Print

Bisselle, Mary Frances

College of Education and Social Services

2005

Ed. D.

This grounded theory study builds an understanding of intersectoral teacher belief systems through a systematic exploration of articulated beliefs and contextual changes between public and private schools. Transitions between contexts help to reveal the functional connectivity and hierarchal ordering of a teacher's belief system. A snowball sample helped to identify thirty intersectoral teachers. The interview data was analyzed using qualitative methods of coding, categorizing and theoretical sampling, allowing for a theoretical model of intersectoral teacher beliefs systems to emerge. Findings in this study show that changing contexts between public and private schools reveal ways in which teacher beliefs are formed and change and give insight into the hierarchal ordering of those beliefs. Beliefs around family are more central to an intersectoral teacher's belief system than beliefs on teaching, Further, intersectoral teachers were more willing to make compromises to their educational beliefs for their families than any other factor.