on behavior and academics in their conceptualization of classroom management, some teachers also emphasized the importance of building relationships, establishing a safe environment in the
classroom, and adapting to students’ needs and interests. These “more relational” classroom managers still relied on behavioral systems and managed classrooms in ways that emphasized academic content, but, more than other teachers, they prioritized the relational aspects in managing the classroom. Specifically, case participants described the importance of building relationships with students, adjusting behavioral systems (e.g., consequences), and using management practices to meet students’ needs. These relational beliefs coincide with previous studies that indicate teachers had beliefs about establishing a cooperative environment based on nurturing student relationships and positive interactions (Bondy et al., 2007; Walker, 2008; Martin et al., 1997; Freiberg & Lamb, 2009; Freiberg, 1999). In fact, my results replicate findings from Bondy and associates (2007) in that teachers in both studies similarly described classroom management as creating a safe environment and building relationships. My results extend these findings by indicating that it may not be unusual for beginning urban teachers to hold relational beliefs. Bondy and associates (2007) selectively recruited three effective novice urban teachers that they felt exhibited this understanding of classroom management. By contrast, I looked across first year CERT teachers and found that they often held relational beliefs, though some, more than others, emphasized these beliefs.
More relational classroom managers' tactics also appear to correspond with several effective classroom management approaches described in previous research. For example, CERT teachers built relationships with students, consistent with the numerous studies suggesting the importance of implementing this action to manage the classroom (Banks, 2014; de Jong et al., 2014; Sun, 2014; Bondy et al., 2007; Balli et al., 2011; Milner & Tenore, 2010; van Tartwijk et al., 2009). My analyses extend prior work by demonstrating some particular ways that beginning teachers built relationships in urban classrooms, such as spending time during and after class getting to know their students personally and sharing about their own lives outside of school. More relational classroom managers also tended to care about the positive development of their students by teaching life lessons and establishing a supportive community throughout the classroom, consistent with previous research (Watson & Battistich, 2006; Tiene, 1987; Emmer & Stough, 2001). Ms. Babkin was most notable in
136 how she sometimes shared life lessons to manage student disruptions and consistently showed signs of care for her students, appealing to their socio-emotional needs in order to prevent further
misbehavior. While this strategy may have taken away from some instructional time, she thought it could help to better manage students.
Results from my study contribute to the prior literature by highlighting a relational strategy that more relational beginning teachers used to create positive interactions and enhance instruction: managing the physical arrangement of the classroom. Teachers often discussed and implemented this strategy as a way to promote positive student-student and teacher-student interactions for socio- emotional or academic purposes. Mr. Vante, for instance, changed his seating and desk arrangement constantly, depending on how he wanted to interact with his students or the activity that he had for the students. Though prior literature has suggested managing the physical environment is important for effective classroom management (Ahrentzen & Evans, 1984; Weinstein, 1977), these studies exclusively focused on the behavioral impacts of managing the physical arrangement (e.g., stops talking, reduces distractions) as compared to teachers in this study who highlighted other impacts on the classroom. Teachers, in fact, managed the physical environment for multiple purposes in order to address various aspects of the classroom (e.g., relational). Given that these previous studies are thirty years old and focused only on elementary classrooms, my work extends these findings by documenting the importance of this strategy in contemporary and secondary classrooms.
Another important finding in my study is that case participants who reported more relational classroom management beliefs tended to use more relational classroom management actions. For example, Mr. Vante consistently talked about the need to create positive interactions as a way to manage the classroom and was seen trying to make the environment a space where students felt comfortable and were encouraged to communicate positively with one another and with him. This finding indicates a connection between how teachers think about and enact classroom management in regards to the relational aspects of classroom management. My research builds on findings from Eveyik-Aydin and colleagues (2009), who found that one university teacher had beliefs and used actions corresponding to establishing a cooperative environment. My study contributes by reproducing findings from prior work and extends these findings in two ways. First, my study investigated multiple teachers and their beliefs and actions, offering further support to the
connection between relational beliefs and actions. Second, my research investigates teachers at the elementary and secondary level rather than at the post-secondary level, suggesting that K-12 urban teachers also have relational orientations.
