

Burbane established the girl-led troop on the earliest date possible, February 1,

2019. The vision for welcoming girls into the program aligned with the long history of

103 the girls already participating in the scout unit and was greatly motivated by the

Scoutmaster’s desire for his daughter to join Scouts BSA and have similar Scouting experiences to her older brother. His vision for the program, supported by the chartered organization representative and former Scoutmaster, was to create a co-ed troop for both boys and girls, disregarding aspects of the policy that require separate troops for boys and girls. To accomplish this, the scout unit committee recruited a longtime female leader to step into the Scoutmaster role for the new girl-led troop, with the understanding that she would only be fulfilling the duties of an Assistant Scoutmaster. All Scoutmaster responsibilities for the scout unit fall directly to the Scoutmaster for the boys. She supported the conditions of this role, as she did not feel that she had the scouting skills required to take on the role in an official capacity.

Part of my being [a Scoutmaster only] on paper is I'm willing to do that because

we needed a female leader to step up….I want to be a good role model, which

means I need to learn those damn knots! I didn't grow up with scouting and there

are some things I still need to figure out here. But it's worth it. I want the girls to

get the benefit of the program.

Committee meeting observations, scout leader interviews and survey responses generated several notable threads of consistency within the scout unit. Looking into the dynamics present within the community of practice that this study defines as volunteer adult scout leaders, there is a clear indication that had the Scoutmaster not create, share, and persuade the committee to move forward with welcoming girls into Scouts BSA, it likely would not have happened. Similarly, had one of the mothers of a former scout not stepped up to take on the role of girls troop Scoutmaster the girls would not have been

104 able to join the scout unit. An important thread to note in this study is how the girl membership policy relates to the emergent roles and participation of female adult leaders within the community of practice. Among emerging female leaders interviewed there was clear indication of their perception of gaps in their scouting knowledge and scout skills needed to fulfill the program leader roles. One female scout leader shared it best.

Most of us with daughters were excited when we heard that we could have girls

[join the troop], and of course [male scoutmaster] was supportive because he has a

daughter. When [female leader] stepped up to be the scoutmaster for the girls we

wondered how that would work, because the old scoutmaster who is still involved

doesn’t work well with women leading the program. Then when we saw that

[female leader] would only be a scoutmaster on paper I was a little sad for her.

But I think she is happy doing this while she learns the scouting skills. I’m not

sure [boys scoutmaster] would ever let her lead the troop though.

Another important thread of consistency throughout this study is the key roles certain scout leaders play in implementing the new membership policies. The Burbane boys scoutmaster took a strong and early stance on deciding to bring girls into the program.

The ease of the decision was shaped by his experience in the military working alongside women and the nature of the scouting program.

There is nothing in the scout handbook that requires Y chromosome. There is,

there is nothing in that book that says when you pee in the woods you have to be

able to do it standing up. So there is, there's nothing about the program, which to

me is what it's all about. That requires you to be male, either biologically or

identified male.

105

In a similar way, the importance of the female scout leader stepping into the girls scoutmaster role is a thread throughout this study. While the nature of the role differs from scout unit to scout unit, the emergence of a female leader from a primarily administrative leadership role to one responsible of programming enabled early adoption of the girls membership policy.

We have a great scout master for the girls…and she played a really big role in

helping make it all come together. She was a huge, huge input in it. And I think if

she didn't step up and say, ‘Hey, I'm going to help with this’, [it] may not have

gone as smoothly as it did.

While there was some discussion among Burbane’s scout unit committee, the male scoutmaster and chartered organization representative decided together how the girls policy would be enacted by the scout unit and presented it to members of the committee with little opportunity for feedback from the scout unit committee. The male boys scoutmaster shared:

…when it became official that that girls would be admitted...I made the decision

that I was gonna lead the troop in the direction that would simply integrate [girls],

there would be no separation of any sort. We would be one troop if we had to

have a girl troop and a boy troop, fine. We'd have that on paper, but we would

function as one troop….I'm perfectly willing to tell people like, ‘Hey, listen, if

you want things run a different way, step up and do that. Then you come out

camping every weekend and you come out backpacking in the mountains with us.

But until you're willing to do that, this is the way it's going to be. And if you're

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not willing to accept that, there's some other troops in the area, but this is the way

this unit is run.’

This scout unit’s approach of operating outside of the national policy as a co-ed troop

caused some concerns among female committee members, particularly related to

concerns for their sons’ adaptation to the co-ed environment. One female leader shared,

“my son has some processing issues and scouts was his safe space. Many of us are

concerned about how the program will change for their sons if we don’t keep them [boys

and girls] separate. I like the policy as it is.” Outward concerns of adapting the girls

policy to a single troop model quelled over time with the natural attrition of two of the

most vocal opponents, one moving to another state and the other’s son aging out of the

program. While some female leaders remain more optimistic about the co-ed troop approach than others, there is a generally cautious ‘wait and see’ attitude among the female leaders of Burbane.

right now we need to do a lot together [boys and girls] because we don’t have

enough female leaders to cover two-deep leadership….[whether to continue to be

co-ed] will be a conversation we'll have to have in the future because, one, it's not

part of the rules and, two, it'll be interesting to see if everybody is onboard with

that cause I don't know if we will be all on board with that.

Observations of the committee meeting supported the challenging dynamic between the de facto scoutmaster and other female assistant scoutmasters and committee members.

The scoutmaster is looked to as the expert on scouting knowledge and skills, leading much of the discussion and taking a direct and authoritative approach to decision making, leaving little opportunity for consensus building or feedback. This supports the notion

107

that the gap in scouting knowledge among the female leaders acts as a barrier to their full participation and contribution to their role within the community of practice. In scout units where a male leader fills the role of scouting expert and takes an authoritarian

approach to leadership, it raises questions about what pathways exist for female leaders

moving into program-oriented roles from their previous administrative roles, which this

study explores in depth later.

For Burbane one of their primary challenges is recruiting female leaders into

program-oriented roles, such as scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster. For many female

leaders who stepped into assistant scoutmaster roles are mothers of boy members of the

scout unit.

I've been impressed how the mothers of some of the sons have thoroughly jumped

into do camping too, so that the girls have the opportunity. I'm hoping that this

upcoming year we get some of the girls moms to come as opposed to the boys'

moms, which, you know, I'm grateful and I hope they continue.

Throughout this study we see that female leaders bring a different skillset to the scout

leader role, but feel that the expectations of them place them well outside of their comfort

zones, as they lack formal training and support to learn the scouting skills they feel they

need to be successful.

I know where my strengths are and I'd rather stay as part of the committee and not

be the leader and be the face and the guiding light for these girls…having that

role, it's not really where I want to be at this point.

While there is some conflict brewing under the surface with regard to how female and

male leaders in Burbane are perceiving and envisioning implementation of the girls

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membership policies, there is strong consensus within the scout unit around the policies related to sexual orientation of leaders and youth members. Scout leaders throughout this study were consistent in their support for welcoming scouts and leaders of all sexual orientations and identities. Several scout leaders indicated that the scout unit’s embracing of these membership policies aligned closely with the predominant values in their community as well as the values associated with Scouting. Burbane and the council where it is located has a long history of not discriminating against scouts and leaders on the basis of sexual orientation, despite being in direct conflict with national policy. One leader, who was lead volunteer at the council level shares how volunteer leaders first began to address the BSA membership restrictions based on sexual orientation.

[At the council level] we wrote a [nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual

orientation] policy about the year 2000. At the time, our council president was the

CEO of [a major company] and he was gay and we as an executive board all

agreed that [LGBTQ+] was an important part of our constituency and that we had

no interest in alienating them. How in the 21st century could you be a man of

good conscience and say, ‘I'm going to judge someone strictly based on their

sexual orientation’. That makes no sense to me. Character is character. I don't care

what your orientation is. I don't care what planet you're from or what color your

skin is, how much money you make. Character is character. If you're a person of

good character then I'm interested in doing scouting with you. If you're willing to

subscribe to these values of respecting your fellow man, then I'm interested in

doing scouting with you. I don't care what your orientation is and we were willing

to stand up and put that into our charter.

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Scout leaders also related their acceptance of members and leaders regardless of sexual

orientation to their experiences in work and in the community.

[Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation] was never a consideration for

us [Burbane]. It maybe in part because I, I grew up in the of don't ask, don't tell

him the Navy. And I just didn't ask. And if I didn't ask, somebody wouldn't say,

and it wouldn't be an issue. On the other hand, honestly, if they had come right

out and told me, I wouldn't care. Like, okay, you can still teach knots. You can

still teach a kid how to cook and citizenship no matter what your sexual

orientation.

Past experience in the scout unit with LGBTQ+ members, particularly with regard to

sexual identity, shape the way that Burbane scout leaders approach sexual orientation and

identity of its members and leaders. As shared by this scout leader, the sexual orientation

membership policy had little effect on how they perceive their program.

It's exactly the same for me as it was before. You know if there's a boy that's in

our boy scout troop that might be gay or doesn't know what he wants to be, we

don't treat him any differently. [Burbane] are really good about not treating

children differently. I actually know of a family, in [town] whose kids were very

involved when they were younger. They were both boys and now they're both

girls….I know a lot of other cases of the same kind of stuff. I don't think that

either one of the changes affect me in any way cause I don't treat people any

differently.

Several leaders indicated relief at the lifting of restrictions on the basis of sexual orientation, citing alignment with their personal values. While most leaders in this study

110 justified their support of the policy by their connection to the LGBTQ+ community through friends or co-workers, two female scout leaders in Burbane noted the influence their children had on their support of the sexual orientation policy. This scout leader’s son and daughter are both members of the Burbane scout unit.

First of all, I'm thrilled that they don't judge children or adults based upon the

sexual orientation. I don't think they ever should have done that. I think it's

childish….There's a very good chance that my son is gay and my son has never

been treated any differently by anybody within the local council or any of that. It's

a very good thing.

Another scout leader tells me about how she outwardly supports LGBTQ+ scouts. While voicing her support for the policy, she addresses an aspect of the policy that allows for scout units to discriminate against scout leaders on the basis of sexual orientation. This process of negotiation of personal beliefs with organizational beliefs is a theme this study explores in more depth, teasing out the different ways that scout leaders justify their membership in organizations with conflicting values.

The policy about excluding because of your sexual orientation was just stupid. I

was extremely relieved when they did that [enacted the new policy] and they said,

‘all right, we're going to stop.’ I still have on my uniform the scouting for equality

ribbon that was present years before they allowed gay scouts and leaders. The

rainbow, it's unofficial. It does annoy some scouters. I don't care. My daughter

asked me to wear it and I did. It’s about time, I do understand that certain groups

that are affiliated with certain religions, you get to choose their own leaders and

I'm actually okay with that, so long as other groups that get to choose their own

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leaders don't get told, you can't have that leader. Scouting is a community

bringing up a community's children and you have to have faith that the other

people in your community are going to do what you would do if you were there.

I'm not about to impose my values on everybody else, just I don't want them to

impose their values on me.

Consistently in this case and throughout this study, leaders who decide to implement policies outside of what is accepted by the National Council of the BSA cite adherence to the essential elements of scouting captured in the scout oath and scout law as their guiding principles, coupled with the notion that scouting is administered locally and is empowered to adapt the program to local norms.

when we first joined [cub scouts] before that policy change [to allow gay scouts

and leaders] came about…the unit leader we spoke to at the time kind of had the

same approach [as me]. She was like, yeah, ‘this is national policy. We don't

care.’... Scouting has local sense of it and how we're gonna operate. I don't see

any value in telling the boys to go over here and learn to tie knots and the girls go

over there…. It's a false separation in my opinion…a bone thrown to some old-

school folks in Irving, Texas who couldn't let go of the idea.

The local-orientation of the scout unit is similarly exemplified in the next case, which is also situated in a suburb of a major city in the northeast United States. While the racial composition of Burbane’s scout leaders had no racial majority, the scout leaders that participated in this study all identified as White. The next case showcases scout leaders who identify as African American and Latinx and their approaches to membership policy implementation.

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City Shadow The scout unit leader for City Shadow agreed to be part of the study which led to

my conducting interviews and observations on two separate occasions in August and

October 2019 at the Christian church where they are currently chartered. I conducted

interviews and collected survey data from participating scout leaders while their youth meetings were taking place and found some supporting information on the troops primarily on their Facebook page.

City Shadow is a case of a scout unit with a small pool of volunteer leaders as

they implement new policies. Similar to other scout units in this study, smaller scout units

tend to have fewer volunteers, yet the reliance on key leaders to provide direction and

vision for implementing new policies is extremely important to the decision for scout

units to adopt and implement the new membership policies. Despite their small numbers,

the core group of adult leaders in City Shadow each have robust experiences in in the

BSA programs with experiences as leaders in international scouting settings, holding

council-wide, and regional volunteer positions. Also important in this case is the role and

approach of the only female scout leader in this study to take the initial role in creating a

girls troop, whereas in every other case a male scout leader provided the initial vision and

guided the process, recruiting female leaders to support his vision. From this case we see

a different take on the constraining and enabling factors as females take on program

delivery positions in Scouts BSA, and thus participate more fully in the scout leader

community of practice.

The organization of this scout unit is somewhat unique in comparison with other

cases in this study, in that the boys troop recently moved to this chartered organization

after their previous charter was not renewed. The girl-led troop had already been created

113 in the months prior to the boys troop arrival, and the girls scoutmaster, who also serves as the chartered organization representative for a Cub Scout unit at this same church, arranged for the boy-led and girl-led troops to share the same chartered organization.

The two troops are not linked, as they do not currently a share the same leadership committee, but the troops are working together on various projects and activities, and in these ways functioning similarly to other linked troops included in this study.

City Shadow is located in a small town of 30,000 within sight of the skyscrapers of a major metropolitan hub on the east coast of the United States. The town has substantial diversity among its population which is comprised of roughly 1/3 White,

Black/African American and Latinx origins. In addition, 1/3 of the population are foreign born and 40% of households speak a language other than English at home. The racial composition of the youth membership and scout leaders in both troops is reflective of the diversity in the community, indicating a non-white majority among scout leaders.

The scout leaders who participated in the interviews included the scoutmasters for the boys and girls troops, an assistant scoutmaster with the girls troop who also holds responsibilities within the BSA’s northeast region, and an assistant scout master and a committee member from the boys troop, who are married and have two children in the program.

The two troops meet on different nights of the week in the upstairs room of the church’s education wing where they are chartered. The building is old and has an institutional feel, with pea green and pink hued paint peeling off of walls, ceilings, and windows throughout. While once likely an impressive physical plant, substantial maintenance issues and the general need for TLC bring a stark dreariness to the scout

114 meetings. The church congregation struggles to keep up with the building’s maintenance, but recognizes its role in the community as a central gathering space. As such, the Scouts

BSA program shares the space with a pre-school which resides on the second floor, Cub

Scouts which use the gymnasium in the basement and various AA meetings which share the third floor space – evidenced by motivational phrases scrawled on the green slate chalkboards and an Alcoholics Anonymous poster featuring the Serenity Prayer.

The separate nature of the boys and girls troops led observations of their committee meetings on different dates although they were held in the same space. The scoutmaster for the girls troop also holds the position of the chartered organization representative for the Cub Scout group who also meets in the church, and she is a whirlwind in scouting movement. While she only has boys in both Cub Scouts and

Scouts BSA, her success in recruiting girls into Cub Scouts meant that she then needed to find a place for them to go when they crossover into Scouts BSA. She worked closely with professional scout leaders in her district to learn about the requirements to start a girl-led troop since there were no others in her area. Soon her energy attracted the parents of several girls interested in joining. While she has several years’ experience as a scout leader in the Cub Scout program, she has only been a scoutmaster in Scouts BSA for six months at the time she participated in this study. In that time she has become the face of girls recruiting efforts for Scouts BSA in an expansive area in the council where her

Scout unit is located. This scout leader’s approach to leadership supports the theme generated throughout this study highlighting the importance of key volunteers in leadership roles as gatekeepers for adoption of policies and how those policies are implemented.

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My first thought was when I started having girls in the cub scout pack, where are

they going to go? So what do I do? The crazy person that I am, I went and I

started a troop, an all-girl Scouts BSA troop…. The changes that are happening

need to happen within BSA because in order for us to grow, we have to change. I

don't think that my leadership has changed so much as my enthusiasm for

scouting and [it] keeps growing.

The girls scoutmaster in many ways is a lightning rod and a centralizing force for the

scouting movement in her area, driven by her desire overcome her family history.

I grew up one of six kids and my brothers went the wrong way. If they had

scouting in their life, I think that it would have made all the difference, so my goal

in life is to continue giving back to youth. So that's why I do it crazy.

Through her attendance at trainings for environmental programming she recruited a

longtime and experienced scout leader active in the venturing program, which is one of

the BSA’s co-ed programs for youth aged 14 to 21, to help lead her girls troop as an

assistant scoutmaster. She also was instrumental in the transfer of the boys troop to join

the girls at this chartered organization after the boys troop charter was not renewed. With

that transfer came the longtime scout leader and community sports youth leader who is

scoutmaster for the boys troop. The experience of these two longtime leaders, joining

with the fearless exuberance and energy of the girls scoutmaster helps the dreariness of

the space fade into the background and has an empowering affect on the six to eight youth who attend the each troop’s meetings and the five or six active scout leaders.

The boys troop is catching its footing after switching chartered organizations

early in 2019. The boys scoutmaster said that they lost a few scouts in the move, but that

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he expected them to leave the program soon anyway. The decision of the previous

chartered organization not to renew their support of the boys troop was said to be

motivated by a weak program, but the boys scoutmaster suspects it was representative of

a deeper conflict between the church’s values and the BSA’s new membership policies.

This is the only case in this study that indicates a chartered organization’s role as a barrier

to implementing any of the new membership policies. While not a theme that carried throughout this study, it is an indicator of how the new membership policies affect the stability of the program and influence how the program is able to be implemented in a

complex partnership environment.

I think that's why they kind of wanted it [scout unit to be part of the troop] to stop

because of the [new sexual orientation] policies. If the Scout’s national [BSA]

came up with it low key, there'd been no big issue but, it was all over the papers.

Once the Spanish took over [the church] and pushed out some of the Anglo-Saxon

leaders I dealt with in the past, then the Scouts got pushed out too. Hispanics are

very religious, very religious. So I think that was one of the issues that ended with

us leaving.

The boys scoutmaster has a similar youth-focused energy to his girls troop counterpart

and brings with him scouting expertise from around the globe. As a youth he first joined

scouts in Europe while his father was stationed there with the military. These

international experiences with scouting and in the military himself shaped much of how

he views scouting and his role in scouting.

I have 20, 21 years in the military. So the boy girl thing, long as you can do the

job or you can do the Scouting I'm fine with it. You do what you want to do. I

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mean the orientation doesn't affect him or anybody else or isn't hurting anybody

else and you enjoy being a scout I'm okay with that…. I always got upset when

young men wanted to join and then they weren't sure about that [sexual

orientation/identity] and you couldn't let them join. I thought that was a waste. I

just hurts more people. Hurts the kid, why can't I join? Because I'm different? I

didn't like that part. And like I told y'all when I was in Scouts [as a child], I went

to Worlds [sic] Jamboree and most of the countries have been doing that [girls

members] a long time ago. We [BSA] were the ones only separating any things.

So I thought it was weird because we were separate then, but Germany, France,

they all joined together.

The boys troop has a tenuous corps of scout leaders who are primarily parents who are relatively new to scouting. They are parents of boys currently in the program and are involved primarily to support their children, one who has special needs.

I'm very proud of my son. My son, I don't know if you know this or not. He has

high functioning autism and I'm not gonna cry, but I'm gonna I'm gonna try not to,

I'm very proud of them, you know a lot of challenges he has and you know, the

program plus they also have competitions in Scouts, which is awesome. I also see

that too and where he's gotten and where he's going to go. He's four badges away

from Eagle. So we're working on it, four badges and we pushed the kid and we

don't have it under accommodations. He's just doing it straight up. So we just

keep them in check and just make, but you never have enough time.

Parents who took on scout leader roles to support of their children are captured throughout this study and indicate a fringe participation of that leader in the scout leader

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community of practice, whereas scout leaders who are typically in scoutmaster roles tend

to be full participants in the community of practice. Here we look into the fringe

participants among parents who provide program support and take on tasks, but are not

typically making decisions about implementation of the program and often leave their

volunteer roles in scouting when their child ages out of the program. These parent-scout leaders who migrate to the fringes tend not to feel as though they have agency in the program, and when aspects of the program come in conflict with their deeply held beliefs, they enter into a negotiation process where they decide how to make sense of the conflict

in ways that justify their continued engagement and support of their child. The

negotiation process is quite complex, as one parent, who is also an assistant scoutmaster

for the boys troop, shares his beliefs about girls in the Scouts BSA program.

A lot of things happen behind the scenes that I'm not really part of…. The girls

and the boys, that I personally don't agree with. I mean it's not my company's not

my organization. I'm not going to turn my back and walk away because of it. Just

‘cause I don't agree 100% with that mentality…. I personally don't agree with it,

but I have no problem with it.

How this parent/assistant scoutmaster approached the conflict between deeply held beliefs led to his disregarding the conflict as less important than his remaining a leader to support his son’s progress in the program. A female parent and committee member in the same boys troop took a different approach to negotiating conflicting beliefs, yet also decided to remain to support the program. In this case, we see her direct experience with the program being important to how she negotiated her conflicting beliefs about girls joining Scouts BSA.

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I remember the beginning. I was like, what? What kind of nonsense is this? Girls

can’t be Boy Scouts! But I'm old school. That's where I come from. But I only

stayed there for a week, because they're nice [girl members], to be honest about it.

They're nice girls, they're really a nice bunch of girls, you know, and, and they all

mesh very well, so it's fine, you know, so it's just a little learning curve, a little

bump. You just got to iron out the little wrinkles and it's fine. You know, if you

start seeing it, you're just like, ‘okay, you know what, I'm used to it’, because then

I see the kids around each other. So, I'm like, okay.

The boys scoutmaster and his wife provide much of the leadership to bring about the program, despite not having children enrolled. In many ways the boys scoutmaster sees himself as a crucial element to the continued existence of the boys troop and of a youth soccer league that he coaches, which aligns well with the themes in this study related to gaps in volunteer skills how scout units who struggle to maintain large numbers of volunteers differ from those with higher numbers of volunteers.

I don't want the troop to go away, but I'm scared it would if I go. ‘Cause the

parents I have now in the troop, they're here for their kids. I can't say no to the

kids. I also do soccer the same way. My sons’ been out of there five, six years. I'm

still doing it because the kids want to play. I get a call every summer from the

kids, ‘coach, we're going to start practicing and start practice?’. It's the same with

boy Scouts. Two or three of the kids call, ‘So when we would start boy Scouts,

when're we gonna start meeting?’. And again, and I keep on saying each year to

those two or three older boys, I want to see them through. I want to see them

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through, and then I see them through and then I get hooked onto the smaller kids.

It keeps on going on.

The partnership between the girls and boys troops is quite new and the troops are finding ways to collaborate, with each scoutmaster inviting the other troop to join various activities and a plan to do a joint overnight campout in the fall. The girls troop leaders seem to be catalysts in partnering with the boys troop, as their scoutmaster is looking to connect expert leaders to her troop to strengthen it.

I did bring some of the boys from our other troops in to help them to kind of guide

them and teach them scout skills because they are the best ones to teach. They see

another youth leader, they know this is what their job is supposed to be. They

know this is how they're supposed to run their unit. It's a lot easier than just say

me sitting down and teaching them, which is what I was used to in cub scouts

because they just be used to another adult telling them what to do instead of

making decisions for themselves.

The boys troop is taking a more measured approach, which is driven in part by scout leaders with sons in the boys troop wishing to protect their sons, some of whom have spectrum disorders.

I'm not going to turn my back and walk away because of it. Just cause I don't

agree 100% with that mentality. we're a small troop, so instead of only having

three kids, we may have had six or seven, you know, granted half girls, half boys,

but you still got more people participating. So that's a positive. That's really the

only interaction outside that really nothing has changed.

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With girls coming into scouting brings to the forefront issues related to the integration of women into a highly masculinized 100+ year old organization. The requirement that a female scout leader must be present whenever a girl member is involved in a Cub Scout or Scouts BSA program strains many aspects of the support system, especially within the

Scouts BSA program. At the forefront are questions about how to recruit and engage female scout leaders and how to provide them the training needed to fulfill their roles in program delivery. Underscoring the emergence of the female scout leader from the fringes to full participation are the tensions within the community of practice among longtime male program delivery leader, longtime female leaders who took on primarily administrative and support roles, and the new female leaders who have little experience with scouting skills. At the center of this tension is the nature of scouting, and determining what core skill sets are needed to deliver programming. Here female scout leaders share their thoughts on whether a female scout leader needs to be present when girl members are present, and whether to follow the requirement. The girls scoutmaster points out an equity issue between how girls and boys are treated under this policy.

Sometimes I can feel like some policies are very constricting or almost impossible

to meet because of the lack of volunteers at times. There's a lot of jobs and only

one person to fill all those jobs so to speak. I think it's unrealistic to say that we

need to have female leaders because we have female youth in the room. We don't

have a policy that says we have to have a male when we have male youth in the

room. So, I think that's kind of a little weird. They should make it work for both

ways. but for the most part, if we're keeping to the scout oath and the scout law,

that should be our ultimate policy.

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A female committee member in the boys troop supports female scout leaders being

present when girls are present:

A registered adult female leader should be present for all activities involving

female youths because say you know certain kind of things happen to females

unfortunately. I'm not saying [male scout leaders] don't understand, they probably

do. But for the most part they shouldn't be present for that. There's just certain

things men do and certain things women do and that's just the way it goes.

While the general topic of girls in Scouts BSA unearthed some unsettled reactions, scout

leaders were unified in their openness to sexual orientation and sexual identity of scouts

and leaders. There is a general feeling among the leaders that sexuality of any kind has no

place in the scouting program, highlighting the general acceptance of all types of

sexuality in society. For one very vocal and politically conservative female committee,

she made sense of it in this way.

I have nothing against anyone who is gay at all. Love is love as they call it. I

mean, I am Catholic and that's kind of going against my own religions to some

extent because that's not allowed. I would worry about the [LGBTQ+] person who

would be in the program and how others would accept them. I had a kid who, my

youngest, was bullied…because I mean there's unfortunately the climate of today

is this is what it is today.

A longtime male assistant scoutmaster for the girls troop provides some context for the sexual orientation and identity policies in Scouting, which are rooted in the loosely coupled aspects of the BSA empowering local scout units to adapt an interpret policies within broadly defined constraints. This coupling of the BSA organization brings

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pertinence to understanding the landscape of influences on scout leaders and how their

practices may differ based on local and regional norms.

All scouting is local. There is [sic] no national troops…no scout belongs to the

national BSA. Everyone's in a charter organization. So scouting is oriented at a

very local level. And [national policy] doesn't really matter because the program

is based locally to whatever charter organization and the youth in the

neighborhood. Northeast region has always been more liberal, as opposed to this

southern or the western regions. I think you saw more pushback [to sexual

orientation and identity policies] down there than you saw up here. Up here, most

scout units were like, ‘Yeah, okay. Who cares?’ I never asked anybody anything

like that. It was never something that we looked at really. There is a different

attitude in the northeast region compared to southern or western. I go to national

conferences…so I meet these people that I'm like, ‘wow, you got some hot views

to me’ From my personal experience there hasn't been much of a change about

that [sexual orientation and identity policy] because it was not something that we

worried about [in the northeast region] where they might have somewhere else.

So that's no big deal.

Similar to the acceptance of girls in scouting, personal experience plays a role into the alignment of scout leaders’ beliefs related to the sexual identity of a youth or leader.

Here the girls scoutmaster shares her reaction to the BSA allowing members regardless of sexual orientation and identity.

I was completely proud of and happy when they started allowing our gay youth to

continue in the program. That was really important for a child to have worked as

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hard as a lot of the scouts I know to work, to get Eagle, to have that taken away

from them because of their sexual orientation bothered me…our job as leaders is

to support our youth. I have a nephew who was born, my niece. So gender identity

to me is very fluid. I do believe that we know who we are from a very young age.

So gender identity is very important because I've, I watched a child who was

withdrawn and sad a lot that would turn turned around the second he got a haircut

and said, look at, I'm finally a real boy. It's like a Pinocchio moment. So to me,

recognizing the fact that there's so many different people out there is the most

important thing that we can do as an organization because it means that we are

standing up to our own values and our own beliefs within the scout oath and the

scout law and we are being good to everyone and we're helping other people to

find a safe place.

As the policy shift moved the BSA into closer alignment with her beliefs, she also shares her perspective on how the membership policy changes relate to scouting’s espoused values. The relationship between the espoused values of scouting present in the scout oath and scout law, in particular, was cited by many scout leaders in this study as a way of justifying their connectedness to the guiding principles of the program, their decisions to take on key leadership roles in their local scout unit, and for some, their decision to start a girls troop in their scout unit.

I feel like they [new membership policies], some of them align with the scout oath

and scout law better than they did before. We never completely said we excluded

people from scouting, but it was there and now it encompasses the fact that, you

know, we're always trying to do our best. We're always trying to and do your best.

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It's such a broad term, like it means try mistakes happen with these new policies.

