Higher Education Commons^™

Illuminating Adolescent Voices: Identifying High School Students’ Perceptions Of Teacher Caring, Ruben Garza, Gail Ryser, Kathryn Lee

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal

The purpose of the current study was to identify teacher behaviors that secondary students perceived as demonstrating caring. The questions that guided this inquiry were (a) what teacher behaviors do high school students perceive as caring? and (b) what teacher behaviors do high school students perceive as the most important aspects of caring? Whereas previous studies clearly have documented the power and influence of caring teachers on adolescents’ success, we posit that knowing what students perceive as caring behaviors can be used as a springboard to shape the context of caring for all students, especially those who are marginalized, feel …