Date of Award

Spring 2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Stephen Laws

Abstract

Many people assume that educators’ children have an easy life in school, since many people at the school level and in the community traditionally hold educators in high esteem. Rarely does anyone explore the added pressure put on this selected class of students to perform for teachers, classmates, and the parent-educator, especially when all are in the same school. Perceptions of belonging have been determined to have important effects on adolescent development, influencing both social and academic outcomes (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Walton & Cohen, 2007). Educators’ children are often uncomfortable with everyone knowing who their parent is. Students whose parents teach or coach them or whose parent is the principal are a source of curiosity for their classmates (Bielski, 2016). Discovering how students navigated around fitting in with peers and performing for their teachers, while having a parent as a teacher, principal, or coach was the focus of this study. The purpose of this qualitative research was to gauge the extent of pressures, the social and emotional impact, and the advantages and/or disadvantages individuals felt when they were a student having a parent in a position of authority at their school. The findings from the research study substantiated the literature, supporting the importance for all students, including this studied group, to experience a sense of belonging at school with both their peers and their teachers.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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