It's just, it opens up our program to so many more youth who might need that soft

place to land or who need that scout oath and law to kind of find who they need to

be or where they need to be.

While the sentiment of openness and general excitement for implementing the new policies is strong among the leaders in this scout unit, with only a few reservations, the girls assistant scoutmaster, provides some deeper insights into how the membership policy changes motivated longtime scout leaders to shift their participation in the scout leader community of practice.

It was a pretty small minority in the northeast region that were dead set against

the whole idea of either the gay or girl policy change. In fact, the few people I

knew left scouting a few years back when [BSA reaffirmed restrictions against

gay members] saying, ‘well I can't do that. It's turning into like a right-wing

organization.’ But a couple of years later when [the BSA] changed [the policy] it

was like they never left. And these more hardcore conservative type people, they

haven't left either. Even the LDS, the Mormons, the church itself left. But most of

those scouters are still here. It's, you know, it's a personal thing. ‘No, I want to

stay with this troop. I'm enjoying myself.’ So now I haven't seen much of a

change in anybody that I know personally, even all around the country where

either one of those changes were enough to leave scouting.

City Shadow is a case of small sized scout units working with limited volunteers and a small number of members to implement and adapt the new membership polices. This case highlights the important role played by individual leaders as full participants in the

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community of practice within and beyond the local scout unit, as well as contextual

elements that relate to the process by which scout leaders negotiate multi-memberships in

different communities of practice, as well as negotiating conflicts with personal beliefs.

This case provides us insight into negotiation process and its relationship with shifts in

scout leaders’ participation within the scout leader community of practice. In the next

case, Trooptopia, the study explores the implementation and adaptation experience of

scout leaders in a scout unit with a vast number of volunteer and financial resources.

While many of the contextual elements are juxtaposed to the work-a-day experience in

City Shadow, many of the same themes play out similarly.

Trooptopia On the fringes of a large east coast United States metropolitan area, about an hour commute by train outside of the city, sits what scouting purists might describe as the gold standard of Scouting. This scout unit is comprised of several Cub Scout packs, Scouts

BSA troops and Explorer posts and engages a few hundred youth who were excited to have their programs included in this study. Over the course of three days in September

2019, I observed a troop committee and an organization-wide meeting of adult leaders

and interviewed and surveyed scout leaders from three troops and those whose work is

focused primarily on the administrative aspect of the entire organization. All of my

observations and interactions took place in the building and grounds owned by their

dedicated charted organization, which they referred to as “the trust”. Supporting and

background information was made available to me via annual reports, brochures, and

found on “the trust’s” website.

Trooptopia is a case of the ideal scouting organization, which allows examination

of the implementation process of the new membership policies unencumbered by the

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influence of lack of resources, conflicting cultural norms, or the espoused values of a

chartered organization. This case allows for a pure examination of a well-established

organizational structure, clearly defined scout leader roles, and an approach to

implementation that follows the requirements of the new membership policies with little deviation. The study brings to forefront shifts in the type and intensity of scout leader participation in the community of practice. The importance of the role of key scout leaders, primarily in the scoutmaster roles, is highlighted with regard to the implementation of the girls membership policies, as well as the tensions between longtime male scout leaders and emerging female scout leaders within the local community of practice. Underscoring these tensions are the value scout leaders place on the different types of skillsets required for scout leaders to deliver quality scout programming. Trooptopia also reinforces the theme of openness and acceptance surrounding the implementation of the sexual orientation and identify policies, consistent throughout this study, although raises questions about the nature of the implementation.

The municipality of roughly 20,000 where Trooptopia is located is quite affluent in comparison with the other scout units included this study. A bedroom community about an hour outside of a large east coast city, Trootopia is set apart from other sites with regard to the education, household income, and home values of its residents. More than 80% of the population have earned a bachelors degree or higher, which is substantially higher than other sites in this study which ranged between 28%-54%.

Median household income ($210,000) is approximately three times greater than each of the other sites in this study with median property value ($1.4 million) ranging between four and eight times greater than other sites. The city is quite racially homogenous, with

128 more than 90% of the population white, 5% Asian, and 4% Hispanic. The racial homogeneity, as well as the relative affluence and education levels of the population are representative of the scout leaders of Trooptopia, as well as the 11 scout leaders participating in interviews for this study. Of the 11 participants in the study six men and four women described their race as White, with one female participant indicating a

Hispanic and Native American heritage. Of those interviewed, all but one indicated a high title in a corporation (CEO, CFO, Financial Officer, etc) or their spouse held such a title.

The “trust’s” building was well appointed with a large parking lot and landscaping, several office spaces, a committee meeting room, a gymnasium area with a stage, kitchenette and bathrooms, all which exist solely for the purpose of supporting

Scouting in this community. Located very near the center of the town, the trust was established with a generous gift of land in the 1920’s and from it grew a lineage of scouting, evident by the decades of photos of Eagle Scouts throughout the physical plant.

Upon my arrival to the property the Chartered Organization Representative, who is one of the three managing trustees, provided me a tour and explained that the current building was 25 years old and not adequate to meet the needs of the program any longer. She went on to explain that plans to raise more than $2 million are underway to build a new building that will meet the long-term needs of the organization.

Trooptopia’s approach to scouting is highly professionalized, reflecting the assets of the community which include high-level of educational attainment, job status, and affluence. Trooptopia’s volunteer infrastructure is the most robust among those included in this study with a well-defined hierarchical structure and high specialization of roles

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and responsibilities. The volunteers engaged in both administrative and program-oriented work tend to have started their involvement while their children were active in the scouting program, but different from other scout units, have continued volunteering long- after their children have aged out.

In many ways the security afforded Trooptopia through its access to a large number of high quality and long-term volunteers makes it stand apart from the other scout units in this study, who tend to struggle more so with issues related to organizational management, division of responsibilities, linking expertise to their organizational needs, and the constant turnover of key volunteers. Over time, the stability of the volunteers enabled the scout unit to focus on establishing management processes which give a sense of order and flow to their program and its support infrastructure.

Included in the robust support infrastructure are roles that specialize in public relations, volunteer and training management, annual and capital improvement fundraising, and a committee that oversees the financial wellbeing of “the trust”. Each of the troops, cub scout packs, and explorer post programs chartered by “the Trust” have their program support teams, which operate similarly to other scout units in this study, each having their own style and approach to managing their program. The teams of administrative support volunteers come together monthly with the program heads for the entire organization to both report out and engage in planning and visioning for “the trust”.

Despite its access to high quality resources and its robust infrastructure,

Trooptopia does face several challenges. Several scout leaders acknowledged the community’s affluence as distorting the nature of their program, creating challenges when youth members work with other scouts in their council.

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[scout unit] is a little bit unique.... We seem to have are act together maybe a little

bit more, although we have lots of challenges as well. But the council's trying to

serve underprivileged communities with kids with no parents and then there’s us

in [city] trying to find enough parking spots for our Mercedes Benzes. Right? It's

a, it's a big, big, vast difference sort of challenge.

Major donors in their community who had pledged their support to build a new building withdraw their support, stalling the multimillion-dollar fundraising effort, as shared by one of the trustees.

Some people I thought would be donors to our capital campaign have used the

girls as an excuse not to give. We've gotten a couple of letters from long-term

donors saying, I disagree with what the boy Scouts are doing. it gives them an out,

it's funny the whole what's the word I want? The liability of the potential

pedophilia doesn't come up at all in my fundraising, but when I got into the

community asking for money…the girls come up.

While some of these challenges operate on a different plane from what other scout units in this study experience, the themes related to role shift and tensions within the scout leader community of practice roles and participation are consistent with those generated elsewhere in this study. Despite the large number of capable volunteer scout leaders, similar to other cases in this study, one or two leaders emerge as the change agents within the community of practice to implement the girls membership policy by establishing a girls troop. In Trooptopia, this effort was led primarily by a male boys scoutmaster who then recruited a female parent to take on the role of girls scoutmaster, which is a typical pattern of engagement. In this process we see similar patterns of gaps in female scout

131 leaders, tensions among scout leaders with regard to adaptation of the scouting program for girls, and a general acceptance of sexual orientation and identity policies.

The nature of support from the chartered organization as well as council-level

BSA employees, known as scout professionals, play a role in how the scout units in this study came to implement the new membership policies, both as barriers and enablers.

Here we see how support of the girls troop from Trooptopia’s chartered organization helped to ensure financial barriers would not prevent it from starting, as one scout leader for both a boys troop and the girls troop shared.

The trust came onboard very early in saying, we're going to say we are going to

provide the funding for new unit. We will support a new unit for the girls. It was

immediate, you know, they, they got all their information and it was an immediate

thing.

One of the first leaders I met is the longtime scoutmaster of one of the two boys troops, who shared several stories about the nature of his leadership style as well as a deep- rooted connection to the youth he is dedicated to shape and empower. The boys troop he leads is closely connected with the newly established girls troop, providing some shared leadership and programming. In addition to his role as scoutmaster he took on the role of committee chair for the new girls troop which was started in February 1, 2019. An Eagle

Scout and professional working with youth in the local schools, this scout leader provided a detailed and thoughtful insight into the purposeful advocacy and role in starting a girls troop at the Trooptopia.

I ended up jumping right in the formation of this first troop here and I had a

couple of different reasons for that. One, they just weren't getting going…and

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because at some point they were going to be asking me. And I have a really good

feel of how to draw kids together, build a group. I think the right team got formed,

but the [girls] scoutmaster had never done anything like this before and she

just…and didn't have the natural rhythm at a time when we needed to leap

forward. I found myself surging forward and being the primary trainer in the

beginning…. As the group got formed…I backed out, she moved in and I'm

seeing some nice things now. If a question came up and I was next to [girls troop

scoutmaster], the girls basically asked me, but she'd be present. Now they're

asking her and we really established her as the leader. She has their confidence.

The boys scoutmaster recruited the girls scoutmaster early in the process of forming the

girls troop. A mother of only boys, and having served as a scout leader in Cub Scouts,

when asked she jumped at the opportunity. A theme we see throughout this study with

regard to female leaders who step into the girls scoutmaster role, this scoutmaster felt that

her scout skills were lacking but was also widely praised for taking on the role at a crucial time as stated by a female scout leader in an administrative role.

[Girls scoutmaster] stepping up and becoming the scout master for [girls troop], I

think she was spearheading a lot of it. I don't know if there were people on the

trust’s board who didn’t want girls. There were certainly some that were very,

very passionate about it [starting a girls troop].

The boys scoutmaster is in a learning and adapting role while still providing the vision

for the program and helping to train the girls scoutmaster. His approach is quite

structured and has set the tone for how program adaptations are handled with regard to

gender.

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I never had a daughter, so huge learning [for me]. I really missed something by

not having a daughter…this is wonderful. I'm, I'm thoroughly enjoying…seeing

that part of life. I talked with [girls troop scoutmaster] a lot about when there's

going to be engagement with a boys entity, whether it's ours or any, and say

what's being changed because of the gender and [ask] ‘should that be changed

because of the gender?’.

The girls scoutmaster is earthy and speaks her mind more directly about her experiences as a first-time Scouts BSA leader. Her style is direct and somewhat unrefined, which stands out in the corporate-professional environment in Trooptopia. She shared the

challenges for a female leaders and girls folding into a male-run organization.

When we were at summer camp we camped with [boys troop]…. They have a

specific routine that…sometimes wouldn't work for the girls. The [scouts] were

supposed to wear their class B's [uniform t-shirt] every morning because the

leader of [boys troop] does a flag ceremony in the morning and feels that [scouts]

should be in some sort of uniform. [The girls] are in class B's and have to run

back to the campsite, change, and then run to merit badge classes. My girls would

have to roll up their tent flaps for inspection, go to flag ceremony, go to breakfast,

come back, roll the flaps down, change out of their t-shirts, roll flops back up.

‘Cause they can't be changing out in the open like the boys can. Those are like

little bitty things that So there's little things like that that that I have that I've run

into snags with by working closely with the boys troop. I just said [to the boys

scoutmaster], ‘Listen, we're going to need a different campsite next year so that

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we can establish our own protocols’. …And that's not necessarily even a girl's

thing. It's just a different type of leadership thing.

The direct approach of the girls scoutmaster enables her voice to be heard when her

approach or opinion differs from that of the boys scoutmaster. Where there are disagreements, she perceives them not necessarily to be related to gender biases,

specifically, but to differences in personality. She remembers an instance early on when

she asked the boys scoutmaster not to call the youth members “Boy Scouts”, but “Scouts”

so as not to alienate the girls.

I don't think [boys scoutmaster] was intentionally being sexist in any way. He just

thought that we're all still Boy Scouts because the organization is Boy Scouts of

America. He's a fantastic man and he's wonderful with the kids, but he definitely

likes to be right. He’s very accepting, yet he didn't want to be wrong, but then he

agreed that yes, indeed to be calling them Scouts. Yeah. So it was fine. And again,

I don't think it was a male, female thing. It was a personality thing. And I think

luckily that's my, that's been my experience. So that's really the only sort of sticky

thing that's happened to me at all in terms of working with the men and the boys

and the girls and me.

In observations of the boys troop committee meeting, the this boys troop scoutmaster was clearly acknowledged as the primary holder of scouting expertise and his opinion directed much of the discussion. Sitting at the head of the committee of seven men and three women, the boys scoutmaster allows the committee chair to start the meeting and within moments, the committee chair, who is a high level officer in a real estate corporation, defers to the scoutmaster who swiftly and seamlessly guides the meeting. This

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scoutmaster’s influence and primacy as program expert emerged as a consistent theme

throughout the collection of data at the trust, as other scout leaders either considered the

scoutmaster a mentor or simply guide for what is correct with relation to scouting within

the broader Trooptopia. While the boys scoutmaster has established primacy among the

program leaders, there are inflection points in the program where other emerging or

longtime leaders push back on his approach or recommendations. This is tension is most

evident with regard to the implementation of the girls into Scouts BSA and how scout

leaders perceive the need to adapt the program for girls differently. The boys scoutmaster

is cautious to make any adaptations to the program without considering the purpose of the adaptation.

I have to watch out for [boys troop] committee because they'll say, ‘Oh, but we

have to do it this way because the girls’, and I'll say, ‘No. First let's look at why’.

I'm bumping into their view that they need this because they're girls. They say,

‘But they're not physically as strong.’ I’m like, ‘So four of them pick up the thing

instead of two. They can pick it up. You don't have to have boys going and

picking things up for them. You're sending the wrong message.’

Yet female leaders in administrative roles raise concerns about the reluctance to adapt the

program by longtime male leaders, and how they had become more comfortable with the

idea of starting the girls troop.

I think that a lot of the training is being done by the guys [boys troop scoutmaster

and male assistant scoutmaster for the girls] who are very much in the old boy

scout tradition. Maybe that's the right thing. But I feel, as a woman who's been her

whole life in corporate America working with men, there are clearly differences

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in the way we think and the way we approach things. And I also think there

should be a great celebration in the way our minds work differently. And I feel

like the BSA program basically said, hey, we're open to girls. It's our same

program just now. Girls can do it too.

I would say I've come to accept the girls. More so since I've seen it in action than

at first I was a little confused and I was also a little bit worried that my son who

was much more comfortable in this kind of same gender arena was going to be

uncomfortable. But I've seen it in practice and it's irrelevant.

Despite encouragement from scout leaders outside of the program delivery roles to specialize and adapt the program specifically for girls, the [girls scoutmaster] reinforces the notion that adaptations will be made based on ability, not on the basis of gender alone. A female trustee for the chartered organization shares some of the pushback she’s experienced when suggesting gender-based adaptations.

I bent over a little bit backwards for the girls and it was interesting to me. We

have as our major fundraiser, a giant tag sale…and we raise all of our operating

money in one seven hour sale and I'm one of people in charge of collectibles and

jewelry. Every year we have girls come in who want to help in the jewelry area

and they'll spend hours. It's tedious work. I wrote to [girls scoutmaster] and I said,

'would you like to have the girls take over the jewelry room. They can do

everything, you know, they can sort, they can price, they can sell. I think it'd be a

great learning experience for them.' I would never have offered that to any of the

boys because I just don't think they could've done it to be honest with you. And

the scout leader pushed back and said, no, she thought I was stereotyping the

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girls. I'm a woman with an MBA who worked in corporate America for 32 years.

I was thinking I was actually giving them a huge training opportunity, but we had

different views on that. I backed down because my role is really to nurture but not

mandate. What she said was, ‘no, we don't want to do that. We'll let the girls

decide.’ And sure enough, there were two girls who parked themselves there for

two days, but they didn't officially have ownership, which I thought would be fun

for them.

How scout leaders tease out the justification for adaptation of the program for girls is structured greatly by the requirements of girls and boys troops to be separate. While for some it raises issues of equity, the program scout leaders in Trooptopia are in great support of separating the girls and boys. The boys scoutmaster shared,

My hesitations were alleviated once I heard it was going to be separate troops.

Because I did think that boys needed an adjustment period of this and girls needed

to get a foothold and come in as equals, not come in as second class citizens who

were trained by boys. The girls need to be trained by girls too, to really come in as

equals. So, you know, I think it was brilliant to set up separate troops.

In Trooptopia Scout leaders in administrative roles with children currently in the program are on the periphery of the community of practice and primarily focused on the wellbeing and expertise of their child in the program. When the topic of comingling girls and boys into a single troop was considered, this raised great concern for the current boys in the troop.

I think that the, the fact that the troops have to be separate is crucial. Otherwise

the boys would sort of just get steamrolled. I mean, I look at my sixth grader

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versus girls in his grade and it's like, you know, I might as well be like a 10 year

age difference. The girls would just take over the leadership.

More progressive scout leaders, such as the girls scoutmaster, recalled how she eventually bought into the separate troops for boys and girls through both through discussions with other scout leaders and subsequent personal experience with the girls troop.

Originally, I thought we should all be together, you know, why can't we just make

it coed right now? Then the scout master for [boys troop] said to me, ‘girls are

gonna run circles around the boys at this age. The boys will never learn anything

cause the girls will be organized and efficient and quick and the boys are like all

over the place’. All of a sudden that I was like, ‘wow, you're right’. I like the

opportunity for the girls to be able to go and do their own thing and strengthen

themselves together and then come and have the events with the boys where

they're able to do the same stuff.

Scout leaders delivering programing in Trooptopia are likeminded that the program, and their approach to delivery need not change from how they engaged with boys in the program. One scout leader for both the boys and girls troops, who is also a teacher, explains his approach to his role.

At this point, I have not had to change how I view things because it's, it's all the

same. I'm doing exactly the same things I did before. I'm doing the same

mentoring. I asked them the same questions. You know, it, it really doesn't matter.

Because you're treating them the same way. You're teaching them to be an

independent person, teaching them to be in a group situation, leading, teaching

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them to lead a small group, teaching them how to do a large group, talk about

service. All that is exactly the same. They’re just individuals. You look at the girl

and say, what are the things I want to ask her? What is the best way to ask her

those questions to get her to think? So it's not a question of changing what I'm

doing. It's changing my questions to meet the individual. And that's the way I look

at it.

Underscoring the challenges of implementation is the requirement that a female leader be present when girl members are present. Trooptopia’s scout leaders were generally supportive of the female leader requirement,

A lot of the leadership in, in Scouts BSA is old white men, and, and I don't think

that, I think there's plenty of leaders that we'd be comfortable talking to a girl

about certain female issues. Certain girl gets her period on a camp out or whatever

it might be. I think there's plenty of leaders who would be fine with that. But what

if they're not. I think it's good for there to be a woman there, mostly for the girls

to see that this is an option [to be a leader]. I definitely changed from thinking that

the separating them was too conservative to realizing the benefits for everybody

involved.

With a long history of male-only scout leaders on the program side, Trooptopia finds similar challenges to other scout units recruiting and engaging female leaders. The dearth of female scout leaders also puts pressure on the girls scoutmaster to always be available, which she conveys has been the most consistent challenge she faces.

The female adult leader presence is an issue. We meet on Thursday nights and

this week it's the open house at the high school. I have a kid in high school so I'm

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going [to the open house]. I had to ask one of the moms…to be just be here as a

placeholder. I told her ‘you don't do anything, just be here, and I'll make sure that

the guys take care of it.’ Otherwise we have to cancel the meeting.

A consistent theme in this study is the difficulty for scout units to engage the female

leaders to meet the minimum policy that requires female leader presence. The girls

scoutmaster feels that a substantial barrier to female engagement is the level of comfort

the mothers of girl members have with traditional scout skills. Here she shares the

mindset that she hopes will help potential female scout leaders overcome their reluctance to volunteer.

Most of the parents that do this stuff with me are still the dads in my troop and I'm

like, ‘come on moms!’. One of our moms came to summer camp and she was not

a camper and she was like, I'm trying, you know, so it also helps them to sort of,

you know, we're all, I tell the girls all the time, we're all learning this together.

You know, I'm not, I don't know how to, I learned knots for a day and then the

next day I forget them. You know, other leaders I know could do them in their

sleep, you know, so we're all doing this together.

It was clear through interviews and observations Trooptopia’s approach to implementing the girls membership policy followed a clear and corporate-like pathway which was

transparent, well thought out, and implemented. The implementation of the sexual

orientation and identity policy was much less coordinated and transparent, leaving gaps

in awareness and widely held assumptions about how these policies are handled by the

scout unit.

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The policies related to sexual orientation and gender identity have been well defined in this scout unit, as one of the leaders drafted the official non-discrimination policy stance for the local council which was adopted in 2001. Similar to the Burbane scout unit, the progressive and inclusive nature of the local scout counsel and leadership sets the tone for membership, which aligns closely with the corporate policies followed by many of the volunteers in their places of work. One longtime leader who is an administrator of a major U.S. university shares his experience after writing the 2004 position paper on behalf of the local council which denounced discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

I wrote the position paper and then I remember going up to a public forum council

meeting. The auditorium was packed and people would get up to an open mic and

speak about it. There were people that were pro and con and when I heard the con,

I thought, it's really hard. And then when I heard the pros, some of them really

opened their heart and talked about. I felt gut wrenching experiences that their

children had experienced. And you know, to me it was just so wrong. And then

when the [sexual orientation and identity] policy finally came out, I was

pleased… [but] I think they took too long to get it done.

The boys scoutmaster, who has been in his role for more than 20 years, share’s some regional context which sets much of the tone for how sexual orientation and identity is addressed in Trooptopia.

We [Trooptopia] always accepted kids were gay, so it's good national [BSA]

caught up and they stopped causing us a PR problem…. It's the Northeast, most

troops here felt that way anyway. I think most troops nationwide did, but there

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were pockets that didn't. It was a good change. It was time and they just took too

long to do it. As far as transgendered youth…there were organizations that were

calling for BSA to be the front runner on that. I wish they had been, but they did it

at about the same time as the rest of the country was leaning that way. [Gay

leaders], if they're putting the needs of kids first, that's not a problem. [Local

Council] actually were the same on that, even though officially they couldn't be in

public. They said, ‘if [a gay leader] is putting the needs of the kids first, you got a

good leader, take them.’ And so we weren't getting any pushback from the local

council. We certainly weren't getting any pushback from [chartered organization].

I go back to, you know, 2000, you know, 1998 when it was being talked about

back then. The parents shrugged their shoulders and said, what's the problem?

There were some parents who were very open minded and said, I don't know if I

want a gay leader to be completely open about it. But then they went on to say, I

don't know if I want a heterosexual leader to be talking about their sex life either.

There was some hesitation about gay adults and it depends how open they were

about it, but never about gay scouts.

The notion of openness and acceptance was prevalent throughout the scout leaders, consistent across religious and political boundaries which spanned spectrum of liberal- conservative, and religious denomination and religiosity. One politically conservative scout leader explained:

I'm traditional. I think it's just the trends we're seeing in society. I don't think that

they really had a choice [to allow gay scouts] and I think it's probably the right

thing to do. I think allowing homosexuals and LBGT into the organization is

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probably more important [than allowing girls]. Just because that's the way

society's going.

Other scout leaders indicated that the policy aligned better with the local culture.

We are in the northeast…homosexuality is not something we think about. These

are people. We don't throw them out. There are a lot of good people out there. I

have a degree in technical theater. A lot of the people I went to school with had an

alternate feeling about who they were and what they were. Some of them were

going through some sort of change. Others, it was there and then was gone. But

growing up, a lot of them had problems just going through life. Scouting

programs help young men move forward with their life and organize it just a little

bit. And we're hoping that just that little bit helps. I think it's a good policy and a

work in progress. I don't know if they've got it right yet.

Different from the other scout units included in this study, the boys scoutmaster was able to share Trooptopia’s experiences with the sexual orientation and identity policies, which sets the tone for how the scout unit approaches the policies. The nature of his role as a counseling professional in the schools is what he feels puts him in tune with the youth, and orients him toward the social emotional needs of the scouts.

There’ve been kids who've been gay, although very few have come out during

their time in the troop. [Being gay] is pretty invisible until they want to come out.

Usually that's been in college. They're there’re some that have come out earlier.

Some I've known, but the people in the troop haven't. I expect 10% of them are

going to end up discovering that they're gay and I want their time in the troop to

not be a place that's miserable. …We've had transgendered youth in the past

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and…we recently have one. She's not deciding to continue in the troop, but she's

[just earned] Eagle. I don't think she's actually come out to peers yet, but there are

a few adults that know. It made us, as we went through our last Eagle ceremony,

rewrite some of the scripting to have gender neutral, verbiage because it was all

‘he’ and ‘him’ and the ‘boy to a man’. So ‘youth to an adult’ is not that much of a

difference, but to her it made a big difference.

The theme of leaders not being aware of sexual orientation of the youth or adult leaders is consistent throughout the scout units in this study, often linked to “don’t ask, don’t tell” approaches or a primary focus on the program with little consideration of the individual characteristics of the youth. Despite the experience Trooptopia has had with the sexual orientation and identity policies, beyond the boys scoutmaster and a boys assistant scoutmaster, scout leaders had little knowledge that gay or transsexual scouts had been in the scout unit. There is also evidence that the affluent and privileged nature of the community is disconnected from these vulnerable classes of members. Here a female scout leader shares her perspectives.

I think in [town] you don't see many kids that are comfortable if their sexual

identity is different. Everybody in this town, there are very few kids that I guess

that are gay that would want to belong to Boy Scouts. This town is just so

homogenous that you really wouldn’t. It's just different. But I think in other areas,

if there are kids that are struggling with identity and want to be themselves, they

should be able to be allowed into an organization.

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The process of negotiating personal beliefs with the espoused values of the organization described by many of the key leaders in Trooptopia is representative of a theme present among many of the key positional leaders, committee chairs, scout masters, and chartered organizational representatives, included in this study. When approached with a question of policy implementation, whether with regard to sexual orientation and identity or girls in Scouts BSA, leaders tend to quickly return to the guiding principles of the BSA and

Scouting to aid their negotiation of membership across organizations with conflicting values.

At times this requires scout leaders to delicately navigate among scout unit and chartered organization norms, the scout leader’s personal beliefs, the principles of the scouting movement, the BSA’s membership policies, which still allow non-secular chartered organizations to discriminate against adult scout leaders on the basis of sexual orientation and identity. These leaders, all of whom full participants in the scout leader community of practice, linked the values of scouting either to be in sync with their personal beliefs or their guidepost for their implementation and adaptation of the new membership policies.

I think scouting is being a good citizen, that you're learning to do a good turn, that

do a good deed, that you are kind trustworthy. That you're living the scout law

and that's part of you. Doesn't matter if you're gay. It doesn't matter if you're

Chinese or if you're Swedish, you look at it the same way. Looking at scouting in

your development, you're helping kids develop into good human beings. It's a

good strong foundation. So, I don't think it matters if you're gay or not. We're not

saying man up and build a fire. I learned how to build a fire when I was younger

146 cause, and it didn't matter if I was boy or girl. Girls can play with fire too, you know? Or we can go out and do a ropes course. So, if you're gay, if you're BI, doesn't matter if you want to do scouting, it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation is. It shouldn't matter.

As far as [gay scouts or leaders] goes, if I was to run into a problem, it would be hard for me because it would make me angry to have somebody not accepting of an of a youth who wants to be a part of the program. But of course I would have to put that to the side and, and work through it with the kids, you know? And talk about the scout law and the scout oath. This is what we do, this is what we are and you know, hope for the best hope for them to be able to rise to that to the best of their ability.”

I lean back on the [scout] oath and the[scout] law. I've had some pretty heated Facebook discussions, about scout organizations having an interfaith service, but it ends up being mostly Christian and is that right or wrong? A lot of people say ‘most of our group is Christian so it's okay’. And a lot of people say,

‘no it's not okay because you said it was an interfaith [service]’. It's just not courteous to offer that as an interfaith service. What if someone who's Muslim comes in and it's a Christian ceremony? But it was a completely respectful discussion because organization’s values can keep the most intolerant or conservative [scout leaders] in check.

There's some super conservative leaders out there and there are things that we do not agree on, you know, abortion and guns, things like that. I am very liberal, but I could have [new membership policy] conversations with them

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because the one thing we all want is to help youth and to create productive, honest

leadership in our communities and in our world. We're never going to vote for the

same guy, but we're decent human beings.

You have to be courteous. You have to be kind. If we're talking about

obedience, you know, in terms of just following the rules and expectations are for

any troop. I don't subscribe to a specific religion, I have a sort of very broad

definition of what it means to be reverent. I'm probably more broad than maybe

some [Trooptopia scout] leaders know, specifically the more religious ones. But I,

there's a reverence to the person next to you that you should have. And whatever

God you believe in is going to fully support you having a reverence to another

person who's next to you. To me, that's a part of it.

