Teacher Perceptions of Administrative Support for Democratic Practice: Implications for Leadership and Policy

This paper reports results from a qualitative study that examined perceptions of administrative practice expressed by members of a grassroots teacher group committed to the practice of democratic education. The group (the Friday Roundtable) was comprised of K-12 public school teachers in rural Appalachian Ohio who spent considerable time together trying to answer the collective question how can we be better teachers? A key element of that dialogue involved consideration of increased state and national pressures that often included educational expectations of their building administrators that the teachers perceived as undemocratic. Using case studies of eleven individual teachers situated in both a Narrative Inquiry and Appreciative Inquiry design, the investigation examines the democratic educational work of these teachers as they pursue educational equity in their highly-challenged schools