Nurturing Community-School Relationships Using Art And The Environment To Create Spaces Of Care

This dissertation aims to shift Nel Noddings’ ethic of care from theory to practice. Frustration was selected for the emotion and art was chosen for a communication platform for the purposes of this research. Neil Harrington’s Frustration Discomfort Scale (FDS) survey was used to gauge root causes of frustration intolerance. The focus group, art session, and interview questions were selected to gain qualitative data of adolescent frustration intolerance for the FDS results. Six seventh graders participated in the entire study which included participating in a focus group, one art-making session or interview, a 24-hour observation, and a 7-day follow-up journaling experience. A research journal was also completed for reflection and to help form the subjective I statement. There were three findings presented in the research. First, the study indicated that FDS results can align and help explain adolescent behavior. Secondly, art and other environmental conditions provided social and emotional affordances to adolescents. Third, community organizations can inform how schools can integrate social and emotional skills into educational culture. Based on the data analysis, the first recommendation of this study is that school- community relationships and purposes be more integrated. The second recommendation is that the FDS survey should be implemented in middle school advisory programs.