The relative access to resources and well-defined organizational structure set apart

Trooptopia from the other scout units included in this study. Those differences allowed for the clear emergence of themes shared among other scout units in this study, which include the role and importance of key leaders in the implementation process, the emergence of female leaders, the tensions of integrating female leaders and girls into the program, the role of the chartered organization on policy implementation, and the alignment of sexual orientation and identity policies with cultural norms. The next scout unit in this study, Hallowcrest, is similar to Trooptopia in that it follows a clearly defined organizational structure as prescribed by the national BSA organization. Where

Hallowcrest sets itself apart is in the substantial influx of new scout leaders following the leaving of longtime scout leaders.

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Hallowcrest About ten miles outside of another major city in the northeast U.S. is a scout unit

that is bursting at the seams with the addition of a girls Scouts BSA troop. Despite their

excitement and success, it has been a stressful year of change for the scout unit, with the

leaving of several of their stalwart and longtime leaders, bringing in of new leaders, and

managing the quick and unexpected near-doubling of the size of their program. I spent three days observing committee meetings and conducting scout leader interviews and surveys, visiting first in September and again in October 2019. My observations took place in the basement room of an Episcopal Church, which serves as their chartered organization. Interviews were conducted primarily in a private room at the local public library and a local coffee shop. Additional information about the scout unit was gathered online via their troop website and Facebook page.

Hallowcrest is a case of a scout unit managing the implementation of new membership policies in an extreme growth environment, with an experienced group of scout leaders who have not worked with each other prior to the start of the girl led troop in February. This is important for several reasons related to the nature of scout leader participation in the community of practice. In this case we see the leaving of two longtime scout leaders, who were removed from their positions to enable change in the program methods and the expansion of the program to include girl members. The process of leaving and the emergence of new leadership within the community of practice comes at a turbulent time with the creation of a new girls troop and the recruiting and training of female leaders as top priorities.

This scout unit is located in a small upper-middle class, homogeneously white

(95%) town of 7,500 within a more diverse county of roughly 500,000. The adult leaders

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and members in the scout unit reflect the homogeneity found in the broader community,

with few non-white scout leaders represented among their ranks. The boys troop of

roughly 40 members historically draws youth from the town and its immediate

surroundings, which are part of the same local school district. The girls troop was created in February 2019 and as of October 2019 had 20 new members, and seemed at the time of my observations to be growing exponentially. To meet regional demand for girls Scouts

BSA troops, girl members are drawn from a larger footprint than the boys troop, some traveling more than 20 minutes to attend meetings.

The scout leaders who participated in interviews and surveys in this study were

among the most experienced scout leaders I encountered in this study, most having

decades of delivering direct program experience as both volunteers and through summer

camp staffing as youth and adults. Five of the six leaders I interviewed were male, which

included 2 committee members and two assistant scoutmasters for the boys troop and one

assistant scoutmaster for the girls troop. The lone female leaders is the scoutmaster for

the girls troop and wife of the scout unit committee chair, who has played a central role in

the adoption and implementation of the membership policies in this scout unit. While

there are several other female scout leaders on the committee scheduling conflicts

prevented their participation in interviews. It is important to note that the girls

scoutmaster has no scouting experience, although she has a long career of coaching and

training youth in a sports setting.

This scout unit is organized as a “linked troop” where the boys and girls troops

each have their own leadership, but share a chartered organization and committee. The

structure they have chosen most closely follows the recommendations set forth by the

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BSA for “linked troops”, when compared to the other scout units in this study. The girls and boys troops have separate meetings, although held on the same night, and each have their own dedicated scout leaders, with little overlap between troops. There are some shared learning and activities among youth members where the program takes on a co-ed nature, but to a great extent the troops are operating independently of one another. This differentiation is motivated in part by the needs of several older girl members who wish to attain the rank of Eagle, the highest rank in Scouts BSA, before they age out of the program. Their hope to achieve this rank requires establishing an aggressive and well- defined timeline, with little room for lagging or falling behind on requirements. As such, the program focused on girls wishing to earn Eagle takes on a more directive and fast- paced nature than the typical boys program, enabling the girls to attain specific skills, take on certain leadership responsibilities, and reach milestones at predetermined times.

Similar to the creation of girls troops in other scout units in this study, the decision to start a girls troop was motivated by an incoming committee chair, an Eagle

Scout and parent of a son in the boys troop. He wanted to offer the same opportunities to his daughter, who was reaching the age to join scouts and directly persuaded the committee and the chartered organization to follow his lead. A new scout leader who joined the committee shortly after the girls troop was first created in February shared his first impressions of Hallowcrest and their decision to start a girls troop.

I think there was real strong leadership in the scoutmaster and the assistant scout

masters and that kind of stuff, which drug did the committee through. In the

beginning the committee was somewhat hesitant. That's [what] I gleaned from

being in committee meetings. …It was tough for the committee to reconcile boys

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and girls, but I think the kids, to be quite honest with you, they didn't care. I think

that the boys and the girls getting along well in the beginning glosses over all the

other little tiny things. Plus, the girls’ parents who came in [the troop] and

dropped on into the committee, they were all experienced, scouters. They had

been around for a while. So it wasn't like everything's brand new.

The decision to create a girls troop came on the heels of the ouster of two longtime leaders of the boys troop who were opposed to the policy allowing girls to join Scout

BSA, and therefore were blocking the creation of a girls troop to this point. Similar to the other scout units in this study, we see the emergence of a scout leader to provide vision, planning, encouragement and motivation to begin to implement the girls membership policy. A male member of the committee shares:

They did not see necessary to have girls involved. [Old scoutmaster and assistant

scoutmasters] weren't open to discussing it. It was dismissed repeatedly. And it

just became a bone of contention. So our current committee chair who is an Eagle

scout said in very nonconfrontational way to us [committee] ’My girls want to be

a part of scouting. I am going to honor that and I am going to do it for them and

for other girls. I'd love it to be here if it can't be here.’ Everybody in the

committee and in the and then troop likes him, respects him appreciates

everything he's done. It wasn't anything he needed to convince us of. We knew it

in our hearts, but no one was empowered to really push that agenda forward

because the past leadership were [sic] very strong, very vocal and very

opinionated in regards to that. It just felt like it was the right time…the transition

went really smooth. It wasn't, it wasn't an issue for any of the current leadership.

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And the past leadership're no longer involved with the troop. That was their

choice. No one asked them to leave, no one. They just said, ‘this is, this is not

right.’ We said, ‘we understand. We appreciate everything you've done. Thank

you very much.’

Another male member of the committee recalls:

The current leaders embraced it. We were fully on board our situation at the time

with [starting a girls troop]. The past leadership…did not agree with any of the

policy changes. They didn't want to see a change. They wanted to be the way it

always was. We all felt, the current people in charge, that it was the right thing to

do. It was the right time. We had the right people with the right mindset to

empower the change. So we've embraced it.

This was a challenging period of transition for this scout unit, as a few scout leaders who

remained were forced to choose sides and ultimately lost friendships. One assistant

scoutmaster for the boys troop shares why he decided to stay, and how he felt he was

different from those who left.

[Scoutmasters who left] felt like they were getting pushed out, which is not true.

They were they were being asked to perform a different role. And that basically

was to mentor new leadership…So [troop committee] had to pick a new direction.

I'm kind of in that awkward spot because I knew them and I knew the new group

[incoming scout leaders], so I was that bridge and cost me some friendships. It's a

shame. But ya gotta change. You gotta adapt. The program changes, everything

changes. You can't [pause] it's not about you. It's not about me, it's about them

[scouts].

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Several scout leaders spoke of the motivations of the leaving scoutmasters being more

closely related to their inability to adapt, rather than specific biases toward girls joining

the program, “you've got a group that's been following a set of policies that were 15 years

old, 20 years old, and aren't embracing newer policies that are coming out because they

don't necessarily agree with them because they're stuck in their ways.” One member of

the troop committee shared the leaders who left transitioned into roles in another scout

unit, interestingly a Venturing Crew, a BSA program that has traditionally allowed girl

members since the mid-1970’s.

{Scoutmasters who left] are involved in a venturing a crew now…which

ironically has girls. So they just wanted it their way. They didn't want it to

change. They felt ownership of the troop, which they had been involved with for

several years. Everybody appreciated everything they did, but [it was] their time

to moving on.

The leaving leaders’ ability to maintain their participation in the scout leader community of practice is important to consider as we think about the dynamics at play among scout leaders and youth members with regard to personal beliefs about membership policies.

Throughout this study we see these dynamics playing out at council and regional scouting events, where scout troops and leaders come together in an interactive setting.

Hallowcrest’s experience at summer camp with 40 boys and 20 girls in attendance provides an example of the tensions within the scout leader community of practice. They attended summer camp in a rural area a few hundred miles away, comingled with dozens of other local troops. A committee member with a son and daughter in the scout units

154 shares his perception of scout leaders they encountered at camp who don’t think girls should be allowed in the program.

I don't have a high perception of them. We ran across that we had we had to share

a site at summer camp with a small troop…. They were very upset with the fact

that we had girls in the troop and that the girls were camping in the same site as

us. We didn't communicate with them at all during the whole week. We had a

great time with a number of other camps with another other troops that had to

pass by our campsite. You know, a lot of them stopped to talk to us but it was

very distant with that troop cause they didn't want to involve the girls.

The scoutmaster for the girls recalled the tension with this troop’s displeasure with the girls and, their scout leaders who she describes as “old dogs”. She found reliance in a male assistant scoutmaster for the boys troop, who was also close with the scoutmasters who left:

There's one assistant scoutmaster who was part of that crew [scoutmasters who

left], like he was close with them. But he's not like them at all. And he’s been

wonderful too. We drove to summer camp together and it was a wonderful

conversation and he's was like, ‘I think of you not only as a scoutmaster, but also

a scout because [you] have so much to learn.’ I appreciate that. He said,

‘whatever you need’. I couldn't be more blessed by the men that are in the troop. I

don't feel like they're even know that they're old dogs…that don't want to learn

new tricks or that aren't open to learning new things. He came in to the girls

meeting and said, ‘listen, we're going to summer camp. This is very new for all of

us. But if you have any kind of problem with a scout saying something to you or a

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Scoutmaster or an adult saying something to you, that you don't belong here or

anything like that, you need to immediately come to me.’ It really kind of took

me back. That's just amazing that for him to verbalize to the girls that we've got

your back and it was very important to me. So then we got to camp and right next

door was a camp of boys [from another troop] and [other troop’s] Scoutmaster did

not want us there. I was like, ‘Oh, like we need to move.’ One of our assistant

scoutmasters said, ‘Nope, you have the right to be here and we are proud to have

you here and you're staying here. I don't care what they think.’ I get that change is

hard for people and so I'm very sensitive to the people that it affects. I think [other

boys troop] were possibly trying to their camp because of us. I just kind of kept

my distance from them. I'm not one that makes waves, I don't like that. I like

people to get along.

This interaction provides some insight into the challenges of implementing the girls policy beyond the tensions found within the troop organization. It also helps us to understand the dynamics of shifting participation within the scout leader community of practice, and the influence of policy change on participation. We see how personal beliefs of the scout leader are the initial lens through which scout leaders decide to implement and adapt the program, but also how they approach their role and participation within the community of practice.

Several Hallowcrest scout leaders were not at first accepting of the girls membership policies and, more so than other leaders participating across this study, clearly articulated how they navigated the change which was coming to the troop. While some of the scoutmasters decided to leave the program, these leaders agreed to stay with

156 the troop. Their approach to learning and participation in the community of practice through the girls membership policy implementation is a thread that weaves through the entire study.

Of note, even the committee chair, who became the catalyst for starting the girls troop had a change of heart. His wife, the girls scoutmaster, shares how he came to lead starting the girls troop.

My husband [name] wasn't even on board at first, he is the committee chair. He

was just not thrilled initially. And he is a type of person that might have an initial

reaction, but then he thinks about things. When it's something that you've been

involved with so long, it holds more weight. And for him, he's an Eagle Scout. At

first he was just, ‘no, this is the way it is. It should be boys and this and that.’ But

the more he thought about it, for him it was like, ‘why wouldn't I want this

awesome opportunity for my daughters, and for their friends?’ That's when he

came and presented it [to the troop committee].

Another male scout leader with a son and daughter in the troop shares how his perceptions of girl membership changed.

Well at first I can't say I was for, [pause] well historically, you know, it's been an

all boy activity. There is a female oriented organization of the same vein [Girl

Scouts of the USA]. Now I have both a son and a daughter, so my son was a Boy

Scout and my daughter was a Girl Scout. The activities they participate in are

very different. But then you're looking at it further…there's an opportunity in Boy

Scouts doesn't get replicated with the Girl Scouts. Cause my daughter has never

gone camping with them….They slept overnight in a cabin, but they've never

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been out under the stars. So that was an opportunity she wasn't getting. So over

time it really grew on me. And when they started putting together girls troops, I

asked my daughter if she was interested she jumped at the opportunity because

she really wanted those opportunities to do this. My son had gone to camp for a

number of years, every summer coming back with the greatest stories and she

wanted the same opportunity. So it took a little while for me to get there, but I got

there.

One longtime male assistant scoutmaster for the boys troop shared how his perceptions changed, and the connection between both his observations and work experiences related to his decision to not to leave the troop and also begin to embrace the girl members. His reflections bring some clarity to the complex nature of social learning and the influencing factors as scout leaders negotiate their participation in the community of practice. Here he speaks of work, family, and education influences, which have created a learning- approach to navigating change.

When they announced girls, my initial reaction was there's a reason why we have

things separate, so these boys can have the chance to experience things without

the influence of girls. They're already at that age when the hormones are raging,

we don't need to introduce more conflict to them and confusion. But after running

it through my head…over months, you start listening to things, you look at things

and… It's one of those things that just kind of slowly crept up on you. When

you're talking it out with people and it starts to feel wrong when you're talking it

out. And as you talk about it more and more, you start to say, ‘okay, I see it. I get

it.’ I work with people who are passionate Scouts some of them are in the LGBTQ

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community. And they all know that I'm a scout leader and they've all given me

their opinion. It's kind of refreshing when I get ‘I don't think it's right that this is going on.’ When you have the discussion with them and you start peeling back the onion and you start to find out that there's other reasons why [people feel a certain way]. I think it's just a slow burn of those conversations that slowly changes your perception of what you think is the right answer. So that's where I kind of ended up coming around. And I have a sister-in-law. She recently passed.

But she was a Girl Scouts of America supporter - real, real strong. But if she had the opportunity to be involved in Boy Scouts, she would have definitely done that.

So, I look at it as a great thing…. Our youth are changing. We have to change with the times. This program is over a hundred years old. It's changed several times in that a hundred years. So why can't it continue to evolve? I'm old, but I have to evolve too. I started off as a computer programmer and moved up through the ranks. I’m no longer writing code anymore, I am now a problem solver. That's what I do. I have evolved. I've got young kids coming in [at work] and they can't do the things that I did when I started programming. That means that I'm picking up more work and I'm teaching them. I'm trying to train them. I had to evolve. I had to understand what they were doing and in my own progression I realized change is constant. And since I can't stop change, I've got two choices. I can either embrace it or I can go live under a rock for the rest of my life. And that's just not practical. It's just the way life is. I'm a history major. That's my degree. So

I know that if you don't learn from it, you will repeat it. You're doomed.

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Another longtime scout leader and former camp staffer describes how his experiences changed over time, ending with his daughter’s decision to join Hallowcrest’s girls troop, where he is now an assistant scoutmaster for the girls troop. As an Eagle

Scout with a robust scouting experience throughout the U.S. as both a scout and scout leader, he speaks authoritatively and passionately about how he came to support the girls membership policy.

My reaction to the idea of females in scouting has changed and evolved greatly

since the late eighties. By history, I tracked very carefully some case law that was

happening in my geographic region where I was…I heard that there were

lawsuits, parents trying to get their daughters into Scouts. I thought that was

preposterous. I thought it was a nonsensical and absurd. There was GSA [Girl

Scouts] and that was readily available to females. And why would they ever want

to become Scouts? As I've gotten older, I realized the credentialing I have as an

Eagle Scout is something that was not available to GSA the same way. I know

that the Gold Award that they offer is a prestigious award and difficult to obtain

the way that Eagle is. The difference is brand name. The difference is that my

Eagle badge hangs on my wall in my office and everybody knows it's there and

it's a credential. When somebody says, ‘Can I believe [self] when he says

something? The answer is: look on his wall, of course you can!’ And that brand

is not available to females, at least not until recently. When I was much younger

as a [BSA camp] counselor, we had one or two females on staff. Now scout

camps are being run by-and-large by females. And I look and realize that these

people are capable of doing the exact same work. They live the lifestyle. Why

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should they not have the credential? My daughter tells a story about how she got

‘scouted in’ [joined Cub Scouts]. She was dragged along to all of my son's

scouting events. She'd learned the same material. She competed in the same

Pinewood Derby races, but no reward for her simply because she was female, and

how patently unfair that would be. When they opened up to all female, she was

thrilled. She was a driving force. I'm happy to assist her in anything she wants to

do. Of course, I have been in a scout crew that was coed. I have a cousin who is

female, and she was into a high adventure Venture Crew. And so I did that with

her. Girls can do the same as the boys. Why should they not get the same award?

That's how my opinion has changed. It went from, that's preposterous to, I don't

see why not.

In observing the reactions of parents and scouts in the troop, one male scout leader shares his perceptions of when even the cautious mothers of shy boys got fully behind the idea of the girls membership policies. This shift, related to experiencing and seeing the program in action, provides some insight into how select participants in the community of practice, notably those on the periphery such as mothers uninvolved in program delivery, come to understand and move toward acceptance of the policies.

the switch really turned for an awful lot of people probably in August of this year.

We had a [girls] troop up and running. It was clear the girls were here to stay.

And not only were they here to stay, they were and still are just phenomenal.

[Scouter leaders] just doing an amazing job. I took a group of Scouts, some from

the boys troop and some from the girls troop, to [merit badge workshop] As I was

watching, I watched as the girls, there was a female troop in from another

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completely different council and there was my girls troop and, and a couple

others. And the girls were diligently getting through the list and really engaging in

the information. And the boys were playing hacky sack and throwing paper

airplanes until they looked around and realized that they better get their act

together cause the girls are getting it done and they're just not.

As scout leaders negotiate their personal beliefs with the new girls policy we see several moving toward acceptance, and thus a shift in some toward fuller participation in the scout leader community of practice in a program delivery capacity. For female scout leaders who had been marginalized within the community of practice to administrative roles, the policy environment allows for a shift toward program delivery and ownership.

This is not to say that there are not and have not been female leaders in the former Boy

Scouts program, however the female leader requirement creates a need for female leaders to emerge into program roles. These shifts are evident in the scout units throughout this study, manifesting in different ways. In Hallowcrest there are no trained female scoutmasters or assistant scoutmaster prior to the girls scoutmaster being pressed into service by her husband, the committee chair.

I really feel like a baby and he [husband/committee chair] dropped me in water

and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing? This is like a major undertaking,

and I have no idea what I'm doing!’ But he's the type of person who pushes me

and he's like, ‘you'll figure it out’, you know? So he's helped me figure different

things out and different interactions with people out. But also I would say the

Scoutmasters have been right there to help me figure things out. …A lotta things I

would bounce off [husband and committee chair]. ‘Is this right?’ or ‘…am I doing

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the right thing for the girls? what do you think about this? Is this the direction that

it should be going or that we want it to go?’ I wish that I knew more of the actual

scout skills, like knot tying and stuff like that. I knew, I wish I knew that kind of

stuff much better. You go through all that knot tying and it's like, I'm going to just

work on this and then, life happens and your job, my job happens, my kids

happen, my, whatever. So I just wish that was more natural to me to be able to

explain it well. …now the girls [members] are older, they're explaining it to the

kids [other members], but I wish I could feel more competent at overseeing

different things…that's again where I lean on…my assistant scout master any

other guys and the guys troop, so I feel very insecure about that stuff.

With the leaving of longtime scout leaders, the Hallowcrest lost much institutional and

scout-skill knowledge, which created needs for the program to recruit scout leaders who have scouting experience. What makes the recruiting of experienced leaders most pressing is the precision needed for 16 and 17 year old girl members to move through the program to be able to achieve the rank of Eagle.

One of the biggest things that stresses me out is that everybody came in at the

same time…I have 11 year old and I have a 17 year old and this 17 year old is

very motivated to make Eagle. So not knowing the book [requirements] like

somebody who's been involved with it for much longer than me, it's very stressful

that we have enough opportunities for her. I don't want to be the reason she's held

back from making Eagle. I'm constantly like leaning on the guys [assistant

scoutmasters] for help with her. I'm kind of learning along with the 11-year-

olds.… I wish I'd paid more attention to my son going through [scouting]. I really

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lean hard on the assistant scoutmaster who's very knowledgeable in scouting. My

greatest resource for training are the guys [assistant scoutmasters] that have been

involved forever. I've learned a lot from them.

Hallowcrest was able to recruit a highly experienced leader to be an assistant scoutmaster for the girls troop, as his daughter joined the troop. His presence helped to bridge the gap in knowledge among female leaders and provide the structure and guidance needed for the older girls to have a pathway to eagle. In this role he is also helping to train the girls scoutmaster, who, like her counterparts in other troops in this study, is lacking the scout skills she feels she needs to be effective in the role. The assistant scoutmaster is mindful of the power he has and considers his role as both training the youth and the female leaders, so they can fully take on their roles and feel confident about it.

And that's the rewarding experience with the girls. I mentioned…having to run a

quasi-Cub scout situation where myself [male assistant scoutmaster] and a couple

of other adult leaders - Okay, it was a lot of me, but, whatever – we're teaching

the basic fundamentals how to tie knots, how to add to put on your uniform, what

you need to bring on a camping trip. You know, those things that you and I take

for granted [because] the boys just kind of learned by osmosis by watching the

older boys. When you start with a group of girls who don't know the scout law

have never heard the scout oath…you're starting at ground zero and you know, it's

a struggle to…get them [girls and female scout leaders] up to speed. It takes time.

That's, that's definitely a struggle.

The girls scoutmaster’s example, the support network of experienced scouters and the success of the girls troop are encouraging other mothers of boys in the troop to consider

164 transitioning from administrative roles to assistant scoutmaster roles, as described by several of the scout leaders here.

Now [the girls troop] gotten enough ground [behind them] and all of a sudden, I

have one mother of a young man who just received his Eagle at the last court of

honor and she asked to stay on board and just participate with the girls that she

now sees. This is here to stay and it's working and it's, it's going forward. And all

of a sudden there's a lot more support that way.

The girls scoutmaster is reflects on her own progress and acceptance of the girls policy and is likewise seeing a shift among the female scout leaders on the committee as well.

I wish I paid more attention when my son was going through it. I'm very grateful

for the interactions and relationships with them, the troop amongst the adults

together. And like I said, even though I think that there was great hesitation and

perhaps not a warm welcome initially, I don't think that some of the women,

which cracks me up, that it’s the women, have come around and are actually have

come over to me and said, we want to help the girls. Hopefully it's a genuine…I

am cautiously optimistic.

Like in other scout units in this study, the manifestation and implementation of the girls policy was much more dynamic and complicated than the implementation of the sexual orientation and identity membership policies. The way that the girls membership policy implementation manifested in Hallowcrest provides an excellent example of shifting of participants in the community of practice, which includes emergence of change agents to bring about implementation, the leaving and marginalization of “old dog” who disagreed with the policy, the learning and eventual acceptance of the policy by other longtime

165 program leaders and the emergence of female leaders from the margins of administration to full participation in the program. The acceptance and implementation of the sexual orientation and identity membership policies are oriented greatly on personal beliefs of the scout leaders, which trend toward acceptance, especially of LGBTQ+ youth.

Hallowcrest was the only scout unit in this study to have created a policy at the unit level which created clear restrictions on participation of scout leaders in the program.

While other scout units were involved for decades in pushing back on the BSA’s restrictions on LGBTQ+ members and leaders, here we see the creation of a local policy crafted in such a way to restrict participation of leaders. While the BSA policy allows religious chartered organizations to restrict scout leader participation on the basis of sexual orientation, the Episcopal Church where Hallowcrest is chartered was not interested or sufficiently involved in restricting scout leaders.

One longtime assistant scoutmaster shared how the connection between the BSA allowing gay leaders and scout leader perception that there is a link between gay leaders and sexual abuse in the BSA, led to the creation of the Hallowcrest leader policy.

A couple of years ago we worked on a policy document [restricting scout leader

participation] cause the rules [scout leader sexual orientation policy] that national

[BSA] sent out…there was no guidance. There were a lot of questions. One of the

things that we had in our policy, still there today, is you have to have had a

relationship with the troop in order to join committee or be involved in the troop,

because we didn't want just any stranger coming in off the street and saying, ‘I

wanna be a leader’. I mean, yeah, there's rules in here [Rules and Regulations of

the BSA] about how you can go about qualifying a leader, but the other side is

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there's also nothing in there that says how you disqualify a leader that…on paper

is qualified, ‘cause that's called discrimination. We put in rules saying that if you

had a, a niece, a nephew, a child, whatever, as part of the troop or you were a part

of the troop at some point in the past, you can be more than welcome to

participate in the troop. ‘Cause you don't want to have just a random stranger

come in and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I'm going to take your kids away for a

weekend’ and nobody knows them….an outsider from the community. I think that

comes along with the…background checks…they were not that rigorous in the

past. Now you're also constantly watching out for the youth to make sure that they

are in a safe environment. Is it [local policy] over-protective? Maybe, but this is

all based on the…50 years we've been around.

Only one longtime leader mentioned the existence of this local leader policy and he

indicated that since it was enacted there has never been an instance where they denied a

scout leader from registering with the troop. The scout leader reinforced that the policy

was motivated by frustration with the lack of guidance from the national BSA and fear of child abuse among some former leaders and parents.

So far as [adult scout leaders] I don't care one way or the other, what that

individual is sitting across from me [sexual orientation]. It shouldn't matter for the

youth. It shouldn't matter for the adults. We'll get along just fine. As long as we

all understand that we're here for them, not us. They are clear not to put a boy and

a girl in a tent together…[But] there was no guidance around what happens if you

have a youth who identifies as another gender from what they [are] by birth….

What tent do you put them in? I'm not a lawyer, I'm just asking for simple

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guidance. I'm a volunteer. You have to tell me how to address this and I will

follow that policy, but you can't just leave me out there guessing. And that's really

what they [National BSA] did to a lot of us. I think that caused a lot of confusion.

And yeah, there are some old-time scout leaders who just don't want to change.

They like it this way. …they think scouting is kind of a club. They've developed a

social structure inside of it where they've been for 10, 15 years, stayed on after

their kids have left. Because it's a good friendship and they'd like to keep

repeating the things that work in their mind.

Despite the local policy motivated by past fear and uncertainty, Hallowcrest scout leaders were consistently grounded in the notion that sexuality has no place in the scouting programs, and in general, should not be discussed or acknowledged directly, but instead through the lens of the Scout Oath and Scout Law. This is a consistent thread weaving through each of the scout units in this study. One male member of the committee who’s daughter recently joined Hallowcrest shared his perspective as a former Navy officer, a teacher, a parent of scouts, and Cub Scout summer camp director.

The sexual orientation thing, I know for some people that's an issue, but it

shouldn't be. So I understand sometimes that especially teenagers have a problem

grappling with that issue. …for example, if one of the girls or one of the boys

choose to run that alternate lifestyle, I don't think they [Hallowcrest scout leaders]

would even bat an eye. I've kids in school doing that, and the school doesn't bat an

eye. So if the school isn't batting an eye then the national scout organization

shouldn't bat an eye either. …It's not a scouting issue. It shouldn't be. Scouting is

about going camping. Scouting is about being upright, being a good person, doing

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the right thing, following the [scout] oath, law, [outdoor] code that kind of stuff. I

think that all of that is good for kids. The organization is good for kids. The sort

of a branding that the Boy Scouts does is good for kids. So I don't think that

sexual orientation plays into that.

With several scout leaders coming from other scout units to lead at Hallowcrest, they were able to share somewhat broader experiences as scout leaders with regard to the sexual orientation and identity policies. Similar to leaders of the other scout units captured in this study, Hallowcrest scout leaders indicated that the sexual orientation and identity policies aligned well with how they perceive social norms on the east coast when compared to other parts of the country.

Now I know we have the middle of the country who is fairly and vastly different

than we are here on the coast. But I don't think, my personal opinion, I don't think

they should treat these kids [LGBTQ+ scouts} any differently….

As new scout leaders emerge from the margins of the programs, we look to see what personal beliefs and perspectives with regard to sexual orientation and identity. The girls scoutmaster, who is within the first six months of her scout leader role, shares how her personal beliefs align with the BSA’s new sexual orientation and identity policies.

