An Explanatory Study of Student Classroom Behavior As It Influences the Social System of the Classroom

72- 4431* BRODY, Celeste Mary, 1945- AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENT CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR AS IT INFLUENCES THE SOCIAL SYSTEM OF THE CLASSROOM. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Education, theory and practice University Microfilms, XEROXA Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENT CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR AS IT INFLUENCES THE SOCIAL SYSTEM OF THiS CLASSROOM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Celeste Mary Brody, B.A., M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by PLEASE NOTE: Some Pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS VITA March 25, 1945. Born - Oceanside, California 1966................. B.A., The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 1966-1968........... Teacher, Secondary English, Uarcellus Central Schools, Marcellus, New York 1969.................. M.A., Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 1969-1971............. Teaching Associate, Department of Curriculum and Foundations, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIEIDS OF STUDY Major Field: Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education Studies in Instruction. Professor John B. Hough Studies in Teacher Education. Professor Charles M. Galloway Studies in Communications. Professor Robert R. Monaghan 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page VITA ........................................ ii LIST OF TABLES................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ................................. iv Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION............................. 1 Statement of Problem.................. 1 Background............................. 3 Definition of Terms .................. 7 Data Gathering Framework............. 12 Significance of the Study ........... 14 Limitations of the Study............. 16 II. REVIEW OF LITURATURE .................... 18 Schoo 1-Student Relationships......... 18 Research Related to Hethodology ... 21 III. HETHODOLOGY............... 34 Population. .................... 36 P r o c e d u r e ............................. 38 Analysis of Data...................... 58 IV. PRESENTATION OF D A T A ................... 64 Part I: All Saints School........... 64 The Setting......................... 64 The Organization of the School . 65 The Organization of the Class. 6 8 The G r o u p s ......................... 85 The Class........................... 100 Part II: Onondaga Junior-Senior High School............. 1 1 4 The Setting......................... 114 The Organization of the School . 116 Page The Organization of the Class . , 121 The Groups. ................... 131 The C l a s s .........................* 142 V. ANALYSIS OF DATA..................... 150 Introduction ........................... 150 F i n d i n g s ............................... 155 Conceptual Significance of the F i n d i n g s .......................... 182 Implications for Further Research. 189 Summary............................ 191 APPENDIX A .......................................... 194 ......................................... 204 BIBLIOGRAPHY 218 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Summary of Time Spent in Observation and Number of Students Involved ........... 35 2. Teacher's Grouping of Students According to "Reliability ................. *32 3. Ranking by Students According to Their Choice of "Good Student".................... 148 ill LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The Developmental Process of Model Building................................... 60 2. Class Arrangement of Eighth Grade .... 70 3. Class Arrangement of Eighth Grade .... 71 4. Class Arrangement in the Resource Center Eighth Grade............................... 75 5. Social Organization of Eighth Grade . 89 6. Seating Arrangement of Seventh Grade. 125 7. Social Organization of Seventh Grade. 134 8. Model of Role Integration at All Saints School..................................... 160 9. Model of Role Disintegration at Onondaga School..................................... 169 10. Integration of Elements at All Saints School and Resulting Social System. 178 11. Nonintegration of Elements of Onondaga School andthe Resulting Effect .......... 181 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Statement of Problem A recent surge of writings has accused American schools of being little more than boring and bureaucratic centers for conformity and places where creativity is killed and passivity is reinforced.1 Critics say that many children are often not learning what is expected in the classroom— instead, they are daydreaming, interacting with friends, clock watching, waiting, and literally dropping out. How ever, as Parsons points out in his discussion of two actors in the same social situation: The same actor does not operate in both capacities in the same relationship from the same orientation point of reference.* Hence, the critics may be guilty of the same offence as the teachers they criticize. Critics assume, Just as do teachers, that they, not students, are the correct deflners of student classroom situations. However, neither school people nor critics have presented a great deal of specific evidence to describe the ways students spend their time in ^For examples of such critics, see John Holt(p.18)> Edgar Frledenberg (p.19), and Jonathan Kozol (p.20). 2 Talcott, Parsons, The Social System (London: Collier Hcliillan Ltd., 195lj, p. 5"! the classroom. For the most part, work done in the area of studying student classroom behavior by both critics and teachers has analyzed or described the student as a learner, by assessing his achievement, habits, and attitudes related to learning in his official student situation, or others have concen trated on that student behavior which occurs in the class room and which has little to do with the official student role such as "fooling around," not paying attention," or "dropping out." In sum, both teachers and critics have of ten treated elements of classroom behavior as a series of disconnected and disparate acts. The assumption on which this project is based, however, is that instead of looking at pieces of classroom activities as discrete entities, they should be regarded holistically, that is, as they re late to each other, the students, the teacher, the school environment, indeed, everything and everyone else in the classroom. Therefore, using the conceptual framework of func- 3 tional analysis, this project will attempt, on the basis of observations and interviews in two separate classrooms to (1 ) describe as many student behavioral patterns as possible, (2 ) classify these into a series of roles, norms, and sets ^For a more extended discussion of functional analy sis see Robert K. Herton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957) of behaviors, both officially approved and those officially disapproved, and (3) attempt to explain how those various elements interact to creat an entire classroom social system. Background Parsons defines a social system as ...a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a phy sical or environmental aspect, actors who are moti vated in terms of a tendency to the optimization of gratification and whose relation to their situations, including each other's is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols.^ That is, as individuals interact with one another in the same situation they construct a set of shared symbols or under standings, or roles and role expectations. As these become commonly understood, they develop a reality all their own. They become institutionalized. Institutions occur whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors. They control human conduct. Roles are representations of an institutional order that defines their character and from which they derive their objective sense. An institution has meaning only as it is realized in per forming roles. As Girth and Hills suggest An institution is an organization of roles, one or more of which is understood to serve the mainte- 4 Parsons, The Social System, pp. 5-6. 5 Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City: Doubleday and do, Inc., 1 96?) , p. 5?^ nance of the total set of roles.6 Therefore, the assumption underlying this research is that the maintenance and preservation of an institution or social system depends upon the successful learning and play ing of roles on the part of all involved. In reference to the student role, Smith and Geoffrey in Complexities of an Urban Classroom called this phenomenon "grooving: achieving clarity in the role," which theoretically develops a belief system within the pupil group. A belief is a generalized perception of what exists, while a norm is a generalized or group expectation of what ought to exist. As Geoffrey Tthe teacherj made the class rules clear, he was dealing with belief systems; as he tried to build an emotional commit ment on the part of the children to these beliefs, he was engaged in the more complex task of shaping normative structure.7 In the classroom it is the student's job to learn the requirements of the role of student and it is the teacher's job to insure that the requirements become part of the stu dent's belief system. This eliminates rewards for compli ance as well as punishments for noncompliance. It becomes understood that there are certain behaviors which signify that one is a student and there are certain

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