“There's no back seat here”: A narrative case study of what influences parent stakeholder participation on a school engaged on educational reform

• Main Author: Armstrong, Katharine Madeline
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2004
• Subjects: American studies; Social structure; Social studies education
• ISBN: 049679700X; 9780496797004

This qualitative study explored stakeholders in the process of creation and sustaining of a heterarchical organization founded on the concepts of collaboration, inclusion and equality of voice. The specific stakeholder group interviewed for this study was the parent stakeholders in a site-based charter school. The question that framed the study was “What influences parent stakeholder participation in a school engaged in educational reform?” In the review of the literature, the search began in three areas of organizations: organizations of the shape and integrity of the (studied) charter school organization, in stakeholder theory, and in education for parents as acknowledged organizational stakeholders. Because of the nature and the direction the study took, the literature of transformation was also explored. The original methodological triangulation, i.e., observation, interviews and archival data, morphed into a prism, with the addition of other methodologies. The study was conceived as a multidisciplinary, multiperspectival study theoretically based on Social Constructionism and deeply influenced by Appreciative Inquiry. Because of the global, inclusive, rather than perceptibly black and white, nature of qualitative research, elements of narrative inquiry, heuristics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and relational responsibility were also utilized. Data were collected at the Santa Barbara Charter School, Charter Middle School, and Home-Based Partnership. Central to the study are the interviews with parent stakeholders. These interviews were analyzed through several compatible lenses, most usefully Peter Weeks' (personal communication, Appendix H) “clotheslining” technique. Both overarching and embedded in the study were the themes of change and transformation possible when stakeholders collaborate to create new organizations and possible futures. The study found 10 characteristics in the creation and/or sustaining of this organization that influenced (parent) stakeholder participation: caring, clear communication, commitment, creativity, energy, flexibility-porosity, inclusiveness, voice, and willingness to collaborate. These characteristics, or traits, were extrapolated from the interview process, through the lens stated above. What grew from the study, primarily because of the influence of Appreciative Inquiry, is the question of possibilities. Is it possible that the characteristics imbued in this successful organization could be sought, encouraged and embodied by another similar or start-up organization? Is it possible that these characteristics might add to the theoretical as well as support the practical? And, finally, are there transformational possibilities in previously created organizations?