It's a positive organization [BSA] and anyone with a beating heart should be

welcome to participate in such a great program…a girl or a boy, if they're gay or

they're straight or don't know. Why wouldn't we include every child? I'm a new

puppy though. Right? I'm not an old dog. I think that I had several gay bosses or

professors in my life and they're very inspirational and fabulous people and

knowledgeable people. To me that [sexual orientation] is not even a thought that

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crosses my mind because if somebody is volunteering their time making

opportunities for children, it's like a non-issue, Now, everybody grows up

differently. And I wish it wasn't an issue for everybody, but I understand why it

would be for some. I do. I mean I was raised in a white conservative household,

and I consider myself in some ways very conservative, but just being exposed to

different people in college. If you don't have the exposure [to LGBTQ+] you

don’t realize that people who are different from you [don’t] have bad intentions

and are capable of doing a job.

A theme found through this study, scout leaders’ use of Scouting principles as an official guide to interpret, adapt, and disregard BSA policies that they feel are in conflict. The approach of relying on an organizations’ principles as a guide, or even as a replacement for personal beliefs, is a tactic that scout leaders use to negotiate their memberships in different communities. i.e. scouting, religious, family, work. A scout leader new to

Hallowcrest shared his experience as a cubmaster for another scout unit nearby, before the BSA allowed leaders regardless of their sexual orientation. When a parent raised concerns about a gay scout leader in the program we see how this scout leader’s personal beliefs and interpretation of the espoused values of the BSA led to his implementation of the sexual orientation restrictions.

I had somebody give me an ear chew about the Boy Scout policy on not having

homosexual leaders. To be quite honest, we…didn’t follow [it] because truth be

told, care we really did not care. ‘You know, what, show up with your kid? Have

fun with your kid. It doesn't matter what your sexual orientation is.’ I mean really,

who cares about that? The [chartered organization] had a laisse faire attitude to

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how we were running this ship. [They] turned a blind eye to it if we were turning

a blind eye to it. I'm sure…they had parishioners that are homosexuals and stuff

like that. So how could they make judgment or pass judgment on the way that we

were running things if they would not pass judgment on their own parishioners?

Now, that being said, I'm not sure all the churches in the world would have taken

that tack on it, but we're in [mid-Atlantic state], you know, it's an it's sort of a

liberal place in that regard. For us, we wouldn't have looked at it at all. And the

woman who was yelling at me, to be quite honest with you, I said, ‘we don't care.’

Unless he ended up in the paper or something like that, and then I think the Boy

Scouts might care, but for us…there's no boundary that we would have put in

place because of that.

Consistently within Hallowcrest, and across this study, is the notion that the BSA’s sexual orientation and identity policies are now better aligned with how scout leaders perceive social norms in the communities where they operate. This alignment is described by many, like this scout leader and parent, as a link to both his personal beliefs, his interpretation of the espoused values of the scouting, and social norms.

I think that it [sexual orientation and identity policy] was [a] long time coming. A

lot of the Boy Scout organizations in the middle of the country are sort of mad

about this. But to be quite honest with you it's the right thing to do. It's the right

thing. It's the Scout Law in action, right? Whether you liked it or not, it was the

right thing to do. And I think it’s the same thing for welcoming girls too.

Hallowcrest provided us a detailed illustration of how the membership policy changes brought about changes in the participation of the scout leaders in this scout unit, and

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created shifts between scout units. The nature of the shifts with regard to movement into

and out of the margins direct out attention to issues of power and agency in this learning

community. We see that the scout leaders are truly situated within a broad community,

and migrate to scout units that align with their personal beliefs, and for some, become

change agents that motivate scout units to change. Hallowcrest also gives us some insight

into the motivating factors related to the emergence of female leaders from the margins,

and the importance of skill building, mentoring, training, and encouragement from

longtime leaders as “new puppies” develop the skills needed to carry out their roles.

The next scout unit, the Valley, is the final vignette in this study and provides the

only rural perspective in this study. The broad themes generated in other scout units in

this study are prominently represented in The Valley, although we note a greater tension

between social norms and the new membership policies. While the tensions play out in

obvious ways over the use of shared equipment, new female scout leaders in the Valley

provide great insight into the challenges they face as they emerge from the margins into full participation as scoutmasters.

The Valley Nestled in the rural ridges and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains within a couple hours of two major metropolitan areas in the northeast United States is a scout unit that has taken on a counter-cultural existence, bringing girls into the Scouts BSA program. My observations of a committee meeting and interviews of scout leaders, which took place over three days in September and October 2019, in the church building where the scout unit is chartered, uncovered the most contentious environments among the scout units included in this study. The Valley is a case of female scout leaders getting a foothold in a highly masculinized environment as they emerge into program delivery

172 roles. It is from a few key inflection points that we garner a glimpse into how the nature of rurality magnifies the challenges of implementing organizational policies that appear less prominent in the suburban and urban sites.

The dynamics playing out in this scout unit reflect the broader struggles many rural communities face when outsiders migrate from the cities, bringing with them new ideas, priorities, and values (Harriss, 1984, 1979 ) The township where this The Valley is located is in a rural, farmland covered valley housed within a county of 300,000 on the fringes of a small population center of about 25,000. The township has a population of nearly 10,000 residents and is experiencing moderate growth as farmland is exchanged for housing developments. The population is quite homogeneous, with approximately

93% of the population identifying as white, 4% identifying as Hispanic/Latinx, and 2%

Black/African American. The adjacent population center is much more diverse with nearly 60% of the population identifying as Hispanic/Latinx, a shift in race demographics from 95% white in 2000. One scout leader with a daughter in The Valley’s girls troop, who is also an assistant scoutmaster for a boys troop in the nearby city, recalls this shift in the city’s demographic characteristics.

I grew up in [nearby city]. We were Italians. Every street had the different

nationality on. So you had, two streets of Italian, then Irish, then Polish, you

know, we all had our own little stores. And then [nearby city] went through a

major change about 15 years ago where we had a large influx of Hispanic come in

and pretty much now they're the majority. They're a majority in [nearby

city]…that's just what happened. So in our group there [other boys troop], we

have a large majority of Hispanic kids, which is great. It's fine.

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The Valley, however, is quite homogeneous, consisting of completely of white members

and leaders, who are parents of the youth, many of whom grew up in the nearby city and

migrated to the growing suburbs to raise their families. The scout leaders are primarily

professionals in corporate business, education and medical fields, with many of the

parents who are not scout leaders working in unskilled positions in agriculture and the

service industry. The public school system servicing this township is shared with the

nearby city, creating a much more diverse schooling experience for youth as they

graduate from rural elementary schools to the middle and high schools, which is

combines youth from both the city and rural areas. It is common for the youth in this

scout unit to be homeschooled or attend a high-achieving private parochial school in the

city.

The Valley is organized as two separate troops, currently operating as two

separate committees within a shared charter organization. While they are not formally

operating as “linked troops”, the committees are meeting together on a quarterly basis

with interest among some scout leaders to move towards operating under a single

committee. Similar to other scout units in this study, the establishment of a girls Scouts

BSA troop was motivated primarily by a single scout leader in the boys scoutmaster role, who with the support and guidance of district scout professionals, provided the vision and leadership necessary. As with the boys scoutmaster at The Trust, this scoutmaster

provides a key link between the boys and girls troops, as committee chair for the girls

troop. The troops meet on the same night in the shared space in the basement of the

church basement, the youth opening and closing meetings together, but working

separately during their meetings. The chartered organization was supportive of the

174 establishment of the girls troop, although they indicated that the two troops would need to share the existing camping and cooking supplies, which the boys troop had amassed over several decades.

The six scout leaders who participated in this study, three male and three female, are parents who are following their children through the scouting program and comprise nearly the entire adult leadership for the scout unit. Many of them have worked closely together for several years, as leaders in the Cub Scout program. The boys troop scoutmaster is also the catalyst for the creation of the girls troop and holds the position of committee chair for the girls troop. His partner is the girls troop scoutmaster, as she has children in Cub Scouts who will eventually join the Valley’s troops. Another couple provide leadership for the girls troop, with the wife taking on assistant scoutmaster duties and the husband, an assistant scoutmaster for a boys troop in the nearby city, taking on a supporting role. The final leaders representing the boys troop include the committee chair and the former committee chair, who recently stepped into the role of treasurer.

The Valley’s decision to start the girls troop, like in Hallowcrest, occurred one year after the leaving of a longtime scoutmaster. The timing and circumstance of this leader’s leaving was not directly instigated by the implementation of new membership policies, or pressures from the committee, as was the case in Hallowcrest. The father of one of the new scout members who had been a scout leader for his son’s Cub Scout pack was selected by the Valley’s committee to be the new scoutmaster. He is an Eagle Scout, born and raised in this area, who works in construction management, a role which has required extensive travel throughout the U.S. Similar to other scout units included in this study, this scoutmaster took on the change agent role within the scout unit to implement

175 the girl membership policy by starting a girls troop, despite knowing that there was likely to be pushback from parents and members of the committee.

When the last Scoutmaster stepped down, [the committee] was like

‘[scoutmaster’s name]’s the one’ [to be the next scoutmaster]. No one even

bothered to ask any of my opinions or thoughts or anything. They’re just like

‘you’re scoutmaster’. I was fine with it. Sometimes [when they are angry about

girl members] I think, ‘You guys never asked me any [of] my beliefs beforehand.

Maybe you should have did that’. But they didn't. So now you're stuck with me,

cause none of them want to do it [be scoutmaster].

Starting the girls troop in The Valley required recruiting female leaders to align with the policy, which is an area where many of the scout units in this study struggled. The challenge of engaging female leaders, especially those with experience with the program, is especially challenging for scout units with few members. With only six youth members in the boys troop, the scoutmaster decided to take on the role of committee chair for the girls troop and asked his partner to be the girls scoutmaster. Her motivation to help start the troop is closely connected to her role as a scout leader in Cub Scouts.

As a leader in the pack, I have girls in my den and we have girls in our pack and

that was one of the biggest pushes to start the [girls] troop…making sure that that

is built so that the girls in the pack have somewhere to aspire to, somewhere to

move up to when they're old enough. Without [this girls troop], there was nothing

in this area. We are the only female troop in this area…and there weren't any

other[s] on the horizon. I see how much the female Scouts in the pack enjoy the

program and work just as hard as the boys. The boys have this troop to move to.

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And the girls had nothing after fifth grade unless somebody was willing to start a

troop. That was…the push to start the troop for me.

The girls scoutmaster is a teacher and mother of boys and girls, all of whom are currently

in some form of scouting. She relocated a few years earlier from the suburbs of a major

mid-Atlantic metropolitan area where she grew up, to join families with the boys

scoutmaster. Since moving out of the suburbs, the girls scoutmaster became involved in

many scouting activities with the boys scoutmaster, which now also includes both being

on staff for a local BSA camp. Despite being all-in and comfortable with her knowledge of the program and skills associated with the program, she didn’t always see herself in a program delivery role.

[When BSA allowed girl members] I guess it just changed for me. The roles that I

saw myself in. …when I first got involved in scouting, I definitely did not picture

myself in the role that I'm in now. But when the opportunity was there, it was

something that I wanted to do.

The girls scoutmaster was joined by an assistant scoutmaster, a mother of a new girl

member who is a also a teacher by profession and currently heads a Girl Scout troop for

her daughter. The assistant scoutmaster had been trying to start girls troop elsewhere but

couldn’t find a chartered organization to support it, so joined girls troop in The Valley.

in this area, there are a couple chartered orgs who were unwilling to charter a

female troop because they had healthy and successful Girl Scout troops…and they

didn't want to step on toes. We're not here to ruin somebody else's program by

taking membership from them…. I think that's a reasonable…reason not to start a

troop…. We're not here to make it a negative thing. But I know some places

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where the chartered orgs are willing to start a troop, but there just isn't the

leadership.

Similar to Hallowcrest, lack of established girls troops in the region have attracted girl members from outside of the township where the boys troop draws its membership. This influx of outsiders is the source of much tension in the scout unit, with the five or six

members in the boys troop being quickly eclipsed by 12 members in the girls troop and

their parents.

“Our boys are all in the, in this [rural area]. Whereas the girls draw from [town],

which is at least 35 minutes away…they come from all over. I know some of

them drive over 30 minutes to get here to meetings on Monday nights because

they wanted to be a part of it and their local Boy Scout troop had not established a

girl troop. The [girls troop scoutmaster] did do some recruiting. I believe she was

at one of the schools, I believe. But yeah, [she’s] has been like a driving force to

make that successful. “

While there is a general opposition to girls being able to join Scouts BSA among the non-

leader parents of the boys troop, key pressure points relate specifically to conflicts about

shared space and resources, which manifested around the use of the troop trailer and

camping gear.

[The boys and girls troops] share one trailer that has been the biggest contention

point. It's been the [boys troop] trailer for many, many years. We have all of our

camping supplies, everything in it. Well, [girls troop] uses now too. The church

owns the trailer and is very hands off. The church isn't going to buy another trailer

for the girls to use and few of the parents are pretty much insisting that the girls

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not be allowed to use the trailer anymore…[that] the boys feel that they're being

overshadowed and they worked hard to raise the funds to buy the things in that

trailer. One dad at our last committee meeting said, ‘if I don't hear what I want to

hear today, I am contacting the pastor, the church and council and there will be

changes’…. We're going to share it, end of story…but that has been a very big

contentious issue.

The committee chair for the boys troop, a conservative Evangelical Christian who is a

manager for a multinational corporation, has been a scout leader along with the

scoutmaster for many years and describes some of the pushback he’s experienced with

starting the girls troop.

[Several parents of boys] are not committee members, but yet they're the first to

drive, gripe and complain and to send group text messages out to everybody

saying that the troop better get its act together and be more organized or they're

reporting the troop to council for poor leadership. Since we're small, we need all

the help we can get [and] open [committee meetings] to any parent that wants to

come. [These parents] strongly feel that the girls get more attention than the

boys…and that the boys are neglected and overlooked. And that's really not the

case.

This leaves the scout leaders a challenging environment to operate the program, negotiating local and scout unit culture with the new policy environment. The girls scoutmaster contrasts her experiences interacting with scout leaders in other scout units in her area and the girls assistant scoutmaster shares the challenges she faces with parents and leaders in The Valley.

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I think a lot of the negative feelings about girls joining scouting were based on

misinformation. There've been so many [scout leaders in other units] I've spoken

since starting a female troop who were very like anti-females in scouting until

they heard how it actually…works. They're like, ‘Oh, well that's not that

bad…we're okay with that…that doesn't bother us’. There was just this whole

idea of what it would look like versus what the reality is.

In [boys troop] the parents are [pause]. It's where they come from. What are you

going to do? It's like racism. If you've come from that situation, how are you

going to…fix them? So, the challenges are societal, I guess, and I think it's going

to take time. Honestly, I don't think as time goes on, if you have…parents feel the

way [boys troop] parents do, then they'll just not join BSA ‘There's girls there and

we don't want to be with them because they should be in their kitchen.’ Beautiful.

Perfect. [sarcastic]

The challenges faced by the female leaders of the girls troop in The Valley are somewhat more pronounced, but not substantially different than those observed in other scout units in this study. The girls scoutmaster is a pragmatic and passionate leader, confident in her scouting skills and abilities. Despite her abilities she shares the difficulties she faces preparing the girls for opposition to girls in Scouts BSA. The examples she shares provide some insight into the differences in how scout leaders in the community of practice who have not implemented the girls membership policy in their scout units react when forced to acknowledge others who have.

The biggest challenge to the [girl members], and this is a talk that we have to have

with our female Scouts quite often, is that whether it's fair or not, and it's not

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necessarily fair, but every single move you make is being watched and being

judged…for as many people that are here in support of you being a part of

scouting, there are people who are not…waiting for you to mess up. And so we

say to them…’you have to be extra mindful of every choice you make while in

that uniform or during a scouting event’. It puts more pressure on them that isn't

necessarily fair…the boys don't have to feel that pressure…[if] they make a

mistake, then it's a normal, you know, it's a kid, kids mess up, kids make

mistakes. But if a girl makes a mistake? [They’ll say] ‘girls don't belong in

scouting’. You know, it can, you can make it into like an ugly thing or you can

just flip it and let it roll because it's going to happen to you your entire life. Cause

it's true, especially as a girl, it's going to happen. As a leader, my biggest challenge is just letting it roll when I meet with somebody who is not in support

of [girls policy]. I don't care whether people think it's okay or not. I think

everybody's entitled to their opinion and I don't have a problem with somebody

not agreeing with it. But when they become vocal about it, sometimes it's hard to

just kinda like keep your mouth shut and just let it go, especially when they're

saying things in front of the girls. So I think there's a challenge of finding that fine

line of providing a role model for the girls and how to advocate for themselves

and also how to just know when to step away and when it's not worth the, the

effort, the argument, the fight. There's been fortunately few situations that our

girls have been with other scouts leaders who have blatantly told them, ‘you don't

belong here’. But it has happened.

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Summer camp experiences, which bring together different scout units into the same program space, sometimes from great distances, provide an opportunity to explore how scout leaders who have not implemented the girls policy, either by happenstance or through purposeful avoidance, interact with girl troops and their leaders. The girls scoutmaster shares her experience bringing her troop to a local summer camp, one where she and the boys scoutmaster are on staff. Coincidentally, this BSA Camp is the same camp attended by Hallowcrest this past year, although it is not clear whether the scout units attended concurrently.

Some of the girls in my troop did experience negativity from other scouts [at

scout camp]. I went right to the camp director and [he] was blowing it off. It kept

happening and so I said, ‘you need to handle this or I'm handling it. You have to

talk to the scoutmaster’. It’s not a girl thing; they are a scout and they are

breaking every part of the scout law. [If their boys were treated this way] it would

be considered bullying but I think there was the fear of ruffling feathers and not

wanting to approach the scoutmasters and make it a thing. I do see that too…as a

leader, I have absolutely no desire to change any part of the program. We want

the girls in the program because we like the program…. As a female you have the

difficult line…of sticking up for the girls, sticking up for yourself, doing what's

right, and then appearing like this bitch that came into scouting and ruined it for

the boys. Like there's that fine line and that goes beyond scouting. As a female

that extends into so many aspects of life. When you open your mouth about

something you're perceived differently. If it's a man, they are not being a bitch,

they are just being a leader or aggressive. You don't want to go in there and make

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a problem and make it look bad that girls are in scouting. But at the same time, it's

hard to sit back when you see something happening that you know shouldn't be

happening. As a camp staff, I think it's a little easier to be able to kind of address

that as part of the staff. Within our units I find it a little more difficult. I feel like

to keep the peace, we let things go [in the scout unit] sometimes. We don't want to

lose the youth through ticking off parents. So I feel like I keep my mouth shut

more about things in [our home troops].”

Despite having the scout skills often lacking among new female scoutmasters, the girls

scoutmaster is quick to note that there is a long way to go for girls and women to be

accepted fully into the BSA program, as both scouts and as scoutmasters. While the scout

unit experience carries its own challenges, summer camp experiences for girls and female

scout leaders shed light on how the rest of the BSA organization is thinking about the girls policy. From the standpoint of participation in the community of practice, we see tensions when emerging female leaders and the male “old dogs” of scouting occupy the same space. The girls scoutmaster illustrates her frustration during a scout-skills competition between troops at summer camp when male leaders held the girls in her troop to a higher standard than boys in other troops.

It was a knot tying [competition] that [girls troop] was doing and they weren't

very good at it. …the adult leader that was running the event was coming down

really hard on them for not doing well. But he didn't think it necessary to

comment on how poor the boys were doing it. [The scout leader] made it a point

to come seek me out and tell me how the girls did really bad at this event. So that

was frustrating to not just be like, ‘have you looked at your own kids? Like, the

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girls beat them in these events here, and this event there’. …it shouldn't be about a

competition between the boys and the girls, but it's hard not to go down that path

when [male scout leaders] are basically insulting the girls for not doing good

enough in their eyes when they're not even looking at their own troop is doing. So

that's frustrating.

Scout leaders in other scout units in this study tended to feel that the BSA membership policies aligned with their personal beliefs. In the Valley, however, several scout leaders spoke of their deeply held conservative social beliefs that they practice as members of evangelical Baptist churches. When the BSA began to roll out the new membership policies, we see examples in other scout units of longtime leaders exiting the program entirely or leaving to join scout units that have avoided implementing the new membership policies. The scout leaders in the Valley described a different reaction to the membership policies, despite noting direct conflicts with their personal beliefs. These leaders described their years of personal experience negotiating membership and participation in organizations that hold values that conflict with their deeply held beliefs, which includes their work in corporate management, as teachers and as medical professionals. For the committee chair of the boys troop, a longtime manager for international corporations and a leader in his evangelical Christian church, he sees scouting as a secular entity and uses the same approach he’s taken in other secular settings.

I know from many years of supervisory and managerial positions and hiring and

things like that…you can't let anything you may personally feel about religious

views, what's right or wrong. Scouting is an organization I view almost as a

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corporation. I've applied those same principles to scouting. We've officially

changed [and] girls can join. And should we have a transgendered troop member,

they're entitled to full involvement in the troop. …in that situation that scout is

entitled to have the same scouting experience as anybody else. …in the workplace

you're hiring, promoting most qualified applicant regardless of any identifier they

may have. So I view scouting the same way.

This process of negotiating membership in communities of practice which have

conflicting beliefs mediated the responses of scout leaders in the Valley who have

conservative beliefs. Similar to other scout leaders in this study, these conservative scout

leaders indicated that they rely on the espoused values of scouting captured in the scout

oath and law as guides for decision-making. Yet, the conservative scout leaders do not

adopt these espoused values as part of their personal beliefs outside of the organization.

Despite holding key leadership roles and spending much of their volunteer time

supporting their scout unit, these scout leaders are quick to distance themselves from

scouting, and reinforce the prominence of religion in their lives, as on scoutmaster shared

“Scouting isn't my life, it's a small part of my life. …I have so much to do with church

responsibilities.” This distancing from the BSA framed the narratives of these

conservative scout leaders as bystanders within the program, happy to not take on full

participation in the community of practice as we see with scout leaders who embrace the

scout oath and law as their own personal beliefs. The emergence of this theme in the rural

setting may be related to both the limited pool of leaders needed to operate the scout unit

and the prevalence of socially conservative beliefs held by leaders in this scout unit. The limited pool of leaders may require parents to step into key scout leader roles who,

185 otherwise, might have been content to have remained in the periphery. It also may be related to the social norms in the rural area which contrast the progressive nature of the new membership policies.

How the scout leaders relied upon the scout oath and law indicated important differences in their perspectives, which connect to themes generated in other scout units.

In reference to navigating policies related to sexual orientation and identity, three scout leaders indicated strict religious adherence as evangelical Baptists and how they reconcile religious beliefs with the secular world. Each was a professional – management for multinational corporations, a medical doctor, and teacher – and each described a similar process they use to negotiate their participation in organizations that have very different espoused values from their own. By adopting the values of the organization as a tactic to negotiating membership, it allows these scout leaders with conflicting personal beliefs to operate within the community of practice without engaging in conflict, yet on the periphery.

While the process of negotiation of membership in the Valley creates an openness among the current scout leaders toward the sexual orientation and identity policies, leaders expect there would be pushback from a few of the boys troop parents, but that the

Scout Oath and Law are pretty clear guideposts. The boys scoutmaster recalls how his experiences with work and scouting align with the new policies related to sexual orientation and identity.

At the end of the day scouting's about life skills and leadership and anyone can do

that and I'm willing to help anyone who wants to learn that. I don't care who you

are. I know in our [scout camp unit] we have [a scout] who's transgender. …the

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main crew advisor dealt with that. I couldn't even tell you who it is. I just don't

even know. I know we have one. I guess it might be ignorant me to do that, but…I

just don't have a problem. I just don't care. And I traveled a lot for work or while

my previous job and I have lots of friends in lots of states of all different kinds of

sexual orientations and I don't care. [I tell our scout leaders] if you're not

welcoming gay leader, you're welcoming a gay parent, which is no different than

any other parent.

Similar to other participants in this study, the Valley’s Scout leaders tended to downplay the existence of LGBTQ+ youth or adults in their scout units. The Valley’s leaders presumed a higher prevalence of LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders elsewhere, attributing their lack of experience with that part of the policy to their rurality, as one scoutmaster shared,

“we are in a rural area and that [LGBTQ+] is less common and I haven't had to deal with it yet”. Yet, each scout leader in the Valley made point to reference LGBTQ+ members in their immediate and extended families, which did not emerge as prevalently in other scout units. The familial experience of these scout leaders with LGBTQ+ family provides additional context into their process of negotiating membership in the scout leader community of practice. One conservative scout leader shared his family experience and the challenge he faced when other parents in the scout unit asked for his support against the sexual orientation membership policy.

You know, my wife's stepbrother is gay. I have no problem. Even before I was

married I didn’t have a problem. I would tell them, ‘he's my wife’s brother, my

son's uncle’. I don't automatically assume that he's is a child predator and he's

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going to go after a little boys because he's gay, but that was the mindset of some

of these people [scout parents].

The approach of the scout leaders to the boys scoutmaster to the sexual orientation membership policy focused on avoiding conflict among the parents and leaders in the

boys troop, who had previously challenged the policy. Scout leaders named it as a non-

issue for each of them personally, but also that they had not discussed the policy in their

scout unit. This is a consistent theme throughout this study, even within scout units who

have had documented LGBTQ+ members. In other scout units there was a general

presumption that all scout leaders and parents were likeminded in their support of

policies allowing LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, whereas outspoken parents in the Valley

have made their opposition clear.

[Some parents] wanted a bylaw saying we wouldn't allow it gay leader in our unit.

We live in [state] in the middle of nowhere. There's going to be units elsewhere in

cities. They're gonna deal with this way before we are and figure it out. We don’t

need to talk about gay leaders or scouts. And we don’t.

The themes generated by the data collected from the Valley’s scout leaders align closely

with the major themes generated across all scout units in this study. These themes relate

to the nature and influence of contextual elements on scout leader’s interpretation and

implementation of the membership policies. The Valley’s data also helped to refine and

better explain some of the underlying processes of marginalization and negotiation of

membership in the scout leader community of practice, which we recognize now as

consistent with data collected at other scout units in this study. In this next section I filter

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the broad findings of each scout unit into the overarching themes that the data produced, which will then provide the outline for the discussion.

Integration of Findings This study examines scout leader learning at several different levels through their

participation as practitioners. These levels include the broad social landscape in which

the scout leaders operate, organizational environment of the Boy Scouts of America, the

scout unit where the scout leader practices their role, and then finally examining the scout

leader themselves. Examination of each of these levels are supported by data which

ultimately creates the context of practice and the identity of the scout leader, which each

play important roles in the social learning environment (Wenger, 2006, 3-11) and the nature of scout leader participation in their community of practice.

Here we broaden our view and integrate the findings from each of the scout units included in this study, highlighting the themes that the data produced to create a detailed picture of the scout leader practice as they implement and adapt to important membership policy changes. We begin with themes related to the influence of social norms and organizational governance, followed by implementation enabling and constraining themes, scout unit-specific themes, and scout leader specific themes.

Norms and Governance Through the analysis of the BSA’s bylaws and rules & regulations documents we see a national organization which focuses primarily on maintaining a standardized and safe youth development program which also efforts to allow for local adaptations of the program within parameters. This structure and purpose create a complex nature of coupling environment between the national organization and program delivery at the local level, where certain aspects of the organization are tightly coupled, while others

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follow patterns of loosely coupled organizations. It is the nature of this coupling between

national and local that has complicated the implementation of the new membership

policies and their effect on scout leader practitioners.

The most tightly coupled aspects of the BSA organization are related to its hierarchical structure, the program curriculum (Scout Handbooks), standardization of earning and documenting achievements, and scout leader training requirements.

Important to this study, in particular, are the structure and organization of the BSA and the scout leader training, and how issues of safety and concerns over liability play out.

A robust and hierarchical structure of scout professionals and volunteer leaders responsible at district, council, regional, area, and national levels throughout the U.S. bring a democratic sense of governance to the BSA. This governance is somewhat aligned with the world scouting movement, in that it is to be volunteer run, with minimal support from paid staff. While the U.S. has the greatest number of paid staff per capita of any national scouting organization globally (Vallory, 2012), it is the volunteers who are the decision makers throughout the organization. Yet, the scout professionals wield much control over many functional aspects of the program, acting as gatekeepers to safety, which allows their influence on an ever-growing proportion of the program.

The BSA has robust requirements for scout leader training, which focuses primarily on safety and understanding how the organization functions. These trainings are provided in online and in person settings, requiring two to seven hours of training depending on the scout leader role and responsibilities. The national organization created an online system for tracking training completion which incorporates volunteer oversight from the scout unit level up to the national level, with responsibility held among

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volunteers and scout professionals for training compliance. While this study did not

endeavor examine the specific content and focus of the trainings, findings in this study

indicate that scout leaders tend to find the primary focus of the trainings are focused on

safety issues in the program and a functional understanding of how they are to operate in

their role. The theme of role and value of the BSA’s trainings are captured succinctly by

a longtime scout leader, “The trainings are a pain in the ass and marginally helpful, but

yeah, if they don’t do it…the litigation. Leaders learn from other leaders. That’s how it happens.” This sentiment was supported by several leaders who felt that the online learning was not as helpful as in person learning, shared by a new female scoutmaster,

“You get to meet other scouters [at in person trainings]. Not everyone has the time, but you gotta meet people outside your troop…so many great leaders to learn from.”

