Administrators’ Counternarratives about Discipline: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to describe the internalized beliefs held by school administrators about discipline by asking them to explore their enculturation as educators working in traditional public-school settings in the southeastern region of the United States. The study sought to answer the following central research question: How do school administrators understand their enculturation related to diversity and student discipline? Social constructivism was used as the overarching framework to guide the study. Administrators were asked to explore their enculturation exogenously using Scott and Mitchell’s institutional theory and dialectically using Bell’s critical race theory. These theories were used to understand how the experiences of school administrators contribute to their management of student discipline and how school administrators perceive the relationship between diversity, discipline, and student outcomes. The eleven participants in this study completed journal prompts, sat for individual interviews, and engaged in focus groups. Participants were identified using purposive and snowball sampling. The work of van Manen drove data analysis for this study; patterns or commonalities were identified through triangulation and an exploration and interrogation of themes. The four themes of this study are enculturation and self-identity, relationships and consistency, discipline as safety, and diversity and outcomes. The findings of this study suggest that administrators develop most through their relationships and least through formal education and leadership preparation programs and that relationships have the most significance on how they understand diversity, discipline, and student outcomes.