I have used the strategy of purposeful selection to identify an initial group of participants from the
attendees and faculty who participated in the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls
(NAPSG) Women and Leadership Seminar (October 2011). I had attended the seminar as a participant
(October 2005) and knew from this experience that attendees came from a geographically and culturally
diverse set of independent schools, self-identify as future school leaders, and are actively pursuing
networks of professional support. Through prior arrangement with the executive director of NAPSG, I
had the opportunity to solicit participants for my study on the first evening of the conference.
Out of the 40 conference attendees, 12 expressed interest in participating in the study. Approximately
80% of the responses came from women who were employed at girls’ schools, although the conference
participant roster indicated that only 40% of the attendees were in this category. Because I wanted a
diverse sample with respect to age and race, as well as geography and type of independent school, I
decided to limit the number of participants from girls’ schools. Having selected a preliminary group of
five participants from the NAPSG conference, I proceeded to recruit two African American women who
had previously participated in my pilot study (Feibelman, 2011). The remaining participants were
brought into the study through my professional affiliations and the snowball method of sampling. It is
important to note that despite my efforts to recruit a diverse set of participants for this study, 70% of
the participants are currently associated with a girls’ school (see Table 1 and Table 2).
Irrespective of their current affiliation, the 14 participants have been classroom teachers and/or
occupied formal leadership roles in 40 different independent schools, which enables them to draw upon
a deep and broad range of experience as independent school educators. Five participants in this study
have worked at four or more independent schools, while the average number of schools a participant
has been affiliated with is 2.9. Only 3 of the participants are presently employed at the independent
school where they began their career, and 2 of the 14 participants have spent their whole career in
single-sex girls’ schools.
Although more women in the study are currently working at single-sex girls’ schools, the majority has
multiple years of experience as educators in coed and single-sex environments. It will be worth
exploring themes that emerged during interviews in which some participants described a robust mindset
that permeated every aspect of the girls’ school culture. They described a school environment that is
organized to intentionally develop leadership competencies among women teachers and administrators
in order to provide students with accessible authentic role models.”
Methodology and Research Design
The proposed qualitative study is divided into three mutually informative phases of data collection and
analysis, each of which centers around one of the three primary research questions.
Careful attention has been paid to the purposeful sequencing of these phases. By addressing the first
question related to key stakeholders’ conceptualizations of school-community collaboration, Phase I
aims to surface emic understandings of this concept, which will serve as a practical (re-)entry point into
my work with the Neta Academy community, informative baseline data, and a useful reference over the
course of the following two phases. Phase II speaks to the second question by exploring the ways in
which Neta Academy’s teachers are currently working to build school-community
engagement/collaboration into academic curriculum, and thereby lays the groundwork for Phase III’s
investigation of “untested feasibilities” (Freire, 1968/2015), or alternative possibilities for integrating
school- and community-based knowledge. The final action research component of the study, which is
motivated by the third research question, examines the process and outcomes of a participatory
curriculum design endeavor involving students, teachers, administrators, parents, and other community
members working together to imagine new school–community collaborative learning experiences.