The loosely coupled aspects of the BSA organization are fewer, but they set the tone for local adaptation of the program. A theme running through the study is the lack of direct and clear communication between the national organization and scout leaders, an indicator of loose-coupling (Schulman, 1983; Weick, 1976). While general concern about communication was voiced consistently from leaders in every scout unit, the muddiness of the communication was especially evident with the rollout of the girls membership policies.

you tend to get blindsided by big decisions. I got a lot of questions about the girls

[policy] and I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I read the same article you did.’ …they have

my email address. Why not clue [scout leaders] in? Who just publishes it in the

Wall Street Journal and doesn’t tell the people running their programs? Who does

that?

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Other leaders relied on longtime members and community members to watch out for

important news.

Once I get wind of something, I read up as much as I can…call our council

executives. [Parents and leaders in the scout unit] are going to expect me to know.

Despite the value placed on hierarchical decision-making structure of the BSA, this study provides some insight into an uncoupling of the top-down leadership between professional scouters responsible for managing operations for councils and districts and the national BSA leadership. The local scout professional emerges in this study as an important enabler of the membership policies, empowering and supporting scout leaders at the unit level. In this study we see examples of the uncoupling of the hierarchical relationships in councils where local social norms and the beliefs of scout leaders at the district and council level conflicted with the policies which restricted membership of

LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, as well as girls in the Cub Scout and Scouts BSA programs.

While several scout leaders spoke of informally including girls in Cub Scout programming for years, primarily the sisters of scouts, two scout units referred to formally allowing girls to join the program with the guidance of scout professionals at the council and district levels. Scout professionals allowed scout units to establish Explorer

Clubs on paper, which is a co-ed BSA career exploration program, to register the girls in the program so they could participate fully with the boys. While the scout professionals’ support in this case did not serve to overturn the restrictions on girls in the Cub Scout program, their acquiescence to the practice caused tensions between the council and national BSA organization, as a longtime scout leader recalls.

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we just registered the girls as Explorers and were really having some

success….and the district executive just let it happen…. When he asked national

[BSA] for help marketing to girls…they were like. ‘why should we help you.

You’re out of alignment with BSA policies.’ So we were on our own. But that

was like 10 years ago [2010], so we were ahead of the curve…or more like

national [BSA] was behind.

With regard to the LGBTQ+ membership policies, however, council level scout professionals were more direct in their support. Two scout units recalled similar shifts away from restrictions of LGBTQ+ members and leaders which predated the BSA’s current sexual orientation and identity membership policies by 15 years. In these instances, scout professionals provided outright support of the drafting of a whitepaper allowing scout units to ignore restrictions on LGBTQ+ leaders and scouts, as recalled by a longtime scout leader.

The council president [volunteer leader] was a high-level corporate executive at

[large bank] who was gay. How could he be the president and we not open things

up…it wasn’t right to restrict based on sexuality. Like, who cares? Up here, we

just don’t have an issue with that. [The whitepaper] put our council executive in a

tough place with nationals [BSA] but he didn’t care. …he supported it fully.

Unlike the tightly coupled aspects of the organizational structure and training regimen, there is little meaningful oversight of the program at the scout unit level, outside of the scout unit committee and the chartered organization. The chartered organization is granted a substantial amount of authority over the focus, membership, and scout leaders who are able to work with the program. The combination of committee and charter as the

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foci of control allow troop programs to reflect local social norms and the espoused values

of the chartered organization. In this study we see the approach to scouting among each

scout unit differing from place to place and tended to reflect both the local social norms

and the values of the scout leaders.

Because the scout units were selected for this study because they were early adopters of the girls membership policies, each look similar in the sense that the scout leaders tended to be at least open to the possibility of starting a girls troop and the chartered organizations were supportive. While leader motivation differed from place to place, either from a desire to provide a program of their daughters or to provide a place for girls in cub scouts to matriculate, the local social norms generally supported providing a space for girls to be a part of Scouts BSA.

The scout unit then becomes a proving ground where the various tensions are negotiated among the espoused values of the chartered organization, scout leader beliefs, the espoused values of scouting, and local social norms. The greatest differences in implementation and adaptation processes among scout units in this study are most evident between the rural and non-rural scout units. The non-rural scout units, Burbane,

Trooptopia, City Shadow, and Hallowcrest, all operate in densely populated suburban

areas in the I-95 corridor on the east coast each within an hour of one of three of the

largest cities in the U.S. While each of the troops differed in size, the racial diversity of

its scout leaders, chartered organization support, and local economic indicators, the

challenges to implementation of the new membership policies were primarily logistical in

nature, with focuses on recruiting girl members and female leaders and building an

infrastructure to support program growth. The functional approach persisted with regard

194 to the welcoming of LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, with the primary focus on having a culture of acceptance which aligns with both local social norms, personal beliefs, and the espoused values of scouting. The program environment in these scout units is collegial and collaborative, with varying levels of integration and centralized support across both boys and girls troops and their leadership.

The Valley, which is situated in a rural area roughly two hours outside of two of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., like the other scout units in this study also focuses on the functional aspects of implementing the membership policies. Where the

Valley differs from its suburban counterparts is that their scout leaders, who are generally supportive of the creation of the girls troop, are experiencing pushback from parents and scouts, and some scout leaders associated with the boys troop. These outspoken parents’ base their concerns about the starting of the girls troop both in conservative religious beliefs related to the role of women in the BSA as well as concerns that girl members would lower the quality of the program for their sons, particularly around the sharing of resources. The direct and aggressive approach by several of the parents and scout leaders disrupted the implementation processes in the Valley, which resulted in building two separate committee structures and stifling coordination and cooperation between scout leaders of the girls and boys troops. While a separate committee structures exist in other scout units in this study, those scout leaders and parents are collegial in their approaches to joint planning and use of equipment and materials. The hostile environment surrounding the creation of the girls troop is impacting the ability of the scout unit to share both scout leaders and resources, which are limited supply.

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The Valley’s scout leaders acknowledged the difficulties they’ve had starting the girls troop, each referencing the local social norms as the primary reason they are getting pushback. “Those who go to church around [here] are mostly conservatives…evangelicals and Baptists. The rest have that libertarian mindset…. It makes changing things hard.” Despite the intense pushback from some, The Valley was the only scout unit within 40 miles willing to start a girls troop. The primary barriers to creating girls troops were chartered organizations refusal to allow the creation of a girls troop and finding scout leaders who agreed with the girls membership policies. The

Valley was selected because the boys scoutmaster and his partner were both supportive of the girls membership policy, were willing to start the girls troop, and encouraged the chartered organization, a mainline protestant church, to allow the girls troop to start.

The scoutmasters for the girls and boys troops are focused on mitigating and growing the program, knowing that the most outspoken parents and scout leaders will leave the program as their child ages out, and that both troops will benefit from the influx of new members. “There’s 10 girls who will be crossing over to [girls troop] from the

[cub scout] pack in the next couple years. I’ve known those parents forever and the culture here [scout unit] will change…. We have to wait them [disruptive parents and leaders] out.”

Each of the scout leaders in this study noted strong support for LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, although the environment within each scout unit showed differences in the ways that LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders might be welcomed. These differences relate to the general awareness of LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders in their scout unit, formal action on the part of the committee or chartered organization to restrict LGBTQ+ leaders, and their

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perception of how parents, scout leaders, and scouts would react to LGBTQ+ members.

Each of these elements relates to the how scout leaders perceive and implement the sexual orientation and identity membership policies.

Only scout leaders from Trooptopia were aware of any LGBTQ+ scouts in their program, although the awareness was limited to only a few scout leaders with most indicating they were not aware of any LGBTQ+ scouts. As a mental health professional in the school system, Trooptopia’s boys troop scoutmaster brings a heightened awareness of creating an accepting and inclusive culture withing the scout unit, which persists throughout the organization. While the largest challenges are related to bringing acceptability to the scouts with social and emotional issues, he is purposeful about talking about LGBTQ+ issues from time to time and the language used in the program. “If I hear

‘oh, that’s gay!’ or ‘don’t be a fag’, I shut that down fast.” The other scout units in this study each indicated a welcoming tone to LGBTQ+ scouts, and surmised that there were

LGBTQ+ scouts in their units, but were consistent in notion that sexuality has no part in

scouting and is only of interest when considering logistical issues around sleeping

arrangements during campouts.

Scout units chartered with non-secular organizations are allowed to restrict

participation of scout leaders on the basis of sexual orientation and identity. In this study

three of the scout units, City Shadow, Hallowcrest and the Valley, are chartered with

mainline protestant churches and each have dealt with the implementation of the sexual orientation and identity policies differently. While none of the chartered organizations opposed LGBTQ+ leaders, the rollout of the policy-initiated discussions among their committees and scout leaders.

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In City Shadow, the boys scoutmaster felt that the sexual orientation policy was the reason their troop was ousted from their previous chartered organization and wished that the BSA would have made the change without much publicity. “It was in the papers and I think it eventually pushed them [Latinx church leaders] too far. I wish they [BSA] just kept it [sexual orientation membership policy] quiet.” The girls scoutmaster in City

Shadow was purposeful in sharing that the reason she is working with their current chartered organization is because they support LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders.

In the Valley, when the sexual orientation membership policy was rolled out the boys scoutmaster was cubmaster for a cub scout unit and shared how he addressed the many parents and leaders who didn’t want LGBTQ+ leaders or scouts. “We had a few families leave. They were like ‘we need a bylaw…I want to protect my son from gay leaders’, cause of their religion or something. I told them we aren’t doing it and that was that. We’ll deal with it when it happens.”

In Hallowcrest, the former scoutmaster and committee chair who were asked to leave the scout unit one year prior to conducting this study, had similar safety concerns regarding the welcoming of LGBTQ+ scout leaders. Because their chartered organization, an Episcopal Church, would not restrict membership based on sexual orientation, the committee enacted a bylaw that restricts participation of adult leaders to those with family members currently or formerly as scouts in the troop. Not all scout leaders in Hallowcrest are aware of the restriction on adult leaders and those who are aware are generally supportive of the measure although only one scout leader understood the measure’s relationship to the sexual orientation policy. “I know why [former scout

198 leaders] wanted it [the bylaw]. I think its still a good thing to have in place. We don’t want some stranger taking our kids out in the woods, right?”

Burbane and Trooptopia both have secular chartered organizations and indicated longtime support of LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, long before the BSA allowed them to be part of the program. Fifteen years before the BSA allowed LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders membership longtime scout leaders from each of these units worked with their local scout professionals at the district and council levels to draft local policies that welcomed LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders. The secular nature of the chartered organizations eliminated the possibility of avoiding the policy related to LGBTQ+ leaders, and use the espoused values of scouting and the beliefs of the scout leaders as their primary guides for implementing the membership policies.

Among scout leaders with conservative political and religious beliefs across all scout units there was an accepting tone and nature toward LGBTQ+ leaders and scouts being a part of the program. Most scout leaders shared personal experience with an

LGBTQ+ family member, friend, or co-worker and felt that the welcoming LGBTQ+ members and leaders aligns with their broad perception of social norms. A leader in

Burbane shared, “I guess its just our community. We’re pretty accepting here and so are the other parents and leaders. We just don’t care”. Even among the primarily conservative scout leaders in the rural Valley, support of LGBTQ+ members and leaders is consistent, despite their perception that social norms in their area would not be as supportive. “A gay leader, or LGBTQ whatever? Oh yeah, that’d be fine. I don’t have a problem. But, yeah, a lot of our parents would. Yeah, probably.”

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The Role and Influence of The Chartered Organization The bylaws of the BSA, Rules and Regulations document, and data collected from

scout leaders indicate the role of the chartered organization in the delivery of the scouting

program is one of great importance and influence. The BSA assigns some key

responsibilities for operating the scout unit to these chartered organization as a way to

leverage resources to grow and support the program through partnership It is the

chartered organization to which the scout unit is connected and is responsible for

selecting and approving leaders and, with regard to the membership policies, decides

whether girl members and, for non-secular organizations, whether LGBTQ+ leaders are welcome in the scout unit. One longtime scoutmaster shared “If the troop wants to do something and council says ‘no’, you can usually get around that. If your charter says

‘no’, you gotta find a new charter.”

Training materials clearly outline the role and responsibilities of the chartered organization and its representative to the scout unit to not directly influence the program delivery, although scoutmasters sometime need to pushback when chartered organizations overreach. “Sometimes you need to remind them, I’m in charge of the program, you help to select leaders to run the program and help to raise money…. Just a little pushback…[to] keep everyone in their lanes.”

While non-secular chartered organizations have the option to limit membership in a scout unit, the three religious charters in this study did not exercise the option to limit access to the program for girls or LGBTQ+ members. None of these chartered organizations have an active role in the program, beyond simply allowing use of church spaces for the program in exchange for some level of service from the scout units.

Several longtime scout leaders with national and international experience in scouting

200 shared that non-secular chartered organizations tend to be mainline protestant and

Catholic denominations and are hands off, “in the northeast we are okay with it, but if you go to the south and out west the evangelicals [chartered organizations], they have a problem with it [LGBTQ+ and girl members]. Not all of them, but it’s more of a thing there.” While scout leaders attribute the interference of chartered organizations to the espoused values of the religious organization and the local social norms with regard to girls and LGBTQ+ membership, the findings across scout units in this study implore us to look more closely at the role of dedicated chartered organizations.

Two of the scout units in this study, Burbane and Trooptopia, are chartered by organizations whose sole responsibility is acting as the chartered organization for their scout unit(s). These dedicated chartered organizations are operated by trustees who bear the responsibility and a portion of the liability for running the program. These trustees have had long tenures as scout leaders with the scout unit in various capacities, and work closely with the members of the committees and scoutmasters to ensure the needs of the program are being met.

The nature of collaboration between the dedicated chartered organizations and the scout leaders differed between the two scout units, showing different types of influence on the implementation of the membership policies. In Burbane the trustee who is also the chartered organization representative is a past longtime scoutmaster with involvement in scouting which spans to the international level. The trustee selected the scoutmaster as his replacement, and the two men are quite likeminded in their approach and vision of scouting. He and the current boys scoutmaster worked closely together to develop a plan and structure for implementing the girls policy in their scout unit, which resulted in

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adapting the program in a way which is not aligned with the membership policies and

rules and regulations – an integrated co-ed troop with a single scoutmaster. “We

[scoutmaster and trustee] met early on and mapped out how we wanted it [girl members] to look. We were on the same page…no artificial separation.”

The relationship between the scoutmaster and trustee and program experience of the trustee in the case of Burbane led to the influence of the chartered organization, embodied in the trustee, on the implementation of the girls policies. The long tenure of the trustee as scoutmaster for the scout unit and his selection of the new likeminded scoutmaster are allowing the norms within the scouting unit to be consistent over more than a decade, which includes their approach to LGBTQ+ members and leaders as well as the emphasis on selecting scout leaders on the basis of quality and knowledgeability with a focus on hierarchical control, as Burbane’s boys scoutmaster shares,

We’ve had some parents who wanted to be leaders but were always complaining.

If you are here and like how we do things and have the skills then great, we want

you. You want to complain about we things or don’t like how I’m doing things,

there are a lot of other troops around you can go to.

The role and influence of Trooptopia’s chartered organization is different from Burbane

in some key ways, which bring some tensions between the program and the trustees.

Trooptopia’s chartered organization is responsible for chartering several types of scout

units from Cub Scouts through Explorer Posts, including two boys and one girls Scouts

BSA troops. Similar to Burbane, the boys scoutmaster had an interest in starting a girls

troop and approached the trustees to discuss their willingness to sponsor a new troop. It is

in this startup process and in the interviews that we see how the chartered organization

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tends to wade into program-oriented processes and decision making. While collaboration

between trustees and scoutmasters in making program decisions was welcome in

Burbane, the same relationship in Trooptopia had some tension.

When deciding to start the girls troop the trustees, along with the charter’s

committee, discussed it and agreed to support and allocate startup funding and began the

process of organizing the new troop. When their process stalled, the trustees acquiesced

to the boys scoutmaster stepping in to take on the committee chair role for the girls troop

and bring together the scout leaders needed to get things started. During interviews, the

Trooptopia trustees tended to focus on aspects of making sure the scout units they charter

are all in alignment with the rules and regulations of the BSA with regard to the

membership policies. The corporate-like structures and formal processes in Trooptopia make clear delineations between roles and responsibilities, causing some tensions when scout leaders and trustees operate outside of these organizational norms. The boys scoutmaster/girls committee chair shared some of his frustration with the trustees interfering with the program “none of them [trustees] were scoutmasters and they have a different perspective on how to run the program. …sometimes I need to remind them of their role.” Like in Burbane, the vast experience of the boys scoutmaster/girls committee chair in scout skills and knowledge of the program is respected organization-wide, and has a tempering effect on the level of trustee interference in the program.

While this study shows a greater level of program interference on the part of dedicated chartered organizations in program delivery, the trustees are typically longtime scout leaders with broad experiences in scouting, which provide administrative and program-oriented scout leader in the unit an added layer of expertise and guidance. The

203 type of the guidance and the value added to the program differs from relationship to relationship, determined in part by the areas and levels of expertise of the trustees and scoutmasters and the formal-informal nature of the organization.

This study indicates that dedicated chartered organizations have a stabilizing effect on scout units in their expansion to include girl members, when compared to other secular and non-secular chartered organizations in this study. The dedicated charters have a greater stake in the scouting program as their purpose is oriented specifically around delivering the scouting program. We see that manifest in Burbane and

Trooptopia’s implementation of the girls membership policies, which avoided many of the challenges that faced City Shadow, Hallowcrest and The Valley in their implementation. In particular, implementation in scout units with dedicated charters had a commitment for funding and resources to creation of the new girls troop, did not require the removal of scout leaders who were against implementation, and generally had better communication among scout leaders for the girls and boys troops.

Policy Environment As we come to understand the complex interplay among the various levels of the

BSA hierarchy, volunteer responsibilities, and chartering relationships, we turn focus to examine policy environment in context. From this context we see how scout units and scout leaders navigate policies in practice, setting the stage for a discussion of the implications of policy avoidance and subsequent tension points over the short and long term.

Scout leaders who participated in this study were asked to read and respond to the changes to the sexual orientation, identity, and gender policies made by the BSA National

Council between 2014 and 2018, as captured in the Charter and Bylaws of the Boy

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Scouts of America, Inc. and the Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America

(Appendix A, B). Through this process many scout leaders read these documents and the actual policies that they had been working with, implementing and enforcing for the first time, only knowing them through online trainings. As such, many of the reactions were generally accepting of policies, although several scout leaders across all units were quick to point out concern over some of the details that allow exclusion of LGBTQ+ leaders and girls to continue.

The membership policies place the responsibility for approving scout leaders with the chartered organization, while providing little in the way of clear guidelines by which scout leaders should be approved, rejected or removed. This ambiguity in providing criteria for qualifying or disqualifying scout leader makes it difficult for a scout unit to remove a leader from their position, as one scout leader recalled the removal of two long time leaders from his scout unit.

The church didn’t have an opinion…didn’t want to deal with it…[so] it was up to

the committee to tell them to leave…. They eventually moved on on their own….

National needs to put together criteria for scoutmasters or something…so we can

point to that and say, ‘you aren’t doing this, and this and this’ so you need to

leave.

In this instance the removed scout leaders were opposed to starting a girls troop and were also not instituting several aspects of the program, which are clearly outlined in the trainings related to enabling scouts to lead aspects of the program. These scout leaders opted to then join another scout unit in the area, where they now help to lead that program.

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While the policies are ambiguous about the basis for which a chartered organization can accept or reject a scout leader, it is explicit in saying that the chartered organization can use the scout leader’s sexual orientation as cause for disqualification.

Several scout leaders across all units referenced this aspect of the policy, with varying levels of understanding and support. One female scout leader supported the notion that

“churches that don’t accept gay people shouldn’t be forced to take them. I get that. But in the same way, if all I want is gay leaders in my troop, don’t tell me I can’t….That’s how it used to be.” Other leaders felt more harshly about the policy, one describing it as “a loophole that allows discrimination of gay people. I’m glad they allow gay and trans kids…[and] it needs to go further….This doesn’t compute with the scout law. How is this kind or courteous?”. Most scout leaders were pragmatic in their assessment of the policy indicating that its existence is related to how

People in the northeast don’t have a problem with it, but when you go out west. I

have a lot of people I know, good people, who…have a different understanding of

it. They equate gay with pedophilia…. I know it’s not right…I have a different

understanding of it….But they can’t wrap their heads around it.

The chartered organization is assigned the control over deciding the type of scout unit they will allow, and for those who already have boys scout units would need to formally approve the creation of a girls troop, which would allow girl members. In the scout units in this study, the chartered organizations agreed to charter the girls troops, either with overt support like in Burbane and Trooptopia, or through passive agreement as in City

Shadow, Hallowcrest, and The Valley. In each instance, however, members of the girls troop are being drawn from a wider geographic radius than the boys, an indicator that

206 chartered organizations with boys troops decided not to establish a girls troop. While a myriad of elements led to the chartered organizations in this study to decide to start a girls troop, one scout leader from provided some insight into the reaction churches and scout leaders to starting a girls troop.

Council approached a few others [scout leaders] to start girls troops but we were

the only one to do it. Some churches simply didn’t want the girls…[or] the

scoutmasters blamed the church….a lot of leaders around here just don’t want the

girls in scouts.

By assigning control over both approving scout leaders and the establishment of girls troops, the BSA creates a decoupled and unmonitored policy environment with regard to implementing the sexual orientation, identity and girls membership policies. As such, the espoused values of the chartered organizations and the beliefs of scout leaders are determining factors as to whether or not the policies are enacted or simply avoided. In either case the espoused values of the chartered organization and the beliefs of the scout leader must be compatible.

With regard to establishing a girls troop, the pathway of least resistance for the chartered organization is to acquiesce to the wishes of the scout unit or, as we see in The

Valley, City Shadow, and Hallowcrest, the recommendation of a scout leader who has a close relationship with the religious leader of the chartered organization. The basis on which the chartered organization decides whether or not to allow girls to participate in the program is less clearly determined by religious doctrine and instead is related to what additional responsibilities will fall to the chartered organization with regard to time, space usage, and financial support.

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In each of the scout units with non-dedicated chartered organizations,

Hallowcrest, The Valley, and City Shadow, scout leaders indicated religious leaders’

support for the girls membership policy, with the promise of increased numbers of youth

and families engaged in the program and that the church would not have additional

responsibilities. A committee chair, who is the direct contact with the pastor at their

chartered organization, “spoke to her [pastor] about the girls…she was excited to get new people in the church…[but cautioned me that] we couldn’t use the church more than we

[already] are….We are pretty self-sufficient so I was happy with that.”

The decision to implement the girls policy is assigned by the BSA to the chartered organization. In cases where the chartered organization is in philosophical alignment with the girls policy and does not create a conflict with an already existing Girls Scouts unit, we see a process emerge whereby the chartered organization then assigns the decision to implement to the scout unit, often through an intermediary scout leader, such as the scoutmaster as evidenced in this study. Among each scout unit in this study the scoutmaster played a key role in the decision to implement, and bases his or her decision on the scout unit’s capacity to implement, demand for girls membership, policy alignment with the beliefs of the scout leader and more broadly, the beliefs of other scout leaders and parents in the scout unit. Scoutmasters in this study decided to lead the implementation process after consideration of these factors, and at times moving forward despite known challenges and conflicts. “We knew [getting enough] female leaders would be a challenge for us…[new girls’] and boys’ moms are stepping up, so we’re okay….The parents who were against it have come around….Once they see it working, right? They’re fine now.”

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The chartered organization also serves as the primary gatekeeper for the implementation of LGBTQ+ policies for leaders indicated in the Rules and Regulations of the BSA that “no charter shall be required to accept as an adult leader any person whose espoused personal beliefs are in conflict with the chartered organization’s religious principles.” For these non-secular chartered organizations, the decision to allow

LGBTQ+ leaders is first determined by the religious doctrine and practice of the organization, beliefs of the religious leaders and the willingness of the chartered organization to enforce such doctrine and beliefs in the scouting unit.

The chartered organizations in this study did not restrict the participation of scout leaders on the basis of sexual orientation or identity, although none of the scout leaders knew of LGBTQ+ leaders in their scout units, as one scoutmaster recalls, “we’ve never had a gay leader, and I don’t know why that is, but we will someday.” Despite each of the scout leaders’ welcoming approaches to LGBTQ+ leaders and members, and the prominence of policies related to sexual orientation and identity in the media and trainings, scout leaders consistently indicated that sexuality has no place in scouting, “as long as the leader is focused on the kids and doing the right things, I don’t care who he’s married to….the scouts don’t know anything about my sex life, so why should they know about any leaders’ [sex life]?” Scout leaders indicated that the policy environment and leader comfort talking about LGBTQ+ issues are both factors that influence their decisions to avoid the general topic of sexuality in their scout units.

While scout leader trainings touch on sexuality, the context is related specifically to sexual abuse of children and the prevention of bullying among youth, with no guidance for leaders with regard to discussing LGBTQ+ topics with youth and adults. The policy

209 environment which names the chartered organization’s role as gatekeeper for LGBTQ+ leaders provides scout leaders incentive to avoid discussions about sexuality, “because if we don’t know a leader’s gay…don’t ask don’t tell, right? Then we don’t have to involve the church in that decision….But once we know, we have to tell [the chartered organization]. Is it going to “out” [the LGBTQ+ leader]?....bad feelings all around and takes away from the program. It’s a bad policy and puts [scout leaders who support

LGBTQ+ rights] in the middle of…[some] culture battle...”

For secular chartered organizations the policy does not allow for the refusal or removal of a scout leader on the basis of sexual orientation or identity, yet provides a pathway for leader removal that does not require any justification, only that the chartered organization representative and the scout unit committee agree to the leader’s removal.

Several chartered organization representatives were quick to point out that the BSA provides “no basis clear for removing a leader. None.... Just [reading from bylaws document] ‘possesses and demonstrates the moral, educational, and emotional qualities deemed necessary for leadership’…what does that even mean?.... I mean, we’re not religious [charter], so people could sue us for discrimination.”

In both secular and non-secular scenarios, the espoused values of the chartered organization set the tone for the program and serve as social cues to potential members to whether a scout unit might provide a welcoming and safe environment for LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders. These espoused values may also aid scout leaders and scout professionals in determining where, and where not, a girls troop is likely to be implemented. Coupled with the ability of scout leaders and chartered organizations to define the criteria by which they select their scout leaders, scout units tend to “each

210 develop their own flavor of scouting over time”, as one longtime scout leader shared.

Prior to the sexual orientation, identity, and girls membership policies these norms presented themselves primarily through a particular program focus, such as high adventure, community service or environmental protection.

Allowing scout units and leaders to avoid implementing the new membership policies brings to the forefront differences in scout unit norms as they relate to acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals as well as girls in the Scouts BSA and Cub Scouts. While these norms are somewhat benign when operating alone as a scout unit, scout units who have built identities around either embracing or opposing the new membership policies, or aspects of them, bring tension to interactive settings such as summer camp and district events, where scout units and scout leaders with opposing norms and beliefs share the same space. As one female scoutmaster described, summer camp uncovered tensions among scout leaders – the “old dog scoutmasters” of boys troops and “new puppy” leaders of girl troops. “…I wasn’t surprised” to hear of some derogatory “comments from a few boys to our girls….but to get it from the leaders too?....camp staff was afraid to say somethin’…like, [don’t] rock the boat. These old guys were as bad as the kids, so there was no enforcement.”

Enabling and Constraining The findings in this study provide great insights into ways that context and identity influence scout leader implementation, adaptation and avoidance of new membership policies. Through the lens of social learning and the interplay among belief experience, practice, identity, and power, the findings provide us important insights into the relationship between policy change and practitioner participation within a community of practice. At this point, we revisit the research questions to bring the findings into focus

211 and to set the stage for discussion, which will bring the data into full conversation with the context of scouting and community of practice and critical sensemaking literature.

1. To what extent/how does the Scout leader perception and practice of their

role align with the BSA's new policies and vision of Scouting?

2. To what extent/how has Scout leader perception and practice of their role

changed since the new policies were announced and enacted?

3. In what ways/how have Scout leaders relied upon BSA formal and

informal communications, resources and support networks since the new

policies were announced and enacted?

4. What broader conditions enable or constrain the practice of the Scout

leaders’ roles since the new policies were announced and enacted?

Table 7.1 below addresses the research questions through a framework of enabling and constraining factors at different levels within the scout leader community of practice. The levels are presented first looking at the broad landscape of practice, then narrowing to examine influence of the national organization, the scout unit, and finally with focus on individual scout leader practice. This summary of findings provides a basic structure to guide the front end of the discussion chapter and implications for theory and practice.

