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Introduction
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Introduction Gail Furman This book is about school as “community”—an appealing image for schools that has been the subject of a growing body of educational research and literature in recent years. The concept of community in education is not new. It has historical threads going back to John Dewey’s work, particularly his writing in The School and Society (1899/1990), and was the subject of continual scholarship throughout the twentieth century (Willie, 2000). However, most writers agree that the more current surge of interest in community began in the late 1980s and early 1990s, signaled by Thomas J. Sergiovanni’s 1993 speech at the American Educational Research Association conference calling for a different “metaphor” for schools. Sergiovanni argued that changing the metaphor for schools from “organization” to “community” would lead to important changes in how schools are run, “what motivates teachers and students, and . . . what leadership is” (p. 4). Central to this argument for community is that relationships become the core focus in schools when they are thought of as communities rather than as organizations. Sergiovanni repeated his arguments in several publications, including his widely read book, Building Community in Schools (1994), in which he makes this claim about the importance of community: Though most principals, superintendents, and teachers have a desire to do better and are working as hard as they can to provide a quality education to every student they serve, the road is rough and the going is slow. The lead villain in this frustrating drama is the loss of community in our schools and in society itself. . . . Community building must become the heart of any school improvement effort. (p. xi) While other writers and educators may disagree with Sergiovanni’s casting of the “lead villain” in this drama, and Sergiovanni’s ideas for building school 1 community have been criticized (e.g., Merz & Furman, 1997), there is an almost universal and unquestioned assumption in the ensuing education literature that “community” is a good thing—that increasing the sense of community in schools holds promise for school improvement. Potential positive impacts are claimed for students, teachers and parents and are articulated in various ways. For example, in regard to students, the claimed benefits of community cluster around three key themes—belonging, achievement, and democracy: • It is claimed that a sense of community or “belonging” (Mitchell, 1990a, p. 40) can remedy the alienation experienced by many youth in schools. A heightened sense of belonging is valuable not only as an end in itself but also might counterbalance tendencies toward the “substitute community” of gang identity and violence (Sergiovanni, 1994). As Mitchell (1990b) states, “Time in prison and unwed parenthood should not be the rituals of belonging for large numbers of adolescent Americans” (p. 67). • It is claimed that, when the school or classroom is a “learning community” (Calderwood, 2000) or exhibits a “communitarian climate ” (Bryk & Driscoll, 1988), academic achievement improves. • It is claimed that the practice in schools of “democratic community ” (Apple & Beane, 1995; Kahne, 1996) or “discursive community ” (Smyth, 1996; Strike, 1993) teaches students how to live in a multicultural, democratic society. While a few research studies provide support for these “promises” of community (e.g., Bryk & Driscoll, 1988; Shouse, 1996), the research base on the impact of “a sense of community” in schools is thin. As the editor of this volume, I want to disclose up front my “stance” toward the school as community concept. First, I am an advocate for the creation of community in schools. Along with Brad Mitchell (1990a, 1990b) and others, I think that a focus on “belonging” and relationships should be at the center of school improvement efforts. I believe that this focus is absolutely essential to counterbalance the obsessive focus on measurable student achievement that characterizes most reform efforts and that objectifies and alienates students as “performers,” especially when high-stakes accountability mechanisms are implemented. However, my belief in the “promise” of community is not carte blanche and, I hope, not naive. In the spirit of the “ethic of critique” (Starratt, 1994), I believe that calls for community in schools and the ways in which the concept has been developed and researched in the education literature need to be critically examined. Second, I continue to be intellectually fascinated with the knotty conceptual and practical issues associated with the idea of “creating community in schools.” For example, one particularly challenging issue addressed in my 2 Furman [3.238.161.165] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:18 GMT) recent work...