Using School Mission Statements for Reflection and Research

Steven E. Stemler · Damian J. Bebell · Lauren Ann Sonnabend

104 citations0/0 files storedEducational Administration Quarterly

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Organizational Strategy and Culture Educational Leadership and Practices Education and Teacher Training

Abstract

Purpose: Efforts to compare schools nationally tend to focus on educational outcomes (e.g., test scores), yet such an approach assumes that schools are homogeneous with regard to their overall purpose. In fact, few studies have attempted to systematically compare schools with regard to their primary aims or mission. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the utility of school mission statements as a data source for comparing and systematically reflecting on the core purposes of schools nationwide. Research Design: A mixed-methods research design was implemented. In Study 1, true random samples of 50 high schools were selected from each of 10 geographically and politically diverse states, yielding a total of 421 mission statements that were ultimately coded and quantitatively compared. In Study 2, structured interviews were conducted with principals from diverse high schools to evaluate their perspectives on the usefulness of school mission statements. Findings: Results indicate that mission statements can be reliably coded quantitatively and that schools vary systematically and sensibly with regard to both the number and types of themes incorporated into their mission statements. Furthermore, consistent with prior research, the qualitative results showed that principals generally regard mission statements as an important tool for shaping practice and communicating core values. Conclusions: School mission statements are a valuable source of data that can be quantified for educational researchers and administrators interested in reflecting on school purpose, comparing schools with regard to their core mission, and monitoring changes in school purpose over time.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 104 citations exist upstream.

References

1968The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research.1986Experience and Education 1990Basic Content Analysis 1973Review of research in education 1938Experience and Education.1970Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities.1983A nation at risk 1969Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction

Cited by

2018Understanding the Priorities of Australian Secondary Schools Through an Analysis of Their Mission and Vision Statements 2017School Values: A Comparison of Academic Motivation, Mental Health Promotion, and School Belonging With Student Achievement 2015A Content Analysis of Mission Statements of Our Top 50 Schools of Social Work 2018Identifying research topics in marketing science along the past decade: a content analysis

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.