212 Table 7.1: Enablers & Constraints of New Membership Policy Implementation

Enablers Constraints Prevailing local norms of acceptance of LGBTQ+ Prevailing local norms of intolerance for LGBTQ+ Landscape and gender equity & gender equity

Council and District adoption of LGBTQ+ & girls New membership policies allow units to avoid membership policies prior to 2014. implementation (i.e. leaving, don’t ask don’t tell, restrict LGBTQ+ leaders). World, National, Council, and District Events (i.e. summer camps, camporees, jamborees). Inconsistent scout professional support of new membership policy implementation. Local scout professional provides resources and Organization guidance, empowering scout leaders to start girls Inconsistent scout professional willingness to troops and helping them to navigate LGBTQ+ advocate for LGBTQ+ & female scouts and leaders. membership policies. Lack of metrics/enforcement of leader behavior. In-person trainings & programs focused on Scout leader training avoids operationalizing the between-unit interaction of scout leaders. espoused values of scouting focusing instead on Robust online training infrastructure. scout safety and the functional elements of roles. Chartered organization’s espoused values align with Chartered organization values conflict with new new membership policies and policy support is membership policies, no support of policy conveyed to unit. implementation and/or also charters Girl Scouts. Chartered organization’s sole purpose is to provide Unit norms conflict with new membership policies. support, guidance & resources for scout unit(s). Personal beliefs of scout leaders in key roles are in The leaving of unwilling leaders and parents. conflict with the new membership policies. Scout leader leads policy implementation. No leader emerges to lead implementation. Unit Female leader takes on program role for girls troop. No female emerges to take on scoutmaster role. Husband/wife scout leaders in same scout unit. Low demand for policy implementation Mentoring between longtime and emerging scout One size fits all approach allows leaders to avoid leaders. diversity, inclusion, and acceptance. Focus on scout skills as primary qualification for scoutmasters marginalizes emerging scout leaders. No mentoring b/w longtime and emerging leaders. Professional career (i.e. education, manager role). Non-professional career and/or no education beyond high school coupled with socially LGBTQ+ Experience (i.e. family, friends, work). conservative religious beliefs. Scouting experiences outside of US. No experience with LGBTQ+ family, friends, Scouting role outside the scout unit. coworkers, and/or schoolmates. Decision making guided by espoused values of No scouting experience outside of their current Scouting (i.e. Scout Oath & Law, Eagle Scout). scout unit. Individual Needs-based approach to teaching scouts & leaders. Decision making based on a vision of scouting oriented around personal beliefs when in conflict Collaborative approach to problem-solving and with espoused values of scouting and/or needs of policy implementation decision making. the scouts in the program. Oriented toward learning and mastery, Confrontational approach to managing conflict. empowerment, and advocacy for the marginalized. Authoritative approach to policy implementation Acts with sensitivity to power and privilege decisions. dynamics, with a willingness to intervene and advocate.

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Chapter 8

Discussion Scouting is a worldwide movement of youth and adults, bound by shared experiences and practices. For many scout leaders who have invested decades of their lives as members and volunteers, scouting has become part of their identity. The recent changes to membership policies in the U.S. have opened scouting to girls and LGBTQ+ leaders and members, whose participation had been previously restricted for the prior 100 years of the BSA’s existence. For some scout leaders this policy change was awaited and welcome, as it aligned with their personal beliefs and their perceptions of the espoused values of scouting. Other scout leaders struggle to accept the new policies, as they do not align with their personal beliefs or their perception of scouting’s values. This study helps to make sense of these differences, and as a new female scoutmaster participant in this study described it, “why can some old dogs learn new tricks and not others?”.

At the heart of this study is the notion that learning occurs in a social context and is formed through the confluence of an individual’s belonging, becoming, experiencing and doing (Wenger, 2006, 3). It is through these concepts of learning that allows us to bring deeper understanding to the complex learning that occurs within a community of practitioners. This study builds on the pilings of social structure, identity, experience and their relationships with power dynamics to bring meaning to participation in a community of practice.

This chapter explores the findings by first thoroughly examining the policy environment of the BSA, with a particular focus on understanding scout leader implementation of the new membership policies which allow girls to join Cub Scouts and

Scouts BSA and LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders to participate throughout the program. This

214 rich context provides insight into scout leader participation in a community of practice and informs the study’s layered approach to the guiding questions. This layered approach to the discussion is required to bring a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between scout leader identity and the complex play of power among individuals and organizations, each operating at different levels of the organization and with a variety of motivations. The chapter concludes with the presentation a CoP evaluation matrix developed from this study to help make sense of the findings in the context of the community learning. The CoP evaluation matrix brings greater meaning to several important findings which find applications beyond scouting, in the broader scheme of youth development program delivery, nonprofit management, volunteer management and organizational theory.

Policy Analysis The well-defined, representative governance and structure of scouting, which reaches from the global level to the local scout unit, exhibits aspects of coupling that resembles public education system, although with little governmental interference. The

U.S. scouting environment is complex in nature, with scout professionals providing infrastructure support and organizational leadership, many of whom working alongside volunteer scout leaders tasked with providing representative leadership across the organization and delivering programming. The robust nationalized curriculum and international oversight of program alignment to standards provides a strong foundation for scouting to offer a consistent program. The timelines, activities, and goals for youth to progress in the curriculum are well defined and progress is tracked through a national online system, with approvals required at different levels by both volunteers and professionals.

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A network of scout professionals employed throughout the U.S. at the district and

council levels provide direct support to scout leaders at the unit level, and represent

meaningful ties to the national scouting organization. These scout professionals are

gatekeepers for resources and often the main source of formal communications between

the organization and its local volunteers. Operating within their own community of

practitioners, separate from scout leaders, scout professionals carry out a dual role of both

service the national BSA organization and serving under the direction of scout leaders at

the council and district level. The dual role allows scout professionals discretion in

enforcing unpopular policies or to provide scout leaders guidance on ways to avoid

policies, what Weatherly and Lipsky (1977) coined as street-level bureaucrats. This practice of scout professionals supporting local program adaptations when they conflict with national BSA policies creates a tension in the system, although several prominent examples in this study indicate that the national BSA acquiesces to the practice.

Program delivery at the scout unit level is oriented locally, carried out by volunteer scout leaders who are required to participate in nationalized, position-specific online training, which focuses on the function of their roles and safety in the program.

The functionally-focused trainings, for program delivery scout leaders in particular, are oriented around the flow, structure, and safety aspects of program delivery. The safety elements of the trainings, which are required by all scout leaders regardless of their involvement in program delivery, are focused primarily on keeping youth in the program safe from sexual predators. Combined, these trainings amount to several hours of passive online learning, which is tracked at the national level. Once complete, local, district, and council-level professionals and volunteers are alerted, which enables the scout leader to

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conduct programing at the local level. Like tracking scout progress through the program,

the training aspect of the BSA is closely monitored by staff and volunteers at several

levels of the organization.

Coupling From this perspective the BSA program appears to be a tightly bound educational system, with clear mandates and oversight with regard to scout advancement and scout leader training. Yet, there are several aspects of the program which are too difficult or

costly for the BSA organization to monitor directly, such as monitoring scout leader

quality, scout unit adherence to the flow and structure of the program, and scout unit’s

alignment with the espoused values of scouting. This decoupled approach to policy

implementation assigns much of the program oversight responsibility at the local level to

chartered organizations. These chartered organizations are typically non-profit

organizations with missions related to religion, education, or civics. The BSA empowers

the chartered organization to conduct the program at the local level with little oversight,

requiring them only to select and approve scout leaders and to allow the scout unit access

to facilities.

The decoupling of the scout units through the charter system provides several benefits to scouting by allowing scout units to adapt the program’s principles to local environments. Scout leaders, like teachers in a formal education setting, approach program delivery differently in each scout unit, which we would expect given the vast differences in financial support, volunteers, number of youth in the scout unit and facilities available. The regimented and professionalized approach of Trooptopia’s program, which has its own facilities, vast financial resources, and abundance of quality volunteer leaders, looks much different than City Shadow and The Valley’s scout units,

217 each operating with a hand full of volunteers, financial strains, limited access to equipment, and functional, but comparatively drab facilities.

The decoupled and loosely coupled environment disrupts the quick and uniform sharing of ideas and experiences among scout leaders and to scout units. The formal communication pathways are hierarchical in nature, channeled through scout professionals and district and council level scout leaders. These scout professionals and district and council level volunteers use discretion as to whether and how to share the innovations as street-level bureaucrats (Hirschman, 1970; Weatherly & Lipsky, 1977).

When these innovations are in conflict with the beliefs or motivations of the scout professionals and high-level volunteers or are in some conflict with the values or policies of the BSA, this formal communication structure has a gatekeeping effect. While the street-level bureaucrats may be seen as barriers to system-wide innovation, this process also acts as a safeguard which isolates poor or harmful practices from spreading (Mitra,

2018, p. 111). Informal communication among rank and file scout leaders at the unit level is limited, with some interaction occurring among key leaders who attend district-wide roundtable meetings, although their usefulness to interaction varies greatly. Scout leaders have begun use of Facebook to facilitate online interaction among peers, some which is locally oriented and others which are national and global in nature. These Facebook groups are started and moderated by volunteer scout leaders with no official endorsement or involvement by the BSA, although scout professionals are active members of these groups. Further study of these online communities of scout leaders is needed to understand their role in facilitating scout leaders implementation of policy and come to consensus on shared values related to program delivery and policy implementation.

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The Chartered Organization Differences in chartered organizations’ missions, espoused values and the amount

of engagement they have with their scout unit create the contextual backdrop to help

bring understanding to the variability in how policies are implemented in the system and

whether the variability is intentional or random in nature. The charter system provides a

structure for allowing scout leaders to adapt the program at the local level and is an

accepted process for avoiding national policies. This structure brings an intentional

variability to the implementation of the program at the local level, although differences in

the nature of the chartered organization and their level of engagement with the scout unit

make it difficult to predict patterns of implementation when using the chartered

organization as the only variable.

The unique U.S. practice of requiring scout units to be chartered by a partner

organization began in 1910 as a way to grow the program quickly, building on the

infrastructure and support of a vast network of community-oriented organizations (BSA,

2016b). The first chartered organizations were institutional in nature, starting with the

YMCA and followed by the Catholic Church and the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS).

These institutional charters created the foundation for the proliferation of scouting in the

U.S., which outpaced the rest of the world for much of the BSA’s first century and

resulted in the U.S. having the greatest number of members worldwide through the early

2000’s (Warren, 2009, 1986; Meyer, 1929; Vallory, 2012).

While institutional charters were in great part responsible for the expansion of scouting in the U.S., in the context of this study their influence on policies that create intentional variations to the program is of greater importance. The tightly coupled nature of these first institutional charters allowed for consistent adaptation of the scouting

219 programs, which had a branding effect on the local programs differentiating them from each other creating distinctions in the program delivery which remain. i.e. Catholic

Scouts, Methodist Scouts, LDS Scouts. The loosely coupled nature of many religious institutional charters with regard to operating ministries and youth programs at the local level did not bring a formal element of control to the spread of scouting or institutionalized adaptations to the program. The loosely coupled nature of these institutional charters brought a subtly different “flavor” of scouting to their units and allowed for variation in the level of the charter’s engagement in program delivery.

The tightly coupled nature of the LDS Church approached their chartering of scout units much differently than all other chartered organizations. By 1916 the LDS

Church adopted the BSA program as the youth program for boys in their church. As an extension of the church programs, scout units were supported alongside other mission critical programs, with the central church paying all member dues, reimbursing scout units for the cost of running their local program and assigning church members in good standing to take on scout leader roles in the units. The flexibility of the charter system allowed the LDS church to adapt and modify the BSA program to meet their needs, creating a completely different flavor of scouting compared to those chartered outside of the LDS church. Changes to the program included the formalization of religious practice into the scout unit practice, the use of scouting as a recruiting tool for the LDS church, and adjustments to the curriculum which required creation of a separate handbook

(Wendell, 2015, 2012).

Currently the vast majority of charters are with nonprofit organizations, most often those who have some broader mission toward the civics, religion or education

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(BSA, 2016b). This structure enables churches, parent teacher associations, and veterans supporting organization among the field of chartered organizations. These include both

secular and religious organizations, with more than 70% of chartered organizations

currently having some religious affiliation (BSA, 2014).

In the modern context, chartered organizations agree to be responsible for conducting the scouting program as part of their organization. This annual agreement is made between the national BSA organization and the local chartered organization, and requires the chartered organization to use their scouting unit to further their “aims and values of youth.”. The chartered organization agreement requires charters “to use the

scouting program to accomplish their objectives in a manner consistent with the Bylaws,

Rules and Regulations” of the Boy Scouts of America (Appendix A, B). At minimum chartered organizations must ensure that they select volunteers and provide facilities to conduct meetings, but the nature and amount of support they provide scout units varies greatly.

The charter system was codified in U.S. scouting as a result of the successful proliferation of the scouting and through the influence of the LDS church, who formally adopted “Boy Scouts” as their youth development program for boys. Allowing chartered organizations to adapt the scouting program was a cornerstone of the LDS Church’s involvement in scouting. By the end of 2019 the LDS church was responsible for chartering roughly 40% of all scout units and amassed a plurality of members the U.S., more than 19% in 2019. The national executive board, which is a democratically representative governing body of the BSA, is comprised of elected and appointed scout leaders from around the U.S.

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Through 2018, the plurality of members of the national executive board have been

scout leaders assigned to scout units by the LDS Church. While adherence to the LDS

faith is not a necessarily a predictor of executive board behavior, the tightly coupled

nature of the LDS Church’s relationship with scouting and blending of espoused

organizational values, create a consistent lens through which these members make

decisions. In addition, the LDS Church’s financial investment in the BSA amounts to

roughly 19% of the total revenues generated from membership fees (Wendell, 2018).

This influence explains, in part, the persistence of the charter system to present day and

the alignment of national membership policies with the espoused values of the LDS

Church.

The LDS Church separated formally from the BSA in December 2019,

decoupling their scouting program from the BSA after 106 years as an institutional

chartered organization to start the Vanguard International Scouting Association. The

decoupling was motivated by two primary forces which hampered the LDS Church’s

formal use of the BSA’s programs for youth development. Both forces are related to the

LDS Church’s ability to adapt the scouting program to align with the church’s espoused

values, especially as the Church grows its presence outside of the U.S.

In the U.S. context, a shift in national BSA membership policies, which had

previously limited the participation of girls and LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders, is a point of

demarcation with regard to values and onus of program control. The BSA’s decisions

between 2013 and 2017 to allow girls and LGBTQ+ scouts in all programs notes a break

from what scout leaders in this study referred to as “conservative values”, and the BSA

“finally catching up with the rest of society” with scout units, districts and councils in the

222 northeast U.S. having established local policies and practices which welcomed LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders and girls into all of their programs as far back as 2001.

Possibly more important than the apparent cultural shift, however, the new membership policies place limitations on the ability of chartered organizations to restrict membership. While the policy still enables chartered organizations broad powers to avoid implementing the membership policies, the nature of the policy hints at a shift in how the

BSA and hierarchy of volunteer scout leaders are perceiving chartered organization control over program delivery. Coupled with the political challenges of adapting the

LDS brand of scouting in other countries, the of the BSA and LDS Church was inevitable. While the new Vanguard Scouts are not recognized as Scouting by the

WOSM, its creation allows the LDS Church to continue to use an adapted scouting curriculum consistently in every country where the church has members.

The leaving of the LDS Church signaled the possibility of substantial organizational shifts relative to the organization’s stalwart past. Scout leaders with roles at the regional level and those who are more in tune with the politics surrounding the

BSA’s national governance were also hopeful that the leaving of the LDS Church would allow the organization to better “adapt to what’s going on in society. We’ve [BSA] been pretty countercultural and getting new blood on the [national] executive board will take things in new directions.” While it is unclear how the LDS Church leaving will translate into policymaking and changes to the program, it is clear to the scout leaders in this study that more changes are likely coming.

The use of chartered organizations in the U.S. has been the focus of much criticism among scholars those who believe that the BSA is not aligned with the essential

223 elements of Scouting, which are prescribed at the world level and adapted by each county’s national scout organization (Vallory, 2012; Mechling, 2004). These essential elements of scouting create the framework for scouting to exist and be recognized, and among the primary values associated with the program is that the program must be accessible to all. The BSA’s assignment of program delivery responsibility to chartered organizations allows charters to restrict membership in the program in ways that are misaligned with the espoused values of scouting. With little oversight of scout units programming and much latitude given to chartered organizations to refuse scout leaders’ participation, scout units can avoid policies and create barriers membership without the use of protected or non-protected class or identity as justification.

Charter Engagement Similar to the formal education policy realm (Coburn, 2005; Weick, 1995), the prevailing norms within a scout unit and their decision whether and how to implement new policies are defined, in part, by the negotiation of moral and political imperatives present in the espoused values of the BSA and the chartered organization, and scout leaders’ own beliefs and identities. In this study the most prominent concern of the many critics of the BSA’s charter system is that the structure allows religious chartered organizations to restrict membership of non-protected classes, such as LGBTQ+ leaders and girl members. A loosely coupled policy environment incorporates moral imperatives, which are fashioned to orient individuals and organizations toward shared values (Mitra,

2018, p.112). The loose coupling of the charter system relies on the already existing espoused values of the chartered organization to determine whether and how these policies are to be implemented in the scout unit. The chartered organization’s practice of institutional policy avoidance, to unilaterally avoid membership policies with no

224 justification, supplants the espoused values of scouting embodied in the new policies which supports membership for all.

How the negotiation of competing values plays out in policy implementation must take into account the will and capacity of chartered organizations to implement. While the intent of this study was not to measure chartered organization engagement in scout unit programming, the data highlighted several key differences in policy implementation.

With the implementation of the new membership policies, chartered organizations who are highly engaged in delivering the scouting program as an extension of their core mission provided decisive action as whether and how to implement. For the LDS church, the new membership policies signaled their exit from the BSA. For scout units like

Trooptopia and Burbane, it brought about a commitment of resources, working together to devise a structure, assign leadership, and begin implementation.

The different ways that scout units are supported and engaged by their chartered organizations represent one of several tension points as scout leaders navigate membership policy implementation. While two of the scout units in this study have dedicated charters whose sole responsibilities are to provide for their scout units, for the vast majority of charters, scouting is ancillary to their core purpose and mission. For the three scout units in this study who do not have dedicated charters, they operate more so as outside organizations that use the chartered organization’s facilities in exchange for community service. Positioned as outsiders, scout units must be careful to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the chartered organization so as to avoid conflict.

At this point we turn our focus to the dedicated charter, and what differentiates it from other highly engaged chartered organizations. Sometimes referred to as community

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charters, two of the scout units in this study, Trooptopia and Burbane, have dedicated

charters whose sole responsibilities are to provide support and guidance to their scout

units. While not prevalent among the milieu of BSA chartered organizations (BSA,

2014), these community trusts are led by trustees who are experienced scout leaders and

having a deep knowledge of scouting. Like institutional charters, dedicated charters

consider the scout unit to be an extension of their organization. The dedicated charter’s

singular purpose focuses completely on delivering the scouting program, and while not

technically part of the BSA, give the appearance of being synonymous. The dedicated

charters in this study are highly engaged in the operation of their scout units, especially

with regard to policy implementation. With no espoused organizational values, dedicated

charters do not need to negotiate conflicts between organizational values. Instead,

trustees rely on the espoused values of scouting, prevailing local norms, scout unit norms,

and the beliefs and identities of its leadership to guide decision-making.

Not all chartered organizations are as highly engaged and tightly coupled in the

delivery of the scouting program as the dedicated charters are in this study and the LDS

Church had been. Next, we look at the more typical chartered organization relationship

with scout units, where the chartered organization is separate from scouting and the scout

unit is not fully integrated into the chartered organization. Despite the BSA’s tightly

coupled structure of the charter-scout unit relationship, we see how variations in chartered organization engagement with scout units affect policy implementation by scout leaders.

Chartered organizations who are disengaged in program delivery and whose

espoused values do not conflict with the new membership policies look to their key

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leaders in scout unit to determine whether or not to implement the policies. The chartered

organization’s hands-off approach to decisions to implement membership policies

indicates their weak stake in the success of the scout unit, which in this study translated

into meeting the minimal obligations, providing meeting facilities and the formality of

approving leaders. The disengaged charters rely solely on the will of the scout leaders to

drive implementation, requiring scout leader assurance that a decision to implement

would not require additional support from the chartered organization.

This study observed scoutmasters and committee chairs investing a considerable

amount of time and effort managing the relationship between the scout unit and the

church where they are chartered. One key leader from each scout unit controlled access to

the pastor and church leaders, acting as the conduit for scout leaders and parents to

interact with the chartered organization. Their focus was primarily on maintaining a

delicate relationship with the pastor of the church and some key church members. These

scout leaders were cautious about overuse of the church and its facilities and what

information was shared with church leaders about the scout program. The goal of their

approach appeared to minimize any possible perception that the scout unit is a drain on

the resources of the church, and to be in position to head off chartered organization

concerns before they impact the program.

The scout leader management of key relationships in the chartered organization grant the scout unit the ability to bypass the espoused values of the chartered organization. The importance of controlling and fostering these relationships helps to build trust among leaders, which was illustrated in a few ways in this study. In one scout unit, when the leadership their church changed abruptly, it left the scoutmaster without a

227 strong relationship with the church’s leadership. Within a year, that church refused to renew the charter agreement, forcing the scout unit to move. Similarly, the trusting nature of the one-on-one relationship between the head of the charter and scout unit enabled scout units autonomy in deciding whether and how to implement the membership policy changes.

The scout unit leadership structure and lack of oversight and engagement by chartered organizations empowers scout leaders in key scoutmaster or committee chair roles broad discretion in policy implementation. In this study we see scout leader discretion play out differently in two scout units as they approach implementation of the

LGBTQ+ leader policy. In both scout units the chartered organizations have no restrictions on LGBTQ+ leaders, are disengaged with the program delivery, and the relationship with the leader of the church is managed by a single key scout leader – one a scoutmaster and the other a committee chair. In one scout unit, parents and scout leaders argued vehemently for adopting a local policy restricting LGBTQ+ leaders as a means to protect scouts from potential abuse. The scoutmaster shut down the conversation immediately as it did not align with his beliefs, which were shaped by his profession, extensive travel, and friendships and personal experiences in scouting with individuals who identify as LGBTQ+. In the other scout unit, the committee chair and scoutmaster felt that allowing LGBTQ+ leaders was a safety concern for the youth in the program, but did not have the consent of the church to restrict these leaders. To bypass the church’s decision, they reframed their approach to focus on scout safety, restricting leaders with no relationship to current or past relationships to scouts in the unit. This approach was palatable to scout professionals at the council level and other scout leaders in the scout

228 unit as it avoided use of LGBTQ+ as a criterion for restriction, and appeased the scoutmaster and committee chair’s beliefs which relate LGBTQ+ identity with child abuse. Each of these examples bring awareness to the practitioner’s power to avoid policies and adapt the local program with little oversight.

Structured Avoidance For many scout leaders the new membership policies are deal breakers which threatened complete disruption of the program, requiring the BSA to create a systematized approach to policy avoidance. The nature of the policies allow avoidance to be either active or passive. Active avoidance happens at the institutional level, where the chartered organization refuses to implement policies on the basis of a conflict with religious beliefs or capacity concerns, or at the individual level, where scout leaders enact unit-specific policies. This study provides examples of active avoidance of the girls membership policy with chartered organizations deciding not to extend membership to girls to avoid conflict with existing Girl Scouts troops. When chartered organizations are disengaged in the program, they assign responsibility for these decisions to the scout unit, which are mediated greatly by the beliefs of scout leaders in key leadership roles. When scout leader beliefs are in conflict with the new membership policies, against welcoming girls and LGBTQ+ leaders, active avoidance takes the form of deciding not to open the scout unit to girls and enacting local policies targeted at restricting LGBTQ+ adults from leadership roles. When a scout unit decides to implement the policies, scout leaders with conflicting beliefs may decide to switch to a scout unit who have decided to avoid implementation or leave the BSA entirely. With no monitoring or oversight, the scout unit’s decisions need not be grounded in the espoused values of scouting or those of the

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chartered organization. In the worst-case scenario, this enables scout leaders to use the

BSA’s program to operationalize personal beliefs oriented toward discrimination.

Passive avoidance occurs within scout units and is mediated by the level of engagement of the chartered organization in program delivery and selection of scout leaders. Where chartered organizations are highly disengaged, passive avoidance of the new membership policies is greatly shaped by the beliefs, experiences, and identities of scout leaders in key leadership positions and the consensus of shared values within the scout unit. Passive avoidance is more nuanced than active avoidance and manifests differently with the new membership policies. Scout leaders can avoid the girls policy by making program decisions that limit interaction with other scout units who have girls as members. Scout leaders in this study experienced passive avoidance when scout leaders from other units requested campsites away from girls troops and decided not to participate in programming that included girls troops.

The passive avoidance of LGBTQ+ member policy is more complex than the girls policies, as it requires leaders to negotiate rules and policies which conflict in some ways.

The conflict exists between the new membership policy which requires scout units to unconditionally accept LGBTQ+ youth members (Appendix A, B), and the Scouter Code of Conduct (Appendix C), which explicitly restricts scout leaders from discussing sexuality in any form. The notion that sexuality is not a part of scouting is a premise held consistently across all leaders involved in this study, and led to a broadly accepted don’t ask, don’t tell approach to LGBTQ+ issues. Decisions to address LGBTQ+ membership were limited primarily to scout units who encountered transsexual members and were required to make functional decisions about the comingling of youth.

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The requirement of the chartered organization to approve scout leaders incentivizes scout leaders to avoid the LGBTQ+ leader policy and is a barrier to those who identify as LGBTQ+ participate in the BSA as an adult. Chartered organization who have not clearly communicated their stance on accepting or refusing scout leaders on the basis of their sexuality require scout leaders to use their discretion to implement the policy. When an individual who identifies as LGBTQ+ wishes to take on a scout leader role, the key scout leaders for the unit need to decide whether to ask the chartered organization to make a decision on accepting LGBTQ+ leaders, consult the chartered organization on a case by case basis, or implement a don’t ask, don’t tell strategy. For leaders concerned that the chartered organization may make a decision on the policy that is in conflict with their personal beliefs or the consensus of shared values among the scout unit’s leaders, there is great incentive to take the don’t ask, don’t tell approach. This creates an environment whereby scout leaders who identify as LGBTQ+ are forced to keep their identity secret at the risk of removal or public sharing of their identity.

The BSA’s restricting scout leaders from discussing sexuality creates a barrier to creating a consistently safe and welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders.

Scout leaders receive no training or guidance from the BSA with regard to implementation of the policies which welcome LGBTQ+ individuals and creates an environment where scout leaders do not discuss LGBTQ+ policies among peers within or beyond their scout unit. Scout leaders in this study with professional training and work experience with LGBTQ+ youth and those who indicated LGBTQ+ advocacy as a core belief addressed the policy in their scout units. These scout leaders integrated language into their programs which contributed to an already existing culture of acceptance in the

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scout unit, specifically linking the policy to the espoused values of scouting. Leaders who

integrated LGBTQ+ language into their programs were bolstered by more than a decade

of vocal support of LGBTQ+ policies at the council level and by their units’ dedicated

chartered organizations. Scout leaders are left to their own devices to navigate the

implementation process, leading to variance in how accepting a scout unit might be to

scouts and leaders who identify as LGBTQ+.

Passive avoidance of the new membership policies disrupts patterns of scout unit and scout leader participation in the program. This is most evident when leaders decide not to participate in programming so as to avoid interaction with scouts, leaders and scout units who are implementing the membership policies. The avoidance of the girls policy is easily facilitated, with decisions for scout units to not participate in programming where girls troops or their scout leaders are present, or to be set up separately from the girls.

This may be facilitated by making special requests for placement or collecting information from scout professionals and leaders ahead of time. Avoiding interaction with LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders is more difficult to manage, as scout units who actively celebrate LGBTQ+ membership are not easily identifiable, as are scouts and leaders who identify as LGBTQ+.

Allowing the espoused values of charters and scout leader beliefs to guide implementation of these policies creates variations in scout unit implementation that cause tension and conflict among scout leaders and youth members. Scout units and leaders who avoid implementing the policies receive no guidance or training from the

BSA regarding standards of practice when interacting with scouts, leaders or units who have implemented these policies. These tensions are especially evident in spaces where

232 scout leaders and scouts interact beyond their scout units, such as summer camp and district and council-wide events. Conflicts captured in this study occurred between male scout leaders and female leaders of new girls troops, between male scout leaders and girl members, and between boy and girl members. While the conflicts reported were consistent from scout unit to scout unit, this is early in the implementation of the girls policy. As the policy is more widely adopted and the number of girl members and girls troops increases, the BSA may experience changes in the patterns and intensity of conflict.

The BSA’s assignment of responsibility for conducting the scouting program to the chartered organization is problematic on several levels. The primary weakness is related to inconsistencies the practice and structure brings to the scouting program, with each scout unit able to enact a different “flavor” of scouting. While this local orientation enables scout units to align the program with the espoused values of the chartered organization and prevailing community norms, when the chartered organization is disengaged, scout leaders are left to implement and adapt the program with little oversight to evaluate whether the adaptations are aligned with and faithful to the values of scouting and the intent of the policies.

Will, Capacity, Fidelity and Implementation Thus far the discussion has focused on the organizational structure and orientation of control in the BSA from the global level down to the scout unit. We now turn our gaze to the scout unit and scout leader, with a keen focus on constraining and enabling factors related to capacity and will. Throughout this study we witness scout leaders negotiating their personal beliefs with the espoused values of scouting – understanding the relationship between the implementation of new membership policies and the alignment

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of scout leader beliefs with the espoused values of scouting. To understand this process

of sensemaking, we examine the relationship between scout leader will and the system of

capacity-building, and policy fidelity.

At the heart of McLaughlin’s (1991, p. 147) assertion that policy “can’t mandate

what matters” is the recognition that practitioner will and issues of capacity drive

effective policy implementation (Mitra, 2018, p.116). Local response to policy

implementation relies heavily on individual beliefs (McLaughlin, 1987) and

organizational interventions that affect a practitioner’s will and capacity to implement.

