Portrait Narratives of Caring Teachers for African American High School Students

For African American high school students, caring relationships extend beyond peer interaction to include supporting adults, most particularly teachers, who are pivotal to their educational experience and success or lack of success. The research problem centered on the lack of diversity and authentic voice when discussing caring teacher-student relationships. Markedly, the voices of African American high school students were lacking from the current body of research literature. The purpose of this narrative qualitative study was threefold: (a) to capture the voices of African American high school studentsâ as they shared their experience(s) about a caring teacher; (b) to capture the voices of their supporting adults, administrator, parent/guardian, and teacher; and (c) to analyze their responses to ascertain what defined a caring teacher for these persons. The conceptual framework was Noddingsâ ethics of care theory and served as the nexus for the central research question. A purposive sample of 5 students and 10 adult participants contributed their stories through semistructured interviews. The methodological approach was narrative inquiry, and portraiture was the style used to report the stories. Data analysis used thematic coding and triangulation across participants and groups. The initial findings and cross-group interpretive analysis showed that what defined a caring teacher for African American students was similar for their supporting adults. The implications for social change include legitimating African American high school studentsâ voices; improving teacher-student caring relationships and educational experiences, leading to overall academic success; recommendations for including care and cultural training for preservice and practicing educators; and policy reform