Teacher and Community Relations

O NE NOTES today in the preparation of teachers a general swing away from the traditional type of training to a study of living, changing communities and their problems. To those who see values in this newer emphasis, one fact is increasingly evident. Insight has led the way into this field, as into almost all others, but further progress is dependent upon the development of systematic, quantitative studies. There is at present no sociology of childhood, no scientific understanding of school and community interaction, and little exact knowledge of the teacher's out-of-school contacts and relationships. The present paper deals with three problems in the last area. It is a preliminary report on one section of a larger, nationwide survey now under way. Findings are based upon questionnaires returned by 622 Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania teachers. Schedules were distributed in about even proportions to teachers in service and to teachers in summer school classes. While many schools were covered in toto, the present sample is not offered as representative. Cases were taken as they came, the first 622 being scored, and no effort was made to equate them in terms of representative sizes and kinds of communities. In brief analysis, 70 percent of the teachers were in the grades and 30 percent in high schools; three-fourths were men and one-fourth women; 66 percent were under 35 years of age, 47 percent under 30 years, with the modal range at 25-29. About three-fourths had taught less than iS years, over half less than Io, and one-fourth less than S. Almost 6o percent had been in their present positions less than 5 years. Respondents were in the main of native birth, from lower middle class homes, and of rural and small town backgrounds. One-half of the school systems represented were in country and small town areas; the remainder were in cities ranging from