Fidelity, as a function of capacity, is related to how well-aligned a practitioner’s perception of a policy is with the core values associated with the policy (McLaughlin &

Mitra, 2001).

Will and capacity mediate the implementation of the new membership policies, guiding the scout leader’s decision of whether and how to implement. Much of the focus on capacity and will in this section is on implementation of the girls policies, as the scout units in this study took a passive approach to implementing the LGBTQ+ policies. Will is oriented to the individual, where the decision how and whether to implement a policy is mediated by individual scout leader beliefs and the consensus of shared values within a scout unit. Given the broad ability for scout leaders to avoid policies they that conflict with their beliefs, scout leader will is an important determiner of whether new member policy implementation will even be attempted. Capacity is related to the tools and training to support policy implementation (Spillane & Thompson, 1997) as well as the broader notions related to leadership, experience and social capital (Hall, 2016). For scout units capacity translates to the resources and supports provided by the chartered

234 organization, the BSA, and the local scout unit, in the form of financial supports, facilities, scout professional guidance, policy training, peer interaction outside of the scout unit and access to motivated scout leaders.

When considering issues of capacity the nature of the structure and relationship with the chartered organization is important. Scout units with dedicated charters have an additional layer of experienced scout leaders to provide guidance and encouragement to the scout unit during the implementation process, and helped to connect the scout unit to resources elsewhere in the BSA organization. The dedicated charters in this study also provided assurance of financial support. Scout units with disengaged charters rely more heavily on support from within their scout units, within the local scout leader community of practitioners and from scout professionals at the district and council levels. Capacity within the scout unit to implement the girls membership policy, in particular, was manifest in the shifting of female scout leaders from administrative roles on the committees to scoutmaster roles in the program. In addition, it was common for husband and wife couples to take on program-oriented scout leader roles, thus enabling easier implementation of the policy requiring female scout leaders to be present when girls are participating in the program.

I categorize these new female leaders as emergent, as they emerge from the margins to take on central leadership roles oriented toward program delivery. Female scout leaders tend to be mothers of scouts engaged in program delivery for the Cub Scout program, leading dens of youth aged 5-11. When scouts move into Scouts BSA, the mothers tend to take on administrative roles in the scout unit, with fathers or other male leaders in program-oriented scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster roles. For current

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female scoutmaster and assistant scoutmasters, the policy empowers them to take more

central roles in leading the program. For most female leaders, however, the shift into

program-oriented roles brings capacity-oriented issues of training and knowledge transfer

to the forefront. Many current female leaders in a scout unit are in roles disconnected

from program delivery and perceive they do not have the skills or knowledge to take on

scoutmaster or assistant scoutmaster role. The females who decide to take on these roles

are emerging as minorities in a masculine-oriented program, which brings the potential for conflict with those opposed to implementing the girls membership policies and women in program oriented roles.

Many of the female scoutmasters will require training on traditional scout skills and the flow of the program to get up to speed quickly. With no formal system to meet these needs in place, female leaders are mentored by willing male leaders within the scout unit. Emerging female leaders’ confidence to lead the program is mediated by the male scout leader’s approach to mentoring. Female scoutmasters felt more confident in their roles when receiving a balance of guidance and encouragement from their mentors.

They also appreciated mentors stepping into the background and acting as a safety net during program activities, empowering the female scoutmasters to practice their roles more fully.

Scout units also relied on the emergence of scout leaders in key roles, such as scoutmaster or committee chair, to champion and provide vision to the implementation process. These emergent leaders, which I refer to as change agents, require both will and capacity to effectively take on the implementation process. These change agents existed in each instance where scout units actively implemented the new membership policies,

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although their motivations for implementation differed from scout unit to scout unit, with

some wanting to support their daughter or LGBTQ+ child’s participation in the program

and others out of their deep commitment to the organization. In each instance scout

leaders believed that the new membership policies aligned with the espoused values of

scouting and their own personal values which oriented toward advocacy for the

marginalized and empowerment. Each operationalized the espoused values of scouting to

guide their approach to implementation, linking their decisions to tenets of the Scout

Oath and Law for the purpose of justification. Capacity of these change agents was

related to their experience as a scout leader, for some tracing back to their participation in

scouting as a youth. This experience provided them the social capital needed to build

trust among other scout leaders in their unit and scout professionals in their district.

Change agents who implemented the policies with ease tended to share collaborative approaches to leadership and a sensitivity to power and privilege dynamics.

Beyond the scout unit, scout leaders rely on scout professionals at the district and council level and their peers in other scout units for capacity-building. Scout professionals are an extension of the BSA’s resources and help scout units to fill new scout leader positions required to run the girls troop, help to recruit new members of the girls troop, and provide scout units guidance navigating the implementation process and their relationship with the chartered organization. They, along with district level volunteers assigned to the scout unit provide broader perspectives on implementation practices and navigating barriers, further guiding the process. Scout professionals in particular provide the infrastructure of encouragement and guidance when questions about implementation arise. The national BSA also provides guides and planning

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materials to assist with establishing new scout units, although scout leaders reported very

little concrete support and guidance on implementation. “I don’t think they knew what

they [BSA] were doing when they rolled out the girls [policy]. They [BSA] didn’t tell us

[scout leaders] anything…we learned [about the policies] from the newspaper…. It was

half-baked and they expected us to just figure it out…so that’s what we did.”

The lack of structure, formal instructions and clear communication from the

national BSA organization during rollout of the girls policy orients scout leaders toward

informal networks of peer support within and outside of their scout units. Formal and

informal interaction within peer networks are known to be important to the

implementation of policy in formal educational settings (Brezicha, Bergmark, & Mitra,

2015; Spillane, 1999), a pattern which holds true for the scout leaders in this study. Like their teacher counterparts, scout leaders rely on “the slow burn of conversation” with

peers to help construct a shared understanding of the new membership policies, which

focuses on linking the Scout Oath and Law to the implementation of practice.

Interaction among scout leaders helps to build capacity primarily through scout leader sensemaking of the new membership policies. Scout leader interactions helped leaders understand the range of possibilities available to them in implementing, or avoiding, the new member policies. Interactions among scout leaders outside their scout

units and in leadership positions within the BSA’s volunteer hierarchy were limited to a

few instances annually among a few leaders and tended to occur informally through

district events and meetings and summer camp experiences. The lion’s share of

interactions and sensemaking take place among the scout leaders in the scout unit, and

focus on assessing whether or not to implement, which requires building consensus

238 around the capacity limitations and alignment of the policy’s values with the espoused values of the chartered organization and the shared values of scout unit leaders, members and parents. In some units the consensus building was inclusive and formal, occurring in unit-wide meetings, while in others consensus was established among a few key leaders with a decision presented to the committee members, leaving them to interact informally.

Scout leader perception of the new membership policies varied from one another, and from policy to policy, with some changing their perceptions over time. We know that for policies to be faithfully implemented it is important that they align with practitioner beliefs, and that it is possible to change beliefs through practice (McLaughlin, 1991, p.

149) through engagement with peers in sensemaking (Coburn & Talbert, 2006; Copland,

2003). We see these processes of practice and peer exchange play out clearly as scout leaders changed their beliefs about policies over time.

Scout leader beliefs generally shaped their initial perception of the policies. Scout leaders were likeminded in their steadfast support of the LGBTQ+ policies, with the preponderance of variability in perception relating to the girls membership policies.

When scout leader beliefs are deeply held and somewhat immovable, scout leaders tended not to change their perception or interpretation of the policies over time. When scout leaders’ deeply held beliefs were well-aligned with the policies, this manifested in a high level of involvement early in the implementation process. These leaders typically emerged as change agents, leading the implementation or as emergents – female scout leaders new to program-oriented roles. When scout leaders’ deeply held beliefs conflicted with the policies, they tended to avoid implementation of the policies, which sometimes resulted in their moving to another scout unit or leaving scouting entirely.

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Not all scout leaders with deeply held beliefs in conflict with the new membership

policies chose the path of avoidance or leaving. Scout leaders who define their identity by their conservative political and religious beliefs, and have professional careers described a process of values negotiation. This process permits them to operate within organizations or systems with less conservative social values, such as found in the corporate world or medical field, while allowing them to maintaining their core beliefs.

The scout leaders rely upon the espoused values of the organization or system as the framework to guide their decision-making while they are participating in that system, and are categorized as compartmentalizers.

For evangelical Christians with strong beliefs against the normalization and acceptance of individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, this negotiation process allows them to work and volunteer for organizations whose espoused values and policies are aligned toward acceptance. Compartmentalizers tend to be heavily involved and take on key leadership roles in the organizations and communities that align with their core beliefs.

Compartmentalizers with deeply held socially conservative beliefs operated on the periphery of the scout unit, taking on administrative support roles which separated them from the implementation process. Despite their role on the periphery, compartmentalizers participated in peer discussions related to the implementation of the new membership policies. Their experience applying organizations’ espoused values to practitioner decision-making in other settings contributed to other scout leaders’ understanding and use of that process.

When scout leader beliefs on the new policies were less engrained, their perception of the policies were pliable, susceptible to influence and change. These

240 leaders’ tended to have adaptable mindsets, which opened them to the possibility of change, and led to categorizing them as adaptive learners. With the implementation of the girls membership policy, these leaders participated in discussions among peers about whether the program should be open to girls. These discussions which initiated early in the implementation process helped the adaptive learners create a framework of justification, linking their beliefs with the espoused values of scouting and the values embedded in the policy. The adaptive learners continued to carry out their role in the scout unit during the implementation process, which gave them some agency and allowed them to both observe and practice their role with new girl members. These experiences of practice, coupled with early peer discussions and agency in the implementation process led these scout leaders to change their beliefs; a process of change that spanned roughly

12 months.

The process by which these adaptive learners came to change their beliefs helps to explain the complex relationship among practice, peer interaction, and organizational values. It is important to point out that scout leaders attributed change in their beliefs about girls in the BSA to both discussion with peers and their experience working directly with the girls in the program. While there was variability in the how scout leaders attributed their changed beliefs to peer influence and participating in practice, it is clear that both elements were necessary for the process to be successful.

The quality and nature of peer discussions are an integral part of the process that led scout leaders to change their beliefs. Adaptive learners identified that the most helpful peer discussions focused on the alignment of the policies with the espoused values of scouting. These discussions typically occurred within the scout unit and

241 included change agents, who are well trusted among their peers are solidly grounded in their understanding of the interplay of their beliefs with the espoused values of scouting.

Leading up to the scout unit’s decision to implement the girls member policy, these discussions led the adaptive learners to explore the ways that their personal beliefs conflicted with values embedded in the new policies, and more broadly with the espoused values of scouting. From these discussions adaptive learners developed a framework that linked elements of the Scout Oath and Law to the decision to welcome girls into the program, which they went on to apply to different operational and program aspects of the program. This framework helped adaptive learners to shift their perceptions of the policy from opposition to curiosity, enabling them to continue to practice their roles in the program. Their continued participation in the program led them to experience the policy in practice, taking on mentor roles for emerging female scoutmasters and assistant scoutmaster roles for girls troops. Throughout this process of practice, the adaptive learners revisited and refined their perceptions of the policy and noted that slowly, over the span of time, experience, and discussion, their beliefs had changed and they had come to embrace the girls membership policy.

BSA and Race An interesting non-finding in the case comparison is the lack of difference among scout units’ implementation and scout leader experiences related specifically to race.

This study included at least one scout unit each with racial compositions defined as majority white, majority non-white, and non-majority. While differences among these scout units were prevalent, those differences could be better explained by other factors, such as the nature of support from the chartered organization, the size of the scout units, and the proportion of youth participants from single-parent households. In similar

242 fashion, scout leaders on an individual level did not differ in their experiences with scouting on the basis of race, with differences attributed more so to scout leaders’ experience in the program as a youth, the types of volunteer roles held in the organization, their international experiences, and gender. While these factors are each inextricably intertwined with aspects of race, this study’s focus on the new membership policies limited a thorough comparative analysis on the broader issue of race in the BSA.

Consistent throughout the analysis of racial components in this study scout leaders tended not to act or respond differently to the policies or approach to implementation or leadership differently. This may be related to the local nature of

Scouting, which allows scout units to operate within the social norms of their local communities. It also may relate to scout leader experiences as youth in the program and their attachment to the espoused values and principles of Scouting, which I address later in this chapter. Where comparing scout unit findings did produce clear themes related to policy implementation and scout leader role were primarily related to the availability of resources, values conflicts, and the influence of the chartered organization and rurality on both of these factors. Certainly, a study focused succinctly on exploring issues related to race in the BSA, particularly focused on the new diversity merit badge requirement for Eagle Scout award and diversity focused trainings for scout leaders and scout professionals, would provide greater insight into various race-related inflection points in the BSA organization.

Up to this point the discussion focus primarily on the role of scout leaders and the policy environment on the implementation process for the new membership policies. In the next section, we reverse field and look at the influence of the new membership

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policies on scout leader participation in scouting. Using a community of practice

framework, we come to understand how policy change can disrupt the status quo among

practitioners.

Community of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix The layered Critical Sensemaking and Landscapes of Practice framework in this

study is presented here as an evaluative tool to help organizational leaders understand and

anticipate the fallout from policy reform – the Community of Practice Policy Evaluation

Matrix (CoPPE Matrix). Financial and political influences often drive organizations to

policy reform, having both intended and unintended consequences on their workforces.

Understanding policy reform from a peer learning perspective is especially important to

organizations who rely on expert practitioners to translate and implement policies.

Focusing on practitioner learning helps organizational leaders to understand the ways

policy reform influences issues of power and engagement among practitioners. The focus

on the scout leader community of practice in this study translates well to practitioner-

oriented fields, such as medicine, education, and religion, which rely heavily on peer

networks across an array of cultures, identities, and experiences, to support the implementation of new policies.

The CoPPE Matrix adapts Wenger’s (2006, p. 167) model of Community of

Practice (CoP) participation which goes on to describe the peripherality, marginalization, and core participation of its members (Fig. 8.1). Superimposed on Wenger’s model of participation is the square boundary of the focal CoP noted by a solid line. The matrix then adds a scale of practitioner belonging along the X axis and the alignment of practitioner beliefs with policy values on the Y axis. The scale of belonging tracks issues of power, agency, and marginalization inherent within the CoP or within the

244 organizational context based on practitioner identity and issues of marginalization.

Combined, these scales help us understand how identity, beliefs and belonging relate to the nature of power and participation in the implementation of policy.

Participation in the CoP is defined in the context of policy reform to help organizations evaluate policy implementation and to predict practitioner behavior as it relates to roles and power. The CoPPE Matrix is intentional about not prescribing specific measures to determine belonging or belief alignment. While quantitative measures can be applied to the belonging and belief alignment scales, the Matrix was designed with adaptability in mind, as a qualitative analysis tool to enable broad use across organizational and systemic settings.

The CoPPE Matrix identifies several roles within the boundaries of the CoP which expand on Wenger’s (2006) framework, operationalizing it for application in the policy evaluation process. The roles correspond to attributes and processes that are

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important to the operation of the CoP, which correspond to the work of alignment,

negotiation, and learning carried out by CoP members. Through operationalizing and

rebranding these attributes and processes, this study clearly demonstrates important

relationships among CoP members in the context of policy change.

The four quadrants of the matrix provide a guide to identify participation of members in relation to a specific policy or groupings of policies. Full participants with beliefs aligning most closely with the policies in the top half, with participation limited either by member choice or marginalizing forces within the CoP occupying the bottom half. Each of the roles identified in Figure 8.1 are positioned generally in the areas where those roles operate in the matrix. Application of the Matrix requires the alignment of each of these roles with formal organizational roles or characteristics of CoP members being studied.

The CoPPE Matrix is an important aid for organizational leaders to map both the roles and trajectories of those CoP members in the policy implementation process. While

the roles are important to aligning organizational supports and interventions with need,

understanding trajectory and the underling forces motivating those trajectories is of

paramount importance. Trajectories provide insights into cultural forces working within

an organization which may not be evident when focusing on individual needs.

Participant trajectories provide organizations insights into the type and intensity of

interventions needed to aid policy implementation. The nature and important role of

trajectories will be demonstrated in the next section through the evaluation of the scout

leader CoP.

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Defining Participant Roles The CoPPE Matrix is situated within the context of a CoP is important to

understanding participant roles. With peer and practice-oriented learning, interaction

among the roles, and influence between roles are key forces. As such, the attributes of the

roles in relation to other participants guides the analysis and evaluation process, which

then goes on to inform organizational interventions.

Change Agents are the workhorse of policy alignment in a CoP. Their beliefs and

identity are well aligned with the policies which motivates them to provide leadership to

the policy implementation process. They invest their energy to help to negotiate

perspectives and find common ground within the CoP. These members are unafraid to

use power and authority to impose their viewpoint, and rely on skills such as convincing,

inspiring and uniting to motivate others to fall into line. These full participants share

broad aspirational vision for implementation, while also devising infrastructures to help

guide and control implementation. Through storytelling, change agents link their personal

identities and beliefs with the espoused values of the organization, and the values

associated with the policies. This linking process operationalizes the espoused values of

the organization and creates the framework to aid other members of the CoP develop similar links between identity, beliefs and organizational values.

Adaptive Learners are slower to fully accept and implement policy than the

change agents. Their approach is cautious and unsure, requiring time and support to help

them to come to understand the relationship between their identity and beliefs and the

espoused values of the organization and those embedded in the policy. Taking a curious

stance, the policies do not conflict enough with their personal beliefs or identity to

247 motivate them leaving the practice, but they are not fully on board. Adaptive learners identities are intertwined with the CoP, which drives their aspiration to participate fully.

Adaptive learners operate in the periphery while deciding their approach to the policy, giving them the opportunity to experience and practice the policy implementation, even before they come to fully accept it. They rely on change agents to help them negotiate their identity as a member of the CoP with beliefs, which leads to them to change their beliefs to align with the policy. When members are unable to successfully negotiate deeply held personal beliefs with policy change, they may shift into the next role.

Compartmentalizers have a forced existence in the CoP that allows them to operate in the periphery, but not to rise to full participation. Compartmentalizers have deeply held beliefs that are misaligned with what might be considered mainstream values, either manifest in extreme doctrines which are difficult to reconcile in the public sector. i.e. socially conservative religious beliefs or socially progressive political beliefs. These beliefs are closely aligned with their identities, and when in conflict with the espoused values of the CoP lead compartmentalizers to only participate in the CoP as a function of their practice. This functional approach to membership drives their process of negotiation between identity and beliefs and the espoused values of the organization.

With deeply held beliefs in conflict with the espoused values of the organization and policy values, negotiating participation in the same ways that adaptive learners do is difficult if not impossible. When beliefs are not malleable, compartmentalizers must find another pathway if they are able to function in the CoP. Compartmentalizers adopt the espoused values of the organization as the lens for decision-making while in the CoP

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setting, setting aside their conflicting personal beliefs more closely associated with their

identities. Like change agents, compartmentalizers create a framework that

operationalizes the espoused values of the organization through the policy

implementation process, although absent a link to their personal beliefs and identities.

Compartmentalizers developed this process of negotiating membership to allow them to

function in professional roles, which require adherence to organizational policies and norms. In this sense, the compartmentalizers’ approach is highly professionalized, functional approach enables them to maintain their core beliefs and identities, while participating in practices that conflict with those core beliefs. Compartmentalizers are static in their participation in the CoP, comfortably choosing to operate in the periphery,

choosing not to aspire into full participation.

Leavers and Avoiders are unable to negotiate continued membership in the CoP

which results in them leaving the CoP or taking steps to avoid implementation of the

policy. Both roles are motivated by similar perceptions of identity and beliefs in relation

to policy and membership. Their inability to negotiate membership is related to the ways

their perception of policy challenges both their identity and conflicts with their deeply

held beliefs. Leavers and avoiders align their social identity with a fixed perception of the

CoP, driven by familiarity and shared experiences of practice. Their deeply held beliefs,

like compartmentalizers, are in conflict with the values associated with organizational

policies. Policies threaten leavers’ and avoiders’ sense of belonging, having a

marginalizing effect in the CoP. When coupled with conflict between beliefs and policy

values, leavers and avoiders are left to negotiate aspects of identity and belief

concurrently. Fear of radical change leads leavers and avoiders to abandon their use of

249 the espoused values of the organization to guide their negotiation of membership to pursue channels of leaving or policy avoidance.

Emergents are members who are empowered by policy to move from the margins.

These are longtime participants in the CoP, although limited in their formal roles or function by previous policies or systemic norms. The emergents’ beliefs are aligned with the policy values and may be the direct beneficiary of the policy. Emergents’ trajectory is one that aspires to full participation, taking on a role described as new comer by Wenger

(2006, p. 156-157) which requires knowledge transfer from longtime members. Despite having policy in place that untethers emergents from the margins, norms within the CoP may be slow to change creating a barrier to acceptance. Emergents require additional training and support fill gaps in knowledge and to quell conflict with avoiders and leavers to enable their full participation.

Disrupting the Community of Practice The scout leader CoP provides an extreme case of how policy reform can disrupt a community of practice. The loosely coupled policy environment at the delivery-level allows practitioners to opt out of implementing new equity-oriented policies, enabling discriminatory practices to continue within the organization despite a formal organizational shift toward anti-discrimination.

Tensions between practitioners who adopted the new policies and those who avoided them are playing out organization-wide. The policies enabled some formerly marginalized practitioners to emerge into full participation, while having a marginalizing effect on some longtime leaders whose personal beliefs conflict with the values associated with the new policies. The fallout from the policies is oriented around shifts of power and participation among practitioners and new patterns of learning. The CoPPE

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Matrix approach provides insights for organizational interventions to support stabilization

of the scout leader community and encourage greater participation in implementing

equity-oriented policy reform.

The disruption of the scout leader community of practice is measured in two key ways, first by shifts in practitioner participation in the CoP and then by practitioner trajectories within the CoP. These shifts have implications for the consistent implementation of scouting policy in the U.S. context and, more broadly, implications for organizations implementing equity-oriented policies. To explore these implications the

next section focuses on the relationship between practitioner belonging and beliefs and

policy change.

Baseline Participation The values-laden nature of the new membership polices exposed a divide between scout leaders. This divide is oriented around how scout leaders’ beliefs align or conflict

with the values associated with the new policies. We see this divide play out in differing

patterns of participation within the community of practice.

The first stage of the evaluation maps key CoP participants prior to policy rollout

to identify participants of interest with regard to the policies and to establish a baseline

for determining trajectories. While there are additional dynamics at play in the scout

leader CoP, as noted in the policy analysis section of this study, the CoPPE Matrix

focuses on “Old Dogs” and “Female and LGBTQ+ practitioners” as the participants of

interest (Fig. 8.2).

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Old Dogs is a term generated by scout leaders participating in this study to refer to full members of the scout leader CoP who are knowledgeable practitioners. These Old

Dogs are men who have experience in scouting in either or both administrative and program delivery roles and whose identity is somewhat defined by their practice as a scout leader. They hold key roles as BSA volunteers as Scoutmasters, assistant scoutmasters, committee chairs, or chartered organization representatives. Their participation in scouting spans decades, with many having experience as a youth member and now as an adult scout leader.

Old Dogs’ identities are defined by their practice as scout leaders in different ways, leading to variations in their response to policy change. For some, their identity as a scout leader transcends the U.S. context, aligning their deeply held beliefs and practice with the broadly defined espoused values of scouting on the global level. These Old Dogs are generative in their approach to program implementation and consistently link their

252 practice to the espoused values of scouting. Other Old Dogs define their social identity through their familiarity of practice in the local setting at the unit level or within their council. Social identity focuses these scout leaders on their comfort with the structure and method of the program, with a stronger connection to the BSA organization but less connection to the espoused values of scouting. These Old Dogs are focused on recreating past experiences in scouting, either as a youth member or in a scout leader role, which constrains their ability to adapt to new policies or organizational change in general.

Female and LGBTQ+ Practitioners describes scout leaders who have a history of marginalization within the BSA. This marginalization is a function of policies which restricted LGBTQ+ youth and adult participation, as well as girl participation as members in the BSA’s core programs, Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA (formerly Boy Scouts). By restricting girls as youth members, adult women who took on scout leader roles did not have the knowledge of the program and scout skills that many of their male counterparts developed as a youth. In the Scouts BSA program, which is oriented around scout skills, female leaders take on administrative roles limiting their ability to fully participate as a scout leader. Prevailing norms within local scout units influence the intensity of scout leader marginalization, with some units openly welcoming LGBTQ+ leaders and supporting females in scoutmaster roles for decades, while others continue to marginalize these scout leaders. The BSA’s reforming of these policies to allow girls and LGBTQ+ participation throughout the organization, it enabled female and LGBTQ+ scout leaders to emerge from the margins into fuller participation as scout leaders.

Shifts in Participation The new membership polices began formal implementation at the scout unit level between 2015 and 2019, starting first with policies lifting restrictions on LGBTQ+

253 members in 2015 and the policies allowing LGBTQ+ leaders and girls in Scouts BSA starting in 2017 and 2019 respectively. From that point Old Dogs and female and

LGBTQ+ practitioner roles are redefined through the CoPPE Matrix to reflect the different ways participants responded to changes to equity-oriented policies (Fig. 8.3).

Emergents are formerly marginalized scout leaders who are enabled by the new membership policies to emerge into fuller participation in the practice. Female and

LGBTQ+ scout leaders with program and scout skill knowledge, and whose identities are defined by their practice as a scout leader shift into change agent roles. As change agents, they provide leadership to the policy implementation process and aid other scout leaders in developing a consensus of understanding of the policies in reference to the espoused values of scouting.

One of the barriers to emerging from the margins is related to gaps in knowledge of the program and of scout skills. Female leaders are required for the implementation of the new girls membership policies, as they must be present when girls are participating in the program. With the Scouts BSA’s focus on learning scout skills and detailed processes that govern advancement in the program, many female leaders lack the foundation in scouting as a youth to feel comfortable moving from an administrative role into a scoutmaster or assistant scoutmaster role. This gap in knowledge and comfort leaves some female scout leaders to shift into the role of emergents. Emergents operate in the periphery and do not feel a complete sense of belonging, as their lack of comfort and knowledgeability of the program has an exclusionary effect.

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The Old Dogs’ responses to the policies are more varied than that of the marginalized scout leaders. The variability in their participation is related to how closely aligned their personal beliefs are to the new policies and to what extent the new policies affect their sense of belonging among their peers. Scout leaders whose identity is defined by their practice as a scout leader and their beliefs align with the new policies shift into change agent roles. Change agents provide leadership and guidance to the implementation process, and support other scout leaders in the process of negotiating their personal beliefs and identities with the values associated with the new policies.

Change agents provide a key function of capacity-building at the scout unit level that enables policy implementation that is well aligned with the espoused values of scouting.

Without a change agent in place, scout units avoid implementing the policies.

Policy avoiders are scout leaders who find themselves marginalized by the new policies. Despite collective marginalization, alignment of policy avoiders’ personal

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beliefs with the new policies varies greatly. For some the marginalization is related to

conflicts between deeply held beliefs and the new policies, or concerns about changing

the program in ways that make it unfamiliar and different from their experiences with

scouting. For others marginalization is a function of capacity and demand, with lack of

leadership, support and guidance within their scout unit and from the BSA driving the

decision to avoid implementation. This variability of motivation for policy avoidance

results in differences in their trajectories of participation over time.

Scout leaders who decide to leave the organization all together have deeply held

beliefs that are in conflict with the new membership policies. These beliefs may be

oriented around values which are associated with the policies, although they may be

related to their social identity as a scout leader which generally opposes any changes

beyond their lived experience in scouting. With either motivator, the scout leader is

unable to negotiate his beliefs with the policy, which leads to feelings of marginalization

and eventual leaving of the program.

Compartmentalizers are defined by their ability to compartmentalize their identity

as a negotiation tactic to allow them to participate in organizations that may have practices or values that conflict with their deeply held beliefs or identities. Scout leaders who rely on compartmentalization operate in the periphery in administrative or support roles. Staying in the periphery allows them to maintain their identity by controlling the ways and nature of their participation so as to avoid conflicts when policies or aspects of the program conflict with their personal beliefs.

Compartmentalizing scout leaders in this study define their identity through their conservative values and participation in Evangelical Christian Churches. Their social

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conservative identity conflicts with BSA policies that allow LGBTQ+ members and

leaders, requiring compartmentalizers to negotiate their participation. These scout leaders

compartmentalize their identities to allow their practice on the periphery. To facilitate

compartmentalization scout leaders create a framework of discernment where they

operationalize the values associated Scout Oath and Law to guide their decision-making

within the scouting setting. This process of relying on the espoused values of the

organization to guide decision-making is one that compartmentalizers refined through

their work in professional careers, avoiding the need for them to constantly negotiate

their identity and beliefs when it conflicted with corporate policies.

Compartmentalizers help to facilitate and participate in discussions among their

peers about the implementation of policies into practice. Their experience adopting

espoused organizational values to help negotiate their participation beyond the limitations

of their beliefs and identity is an asset to helping others build similar frameworks to

negotiate their beliefs in relation to policy. Compartmentalizers and change agents take

similar approaches to consensus-building around policies, and together are helpful to adaptive learners as they negotiate their participation in policy implementation.

