Student Perspectives on Classroom Community in a Career Technical Center

This paper researches how to build community from a students’ perspective, in a criminal justice program in a career technical education center. It is not known how students perceive community building as happening in a criminal justice classroom. Four components of the Lamica model contributed to a model of classroom community or social and emotional learning: experiential education, Capturing Kid’s Hearts, military command structure, and peer mentoring. A case study design was utilized to study this problem through interviews, and questionnaires, from both students and instructors. Analysis of the interviews, both student and instructors, and questionnaires was hand coded and then run through NVivo software to search for any additional codes. Descriptive coding was used to summarize themes. These themes were then categorized to search for over arching themes. Findings demonstrated that from a students’ perspective the four areas of Lamica’s model do contribute to classroom community. Implications for traditional classroom instruction around the use of a military command structure or a leadership structure to develop student leadership may be ground-breaking area for traditional education instructors versus student roles in a classroom