Experiences of Students Who Have Attended Disciplinary Alternative Schools: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the school discipline-related experiences in the form of the exclusionary discipline for students who are currently at or who were previously at public alternative education schools in the state of Florida. At this stage in the research, school-discipline related experiences in the form of exclusionary discipline were generally defined as students’ individual experiences that may have contributed to their removal from their general education setting. This study sought to answer what the perceived experiences of current and/or former high school students who have recently attended a public alternative school as a form of exclusionary discipline within the state of Florida were, using Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory as a guide. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) explains environmental sources of maladaptive behaviors in youth. According to Bandura, people learn by what they witness in their social environments. The 10 study participants were recruited using purposive convenience-sampling of both high-school seniors and recent graduates living in the state of Florida and who were currently or recently enrolled in a disciplinary alternative school as an alternative to expulsion. I interviewed participants individually, conducted multiple focus groups, and collected the participants’ responses to journal prompts. The data was collected and transcribed. Then, following modified methods of Moustakas’s (1994) horizonalizing and clustering, the common themes of adversity, need for emotional prosperity, and aspirations surfaced.