The First Amendment and Transformational Leadership: Religious Rights in American Education

This mixed methods study, which implemented an explanatory sequential research design, investigated the role that the First Amendment Religious Rights (i.e., the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause) have in American Education. The researcher attempted to find out how well versed or not educational leaders were when facing First Amendment religious rights issues and how to best prepare current and future educational leaders for confrontations, disputes, and issues with these religious rights. The target population included 10 educational leaders from a mid-Atlantic state serving schools in the suburbs of a major metropolis. These 10 participants included a variety of superintendents, principals, assistant principals, curriculum supervisors, and other school administrators. The researcher randomly selected five participants for a control group and five participants for an experimental group, which means that this study also implemented a pretest-posttest control group design. Several themes emerged which showed how the participants in the experimental group demonstrated positive changes in their awareness, attitudes, behaviors, motivation, and capacity when compared to the control group. The experimental group participants also expressed a higher level of confidence and competence when confronted with a religious rights concern. Implications for theory and practice, the limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research are also included. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]