AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONGRUENCE OF OFFICIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT PHILOSOPHIES, HUMANISTIC EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY, AND SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS' PERCEPTIONS OF HUMANISTIC TEACHERS

This study was designed to determine: if adopted school board philosophies were congruent with a humanistic education philosophy; if school board members held positive attitudes toward humanistic teaching practices in their districts; and if school board members' perceptions were congruent with their district's adopted philosophy regarding humanistic education.;To determine if school board members' attitudes toward humanistic teaching practices were positive, board members from the 20 districts were polled using the Survey of Perceptions of Teacher/Classroom Climate, which is also based on Dube's characteristics. An overwhelming 94% of the 86 respondents to the Survey of Perceptions of Teacher/Classroom Climate at least mildly agreed with humanistic teaching practices. Almost two-thirds agreed or strongly agreed with nearly two-thirds of the humanistic questions on the survey. Congruence of the philosophy and board members' perceptions regarding humanistic education was found in five districts.;Tests of congruence could only be made in 17 districts because of a lack of a philosophy in one district, and a lack of a majority of board members' responses in two others. The 11 districts where the philosophy was not judged humanistic were not necessarily anti-humanistic though they did not meet the criteria. The study showed that board members clearly support some humanistic teaching practices although they were not identified as such in the survey.;To find out whether school board philosophies from 20 urban and non-urban school districts in a midwestern state were humanistic, a panel of ten experts evaluated them according to five characteristics delineated by Dube and the nature of this overall educational philosophy. The five characteristics Dube identified were: individuality, autonomy, sensitivity, creativity, and sociability. Eight of the 19 districts which provided philosophies met the criteria for being congruent with humanistic education philosophy.