| The number of male religious in Catholic secondary schools owned and/or operated by male religious communities is declining. This decline may disturb the unique character of such schools. The educational philosophy of a religious community customarily provides a unique and reputable educational atmosphere. Can this educational philosophy be transmitted to the lay vice principals to insure the preservation and promotion of the unique character that marks the identity of these schools?; The purpose of this study was to explore the lay vice principals', faculties', and staffs' knowledge and understanding of the Salesian philosophy of education, characteristic of schools owned and/or operated by the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales, a religious community of men. The study included two schools. It also measured the lay vice-principals', faculties', and staffs' perception of the vice principals' enactment of the Salesian philosophy of education.; A mixed-method research design using a dominant-less dominant model (Creswell, 1994; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) was followed. The investigator used multiple methods of data collection and analysis. The dominant paradigm in this study was quantitative and exploratory in nature, using a causal-comparative design. The instrument consisted of self-designed questionnaires approved by experts in Salesian spirituality. The analysis of data involved the computation of the descriptive statistics (group mean, frequencies, and rankings) for each group in the study on each dependent variable. The number of vice principals in the sample was small (3) and could not be statistically compared with the faculty (92) and staff (21). The less-dominant model was qualitative and involved semi-structured interviews, review of documents, and observations in the data collection phase. The information gathered from the qualitative method helped to enhance the results from the quantitative method (Creswell, 1994) with specific examples and in-depth responses.; Data analysis indicated several areas of misunderstanding of the Salesian philosophy of education among all three groups. The vice principals rated themselves higher than did their faculty and staff regarding their enactment of the philosophy. The study revealed that the vice principals, faculties, and staffs of the schools studied need more formal training in the Salesian philosophy of education. |