137 Finally, my study provides evidence that more relational classroom management approaches are associated with better quality teaching. Specifically, results from regression models indicate that teachers who reported relational classroom management beliefs received better evaluation scores of teaching performance compared to teachers who did not report relational beliefs. This finding extends prior research that suggests teachers with more relational orientations to management had students with better academic achievement and social competence (Djigic & Stojiljkovic, 2011; Walker, 2008), by providing more reliable statistical evidence for this relationship. Djigic and Stojiljkovic (2011) collected 278 surveys and used ANOVA to demonstrate that teachers who had more cooperative beliefs about classroom management were correlated with higher academic achievement scores. A concern about their approach is whether their use of student achievement appropriately estimates teachers’ contributions to achievement. In other words, the differences they observed could be due to the sorting of certain kinds of students (e.g., higher achieving) to certain kinds of teachers (e.g., those with cooperative beliefs). Rather than capture differences in teacher quality, they may be capturing differences in the students being taught. My study uses a more direct measure of teaching quality: observational evaluations. Additionally, my HLM models have
advantages over ANOVA in that they account for the nested structure of the data and allow me to adjust for covariates like school level.
Perhaps, the positive outcomes associated with a relational orientation found throughout my study were a result of teachers addressing student needs and “leveraging” relationships in urban classrooms. Prioritizing a relational orientation would align with how Greene (2008; 2010) recommends teachers should approach management. The author believes that when recurrent misbehavior is consistently managed through behavioral means (e.g., consequences), teachers are mismanaging students. The author advocates for teachers to understand that students may have underdeveloped behavioral skills and should instead learn about the student and his/her needs (i.e., taking a relational approach) in order to get towards the root of the disciplinary issue and help them to socio-emotionally develop to be better behaved. For instance, a teacher could talk to a student about why he/she threw a tantrum rather than automatically administer a consequence for misbehavior. This approach would foster a positive relationship with the student and possibly address a larger behavioral issue that could account for more positive outcomes that a more behavioral approach would not provide.
It is important to note here that, in my programmatic analyses, relational beliefs were confounded with having more comprehensive beliefs, so I cannot disentangle these constructs.
138 From my programmatic analyses, teachers who reported relational beliefs also had comprehensive beliefs (behavioral, academic, and relational); by contrast, teachers who did not report relational beliefs reported only behavioral and/or academic beliefs, thus being categorized as less
comprehensive. Because having relational beliefs in my programmatic analyses corresponded with having comprehensive beliefs, it is also possible that the observed relationship between relational beliefs and stronger observational evaluations (found throughout my HLM analyses) is actually a relationship between having comprehensive beliefs and higher observational evaluations.
Even so, my case study analyses indicated that participants shared beliefs and used actions related to all aspects of classroom management; that is, all teachers were in some sense
“comprehensive.” While case participants had multidimensional approaches to managing
classrooms, a distinguishing feature was the degree to which they prioritized relational dimensions in managing classrooms. Less relational classroom managers still had relational beliefs and actions but did not appear to prioritize managing the relational aspects of the classroom, putting this aspect in the “background.” On the other hand, more relational classroom managers “foregrounded”
relational dimensions of the classroom. They still shared about the importance of behavioral systems and academic management while frequently using behavioral and academic actions; however, they did so in more relationally-oriented ways. These teachers found ways to adapt the behavioral and academic structures to students’ needs by managing in the likes of administering consequences that may have more meaning for that student or considering how to adjust instruction to reduce the frustration that may lead to misbehavior. In the end, my qualitative analyses suggested that it was the relational emphasis of some case participants that made them more effective managers. To clarify, I am not suggesting that relational teachers will be effective, even without behavioral and academic approaches. To the contrary, all case participants were comprehensive in their orientations. My analyses simply suggest that among beginning teachers, all of whom were comprehensive to some degree, those who were more relational in their orientation seemed to excel.
Finding III: Teachers develop in classroom management from hearing “quality”