Adaptive learners are scout leaders whose identities are closely aligned with their practice as a scout leader and the new membership policies require them to understand the ways that scouting defines their identities. Is their practice as a scout leader part of

their social identity or are the espoused values of scouting more deeply linked into their

identity? These scout leaders approach discernment of the policies with caution and

curiosity, open to the possibility of change in the way that they perceive the policies from

the first time they became aware of them until after implementation.

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Shifts in Trajectory Linking organizational roles to participation in policy implementation is

important to understanding the landscape of interactions and role-focused needs for support. More important, however, is noting the trajectory of participation, as it has implications for measuring aspects of successful implementation as well as enabling and constraining aspects of power and marginalization over time. Trajectories of participation are driven by practitioner learning. For those who are not learning in relationship to the new policies, or more likely have already learned what they need to function, they stay static. For others, learning empowers their participation. The trajectories of participation are variable, dependent on the types of interventions and supports provided by the organization or system. This variability enables organizational leaders to adjust interventions when needed to support implementation and practice that

aligns with the espoused values of the organization.

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The change in trajectories of participation for scout leaders focuses primarily on the emergents and adaptive learners (Fig. 8.4). Change agents and compartmentalizers have already edified their understandings of the program and policies, and related them successfully to their level of participation. Emergents and adaptive learners are in the midst of the learning process, and are making progress toward full participation.

Adaptive learners rely on both experience and discussions with peers to aid their acceptance of the policies. Discussions with peers, in particular with compartmentalizers and change agents, provided adaptive learners the framework linking the espoused values of scouting with their personal identity and beliefs. The framework then guides adaptive learners’ negotiation of participation in implementing the membership policies and openness to exploring the policies through practice. Together, practicing the policies manifest in their leading girls and LGBTQ+ scouts in programming, and peer exchange, lead adaptive leaders to change their beliefs about the policies. Adaptive learner trajectory toward full participation is supported in two ways. The peer support system within the scout unit enabled adaptive learners to expand their understanding of their beliefs and identity through the lens of the espoused values of scouting. This process brings their identity, which was already defined in some ways with their practice as a scout leader, more closely in line with the espoused values of scouting. Development of the framework which operationalizes the Scout Oath and Law in the decision-making processes of the program further predicts that their trajectory will continue toward alignment, belonging, and full participation.

Emergents trajectory also indicates general movement upward toward full participation, although it is less sure of the nature of belonging. The variability in the

259 emergents trajectory is related to their belongingness as scout leaders. Emergents belongingness skews toward inclusion within scout units who have chosen to implement the new policies – that is units who have started a girls troop and those who are supportive of LGBTQ+ members and leaders. The source of variability are tensions between policy avoiders and female and LGBTQ+ leaders, which primarily occur when scout units participate in summer camp or in programming at the district or council level.

The new membership policies have empowered emergent scout leaders to full participation, however the implementation of the policies do not have the same effect on emergents’ feeling of inclusion. For emergents who have limited or no interaction with policy avoiding scout leaders or units, their trajectories move toward alignment, inclusion and full participation. While they feel more included in the program, their avoidance of interaction outside of their scout unit limits their full participation.

Trajectories of emergents who have conflict within or beyond their scout units experience indicate unchanged or even regressing movement toward marginalization and exclusion. Emergents experiences of conflict with scout leaders related to girls in Scouts

BSA and LGBTQ+ and female leaders force trajectories toward marginalization despite organization-wide policies that support inclusion. Interventions by change agents, adaptive learners and compartmentalizers to protect an support emergents in times of conflict serve to move emergents toward inclusion. That these interventions are taking place also acts as an indicator that the inconsistent implementation of policies are disrupting the scout leader community of practice, a possible distress call for the BSA to intervene.

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Conflicts between avoiders and emergents inform the trajectory of those

participants, and also indicate a shift in boundaries of the scout leader CoP. Communities

of practice define their boundaries through engagement in a shared practice with

generally agreed upon methods and values (Wenger, 2006, p. 118). The new member

policies marked the repeal of a longtime practice of restricting membership to girls and

LGBTQ+ scouts and leaders. The reorientation of these policies toward non-

discrimination and accessibility notes a meaningful and substantial shift in the way the

BSA operationalizes its espoused values in the operation of its program. The BSA’s

structure and nature of the new member policies allow scout leaders to avoid many

aspects of the new policies, creating differences in scout leaders’ patterns of practice and

policy implementation.

The decision to adopt or avoid implementation of the policies forms lines of

distinction between the values and methods of practice, redefining the rules of practice

and leading scout leaders who oppose those rules to feel marginalized. Allowing scout

leaders to continue to operate in the margins, while opposing the newly established boundaries of the CoP are leading to the creation of a sub-CoP for policy avoiders. The

decision not to participate beyond the scout unit disconnects scout leaders from their

peers limiting learning that occurs through peer exchange. This is particularly true for

scout leaders who do not have formal volunteer roles at the district or council level.

Without intervention, conflict between avoiders and emergents will continue and the

avoiders CoP will become more insular, isolated, and disconnected from the broader

scout leader CoP.

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The design of this study focused primarily on scout units who implemented the girls member policy. With little evidence of formal implementation of the LGBTQ+ member and leader policies at the scout unit level, the trajectories of the policy avoiders are presumptive that implementation by policy avoiders will still occur. We know that not all policy avoiders are motivated by conflicts between personal identity and beliefs with the new membership policies. For many issues of capacity constrain the implementation of some policy avoiders. To the extent that those issues of capacity are resolved or the

BSA devises interventions to aid in capacity-building and implementation, policy avoiders trajectories can shift from the margins toward learning. Of course, for policy avoiders who are unable to negotiate their participation, BSA interventions that further restrict scout leaders from avoiding policy or require some level of acceptance of the policy may result in scout leaders deciding to leave the practice.

Opportunities for Intervention The BSA organization rollout of new membership policies has created concerns among its scout leaders, with some frustrated at the organization’s lumbering pace of change and others fearful that the policies will change the program in was that they deem unacceptable. The BSA’s commitment to autonomy of program delivery at the scout unit level has required a delicate approach to building racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ equity into a program that through the early 2000’s fought in the courts for the right to discriminate. What resulted is a top-down approach to implementing the policies with little accountability at the scout unit level to monitor fidelity of implementation with the policy goals. The BSA’s silence on accountability and allowing pathways for policy avoidance create an environment rife with conflict between policy avoiders and emergents.

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The BSA has several opportunities for intervention to support a more consistent

implementation of the new membership policies and address issues related to shifts of

power and marginalization. The interventions are related to providing opportunities for scout leader interaction and enhancements in training content and process. The robust nature of the training infrastructure in the BSA represents the easiest pathway to support the implementation process.

The scout unit The BSA’s focus on skills and knowledgeability of the scouting program and scout skills acts as barrier to participation among parents and female leaders in particular as they move into program-oriented roles. Shared knowledge among practitioners reifies the boundaries of practice and leads scout leaders to feel included.

Exclusion of scout leaders on the basis of their knowledge is most evident in large scout units with highly structured and formalized organizations and processes, who have access to the greatest pool of parents to recruited to be scout leaders.

The BSA should invest in developing online resources for female scout leaders to

orient them to the scouting program. Current trainings are functional in nature and focus on scout leaders understanding the function of their roles within the organization and issues related to youth safety. Trainings that include a limited focus on scout skills occurs through in-person trainings that are not required for leaders to participate. Traditional scouting focuses on camping, outdoors and environmental stewardship in a formal hierarchical team setting to teach character, citizenship, personal accountability and leadership skills. Absent are formal training processes specifically designed to fill the

knowledge gap for emergent female leaders to more quickly feel a sense of belonging

among peer scout leaders.

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The online training curricula should also be expanded to include

operationalization of the Scout Oath and Scout Law in the decision-making processes of

scout leaders. The operationalization of espoused values of the organization create clear

standards and expectation of behavior among scout leader. It also provides scout leaders

with a framework of discernment to help guide their negotiation of beliefs and identities

with their approaches to policy implementation. Introduction of the values-oriented framework of discernment will also support scout leaders with deeply held beliefs in conflict with BSA policies to shift into compartmentalizer roles over time. Providing scout leaders the tools and trainings to link the espoused values of scouting to decision- making will bring consistency to implementation across the organization.

Beyond training content is the importance of the processes of training. While online training had brought some consistency to the delivery of a consistent and safe curriculum, it supplants the interaction inherent in in-person trainings of the past.

Knowing the importance of peer exchange in the learning and sensemaking processes of practitioners, the BSA should reorient its trainings and scout leader development efforts to focus on peer interactions. These interactions, especially those beyond the scout unit, will help scout leaders to come to consensus of understanding of various aspects of program delivery and implementation.

In the online setting the BSA should incorporate interaction among scout leaders.

In the current online asynchronous environment this may mean incorporating facilitated contributions to message boards that require some comment and interaction among members. The facilitators could be drawn from current scout leaders who receive specialized training and have experience in facilitating online education. Synchronous

264 online learning would improve the quality of the scout leader learning and allow for courses to go more in-depth for leaders to continue learning beyond the fundamental elements where the BSA currently focuses. While the content in this setting may vary widely, the space could be used most productively to assist scout leaders in operationalizing the espoused values of scouting in both program and operational decisions.

Building on the interaction in the online setting, the BSA should develop processes and recommendations to encourage scout leader interaction in in-person settings. These recommendations can be included in the functional trainings currently in place, and suggest semi-structured knowledge transfer through mentor relationships within and between scout units. For example, linking adaptive learners and emergents for the purpose of teaching scout skills and orienting new leaders to the program will support emergents’ feelings of belonging and enable adaptive learner opportunities to practice with in the new policy environment. Identification and empowerment of change agents among scout leaders for various types of policies will enable the BSA to be strategic in the ways that implementation and interaction are supported by volunteers.

These interventions notably do not focus on functional accountability for implementation. While formal accountability measures would improve the consistency and fidelity of implementation, it would require a substantial shift of the BSA’s structure of oversight and involvement at the scout unit level. With this type of organizational and cultural shift unlikely, interventions presented here focus on expanding already existing infrastructures.

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That said, developing a process and framework to empower members to self- police would provide a new level of accountability, especially as it pertains to addressing scout leader behaviors that are misaligned with the espoused values of scouting. This process would require the BSA to more clearly define criteria for scout leader conduct in a way that links behaviors with the espoused values of scouting and establishes accepted processes for scout leaders to intervene when problematic behavior is observed. If adopted, this accountability measure would require formal processes to manage policing as well as trainings that address various approaches to addressing conduct issues among scout leaders.

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Chapter 9

Implications This study provides us new insights into the ways that practitioner beliefs and policy change relate to one another. These insights have implications on our understanding of the fallout that occurs within a community of practice when practitioners are unable to construct a shared understanding of new policies. In addition, it also presents a new understanding of how the espoused value of organizations relate to practitioner willingness to implement policy. Finally, it provides justification for the expanded use of an education policy conceptual framework to better explain variability in implementation in nonformal education organizations.

Diversity in Practitioner-oriented Organizations The importance of this study is best defined by its contribution to the study of

organizational dynamics and the guidance it provides to organizational leaders

understand the forces at play as the composition of organization membership becomes

more diverse and marginalized members are empowered to emerge into full practice.

The findings are most directly applicable to organizations that engage practitioners as

volunteers, employees, or affiliates from a diversity of fields. These practitioner fields

include, but are not limited to, youth development, education, medicine, outpatient

mental health, and clergy.

This study’s focus on the emergence of LGBTQ+ and female practitioners from

the margins and into full participation in the community speaks directly to the notion of

diversity from the perspective of protected classes. i.e. race, religion, gender, disability,

etc. The findings from this study apply beyond the concept of protected class when

considering the relationship between marginalization, policy reform, and changes in

267 membership of a community of practice. Marginalization will vary from field to field and among practitioners, oriented around characteristics such as educational attainment, job title, marital status, accreditation, approach to practice, etc.

This study’s design is centered on the perspective of the practitioner, generating findings that are oriented around organizational interventions and systemic approaches to support practitioners. This design acknowledges the value of the practitioner by making them the focal-point for organizations to support their participation in the practice.

Findings from this study tell us much about the ways increases in diversity in practitioner communities and the implementation of equity-oriented policies affect practitioner behavior. This study provides a framework to guide organizational leaders’ policy-planning decision-making that is sensitive to practitioner participation and the diversification within a community of practitioners.

The findings guide the creation of systemic organizational interventions that support practitioners based on their roles and patterns of practice within the community.

This approach to intervention is stabilizing for practitioner communities, by acknowledging the different needs of practitioners based on their status within the community and how shifts in organizational policy or community diversity affect their perception of belonging in the community. This approach provides organizational leaders insights into the types of interventions needed to support practitioners to move toward full participation in their practice, and to provide a mode of exit for those practitioners unwilling or unable to adapt to the shifts toward equity and diversity.

Importantly, the findings from this study serve as a guide for the BSA as it considers how to support shifts in diversity among its volunteer scout leaders. This study

268 provides insights into how longtime scout leaders, coined “old dogs” in this study, respond to shifts in membership composition and empowerment of marginalized members. Equity-oriented policies are empowering females and LGBTQ+ scout leaders to emerge into program-oriented leadership roles for the first time in the BSA’s history.

The policies and subsequent emergence of these new scout leaders is increasing the diversity of full participants in scout leader community of practice, resulting in some

“old dogs” questioning their sense of belonging in the organization.

These findings are especially important to the BSA for several reasons. First, the findings from this study provide the BSA a systemic framework to support the organization’s planning and implementation of equity-oriented policies. Second, they provide a reflective evaluation of the BSA’s infrastructure and policy environment and offers strategic policy reform considerations related to the BSA’s approach to building and defining relationships with chartered organizations and adaptations to scout leader training methods and curricula. Third, the findings provide insights into areas of intervention that would help to support emerging LGBTQ+ and female scout leaders through new approaches to knowledge transfer and training, as well as emphasis on improving their sense of belonging within the organization. Fourth, the study provides guidance on the BSA’s approach to supporting longtime scout leaders’ acceptance of equity-oriented policies and emerging female and LGBTQ+ scout leaders. This guidance offers considerations for increased opportunities for structured and meaningful peer exchange beyond the scout unit and inclusion of equity-oriented policies governing scout leader behavior. The final finding of importance to the BSA is the policy evaluation framework to aid the policy planning and rollout process in the future. The CoPPE

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Matrix will be especially helpful to the BSA as the organization positions itself to increase membership among youth and adults of color, particularly within the growing

Latinx population.

Community of Practice Policy Evaluation Matrix As organizations respond to the Black Lives Matter movement and recent

Supreme Court rulings moving toward LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Civil Rights Act as a protected class, many are called to revisit their equity-oriented policies and practices.

Shifting toward equity may require organizations to reform policies to motivate new patterns of practice among their employees and volunteers. Equity-minded reforms may challenge the deeply held beliefs of employees and volunteers in these organizations.

Shift toward equity has implications for practitioners across a variety of service- oriented fields who use credentialing and training as primary means of insuring consistency and allow practitioners to operate with discretion in their roles to implement policies. These fields include professionals such as teachers, school administrators, clergy, medical doctors, and outpatient mental health practitioners. It also includes practicing volunteers responsible for delivering programming for organizations such as 4-

H, Big Brother/Big Sister, Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts of America, and Girl Scout of the U.S.A.

Practitioners with deeply held beliefs oriented around social conservatism may find it difficult to practice their roles fully. These beliefs require them to negotiate their personal beliefs with the values associated with new policies or practice expectations.

Some practitioners with deeply held beliefs that conflict with new policy values rely on the espoused values of the organization to guide their implementation. Inability to reconcile personal beliefs with organizational policies brings practitioners decide to leave

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the organization or practice or to search out pathways to avoid implementing new

policies and practice. For practitioners whose values align with equity-oriented policies,

they have the opportunity to take on new leadership roles within their organization or

community of practitioners oriented toward implementation. Practitioners who do not

have deeply held beliefs that conflict with policy values, yet are not initially supportive of

policy changes, require systemic support from the organization and peer practitioners to

help them refine their beliefs to align with the new policies.

This study operationalizes Wenger’s (2006) Communities of Practice (CoP) to

create the CoP Policy Evaluation Matrix (CoPPE Matrix), a tool developed for policy evaluation within a practitioner-oriented organization. The CoPPE Matrix addresses practitioner beliefs, belonging, and participation to aid organizations in both anticipating challenges in policy implementation and evaluating the implementation process.

Integrated into the policy implementation and program evaluation process, this matrix provides organizations a tool to identify tensions among practitioners that may lead to unintended consequences of policy reform. The Matrix works well in practitioner- oriented fields that include medicine, education, outpatient mental health, and religion, where practitioners are well connected to one another outside of their local practice-sites.

The CoPPE Matrix maps out practitioner alignment of practitioner beliefs with

policies and their belonging within in the community of practice to better understand

individual roles in the implementation process, and to help identify organizational

interventions to support implementation. The Matrix provides a solid foundation for

organizations to anticipate the ways that proposed policies will affect practitioners’

271 participation and barriers to implementation. It also provides insights into patterns of marginalization and empowerment that are affected by policy change.

Disruption of Learning Communities Recent Supreme Court rulings moving toward LGBTQ+ inclusion as a protected class and the Black Lives Matter movement create an environment that motivates organizations to revisit issues of equity in their governance and culture. Concerns about the quality and consistency of practitioner implementation require organizations to focus on developing new ways to measure successful implementation. For practitioners with deeply held beliefs that conflict with equity-oriented policy reform, faithful implementation requires peer and organizational supports. Organizations revisiting equity issues must consider different approaches to monitoring and enforcing existing policies and entering into an equity-oriented phase of policy reform.

This section provides insights into how the implementation of values-laden policies disrupt organizations from the standpoint of practitioner participation in implementation with regard to shifts of power and conflicts between practitioners emerging from the margins and those who are avoiding policies. Organizations and systems that rely on practitioners to implement policy may find these disruptions of most interests, although organizations who consider themselves learning-oriented will find value in the relationship between policy, implementation, and employee learning. The important broad implications focus on changing practitioner beliefs and linking that process to organizational interventions.

Changing Practitioner Beliefs Organizational changes to implementing equity-oriented policies requires practitioners to revisit and possibly change their beliefs about practice. The willingness of

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practitioners to change their beliefs about practice affects the fidelity of policy

implementation. Not all practitioners will come to change their beliefs about practice and

those who will require systemic support.

Practitioners come to change their beliefs about practice through consensus-

building among peers and through the action of practice. The equity-nature of policy reform reaches beyond professional beliefs into practitioners’ personal beliefs, identity and experiences related to equity. Practitioners whose personal beliefs about equity conflict with policies rely on the espoused values of the organization to guide their process of negotiating alignment of personal beliefs with the values associated with policy change. While peer interaction to develop consensus of values is well known to enable policy implementation (Colbert & Talbert, 2006; Copland, 2003; Byrk &

Schneider, 2003; Smylie & Evans, 2006), there is a paucity of research that relates organizational values to practitioner sensemaking.

The interconnectedness between peer exchange, practice and clearly defined espoused organizational values is important to practitioners changing beliefs. To the extent practitioners adopt the espoused values of organization as their own or rely on to guide decision making, helps to align implementation and adaptation more closely to organizational values. This is especially important when organizational values are in conflict with prevailing social norms of the community or within the locally bound organization. This adds a new layer to understanding of fidelity of policy implementation where espoused organizational values take on greater meaning and purpose. An informal framework linking the espoused organizational values to the implementation of equity- oriented policies guides peer exchange. Practitioners willing to explore alignment of the

273 policy with their personal beliefs shifted their perceptions of the policy from opposition to curiosity, which led them to incorporate policies into practice.

Systemic Support Implementing equity-oriented change requires organizations to tune into the power dynamics at play among their employees and volunteers and supporting the implementation process through a systemic approach. Equity-oriented policies enable formerly marginalized practitioners, such as women, those who identify as LGBTQ+, and people of color, emerge to take on formal leadership roles in the organization and participate more fully in their peer learning communities. Allowing practitioners to avoid implementation of the policies or to practice in ways not aligned with the intent or values associated with the policies creates opportunities for conflict between implementing and avoiding practitioners.

Organizations can support the faithful implementation of equity-oriented policies and avoid conflict among practitioners through a systemic approach to change.

Organizations should limit practitioner pathways to policy avoidance, which will vary from organization to organization and policy to policy. Practitioner refinement of their understandings of policies and how to implement occurs through peer exchange. It is important for organizations to foster interaction among practitioners through informal networks.

Espoused organizational values play an important role in practitioner approaches to policy implementation, the fidelity of that implementation, and practitioner learning in the community environment. Establishing a consistent framework that orients peer discussions around the espoused value of the organization enabled practitioners to more easily come to consensus on the application of shared values and aligned their

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implementation with the espoused values of the organization. This link between espoused

organizational values and implementation behaviors is helpful in the implementation of

equity-oriented operational policies, which affect program delivery or practice but are not

directly related to curriculum or program outcomes. The link to organizational values is

especially helpful in systems which are tightly coupled operational standpoint, but

loosely coupled at the delivery level, enabling practitioners to adapt delivery in ways that

are not aligned with espoused organizational values.

The following organizational interventions support a systemic approach to enable

broad, faithful implementation of policies. Operationalizing espoused organizational

values requires clearly linking desired approaches to implementation to policy values and

shared practitioner beliefs. To accomplish this organizations should look to provide

support through both formal and informal channels that focus on practitioner learning.

Formal trainings that facilitates the use of a discernment framework enables practitioners

to negotiate conflicts between personal beliefs and espoused values and personal.

Organizations can help to improve fidelity to implementation through training practices

that encourage peer exchange. Interaction among peers outside of their work units or

work sites helps to bring organization-wide consistency to shared perceptions of policy

implementation. Linking practitioners whose beliefs are well aligned with

organizational values with practitioners emerging from the margins helps to connect

marginalized participants to the core community of practitioners and facilitate the transfer

of knowledge.

The Study of Nonformal Education In addition to developing the CoPPE Matrix tool, this study also demonstrates the successful application of a social-learning framework in a new setting. The sensemaking

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and community of practice framing are applied to formal education research, with little

application in the realms of nonformal and informal education. This study applies a

layered framework of sensemaking and CoP concepts to a national nonformal youth

development organization to explore policy implementation at the practitioner level. The

promise of this study’s findings show potential for the expanded use of this framework to

study other large national and international education organizations, especially those who

rely on volunteers for program delivery.

The study’s framework blends organizational theory, educational policy and

practice literature to help explain variations in program implementation in nonformal

educational settings. While this framework is well developed in the study of formal

education, its use in the study of nonformal education has not been as prevalent. The

desire to deliver consistent and faithful education in the multileveled environment of

formal education in the U.S. motivated education scholars to explore the relationship

between policy and practice in the classroom. The study of nonformal education tends to

decouple the relationship between organizational dynamics and program outcomes,

leaving the field to focus evaluating program efficacy. This framework acknowledges the

indisputable connection between organizational dynamics and fidelity of implementation,

bringing both aspects of analysis into conversation with one another to provide a broader

context for the purpose of program evaluation.

The evaluation of nonformal education programming tends to be focused on

organizational control of implementation through policy and curriculum. For educational programs developed in the modern era, the evaluation process is included in the curriculum development process enabling a feedback loop to drive systemic change in the

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organization. For organizations that have been delivering educational programs since the early and mid-20th century, known as “practice programs” (Durlak, 1998), program

evaluation is a complex and expensive process which affects the frequency and quality

the evaluation process.

Educational practice programs are recognizable and ubiquitous in the U.S. and

around the world with the most familiar focused on youth development. ex. Boy Scouts,

Girls Scouts/Guides, 4-H, YMCA, Big Brother/Big Sister, Boys and Girls Clubs. These

youth-focused practice programs rely heavily on volunteer practitioners to deliver

programming. Variations in implementation are more difficult to predict and control in

organizations who rely on volunteer practitioners to deliver education programming

(Durlak, 1998).

A typical approach to evaluate nonformal education programs is through an input-

output approach, which monitors the change in participant learning through pre and post

testing. This focus on curriculum to monitor successful program implementation avoids

the messiness of the implementation process, focusing on “teacher proofing” curricula

through policies. McLaughlin’s assertion that “you can’t mandate what matters” (1991)

underscores what we know to be important, that to effectively address issues of change in

the broad education field, we need to focus on how practitioners make sense of and

develop a shared understanding of policy.

This framework helps to untangle and simplify the complexities of large national

and international educational organizations. These organizations often have robust

organizational structures, a diverse range of partnerships, a blend of professional and

volunteer practitioners, and an abundance of local program delivery sites. This

277

framework orients the study of education-related organizations toward systemic approaches to improving program and policy implementation. This study provides justification for bringing organizational dynamics into conversation with the processes of implementation and practice in the nonformal education setting. By relating the top of the organization to the bottom it enables a more thorough evaluation of the ways changes in policy relate to variability in implementation.

This approach is especially valuable in the study of large traditional “practice programs”. Many of these organizations rely on volunteer practitioners to deliver programming and implement policy at the local level. The systemic approach executed in this study acknowledges the importance of the volunteer practitioner in program delivery and brings a deeper understanding of their role in adapting curricula and policies at the local level. The approach provides insights into the ways nonformal educational organizations understand the connection between operational decision-making and educational functioning, and encourages alignment between the two. This alignment helps to orient organizational change toward their educational mission, helping them to anticipate how operational policy decisions disrupt or enable educational processes and practitioner networks, and the relationship to variability in the implementation of the program curriculum.

278

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295

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Appendix A

Excerpt of Charter & Bylaws of the BSA

297

298

Appendix B

Excerpt of Rules & Regulations of the BSA

299

300

Appendix C

Scout Leader Code of Conduct

301

Appendix D

Chartered Organization Agreement

302

303

Appendix E

Scout Leader Survey

304

305

306

Appendix F

Semi-Structured Interview Protocol

307

Appendix G

Observation Checklist

308

Appendix H

Codebook Nodes Contextual Elements Charter Org Effects Funding Effects Religious Effects Communication Effects Chain of Command Need for Training Positive Training Effects Roundtable Competition Effects Girl Scout Competition Other youth activities competition Media Effects Organizational Effects Peer Effects Gender Bias Leader conflict with elements policy Implementation Align Policy and Essential Elements Misalignment Policy and Essential Elements Traditional and Independent Personal Belief Statements Conflict Personal Beliefs and Program Difficulty implementing consistently Inclusion Belief No experience with conflicts between beliefs and programs Youth Closed to sharing Program Elements Character-building Family Oriented Group Learning Leadership Mastery Outdoor Sustainability Respecting others Teamwork Youth adult Approach Alternative to Parents Essential Elements Centered Guide from Behind - learn from mistakes Long term relationship Mentoring Safe Environment

VITA

G. ERIC MCGINNIS

SUMMARY I am an interdisciplinary education researcher with extensive experience in academic publishing, formal and nonformal teaching, community development, program implementation & evaluation, and grant writing and major gift fundraising. I have a strong sense of self and a relationship-focused approach to leadership, teaching, and mentorship which helps me to be effective working in diverse and complex environments. Through a variety of roles, I have become adept at creating content for and teaching in resident and online settings, public speaking, facilitating group discussions, and developing promotions via web, print, email, video and social media. As a skilled relationship-builder with higher education leadership and community-development experience, I excel at engaging teams of leaders with diverse interests and motivations to work together to reach shared goals.

EDUCATION Ph.D. Educational Theory and Policy & Comparative and International Education The Pennsylvania State University | University Park, PA | 2020 Advisor: Dana L. Mitra M.P.S. in Community and Economic Development The Pennsylvania State University | University Park, PA | 2010 Co-Advisors: Theodore Alter & Diane McLaughlin B.S. in Business Management and Organization The Pennsylvania State University | University Park, PA | 1998 Advisor: James Thomas

SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2009-present Lead Consultant and Founder McGinnis Strategic Consulting | Lemont, PA | www.McginnisFundraising.weebly.com 2017-2020 Managing Editor American Journal of Education | University of Chicago Press | www.journals.uchicago.edu/aje 2016-2018 Development Coordinator Bob Perks Cancer Assistance Fund | State College, PA | www.bobperksfund.org 2004-2015 Associate Director of Development & Major Gift Officer Penn State Extension & 4-H (2007-2015) | University Libraries (2004-2007) | Penn State University

SELECTED REFEREED PUBLICATIONS 2018 LeTendre, G., McGinnis, G.E., Mitra, D., Montgomery, R., & Pendola, A. (2018). The American Journal of Education: Challenges and Opportunities in Translational Science and the Grey Area of Academic Publishing. Revista Espanola de Pedagogia, 76(271), 413-435.

SELECTED REFEREED CONFERENCE PAPERS 2020 McGinnis, G.E. (2020, April). The Flavor of Scouting: Volunteer Adaptations of Youth Programing in Times of Change. American Education Research Association Annual Meeting. (online) 2019 McGinnis, G.E. (2019, April). World Scouting and Youth Activism: a pilot study. Comparative and International Education Society, San Francisco, CA. 2018 McGinnis, G.E. & Pendola, A. (2018, April). Exploring Government Stability Factors and the World Scouting Movement. Comparative and International Education Society, Mexico City, Mexico.

AWARDS & HONORS 2013 National Communicator Award, National Association of Extension 4-H Agents 1992 Eagle Scout