Description
Maintaining civility on college campuses is a growing concern amongst educators. Subsumed in notions of teaching and learning is the belief that educators are tasked with developing and preparing students for lives of moral and civic responsibility. This notion is critical to 2-year institutions whose multiple missions of transfer, career technical, basic skills, and lifelong learning bring diverse groups together to meet individual and communal needs. While not as prevalent as national tragedies, classroom incivilities are more common occurrences that frequently disrupt learning and inhibit the building of community on college campuses. This quantitative study examines faculty and student perceptions of uncivil behavior and the perceived frequency of behaviors in community college classrooms. Specifically, this study sought answers to the following research questions: What classroom behaviors are considered to be uncivil by community college faculty and students? What is the perceived frequency of uncivil faculty and student behaviors in community college classrooms? And, Do student perceptions and frequency of uncivil classroom behaviors differentiate by race? This study converges with the extant literature that validates that both students and faculty perceive, experience, and engage in disruptive behaviors in the classroom environment. Findings also show that perceptions of faculty and students differ by type and levels of civility. Findings provide insight into the potential motivation for civility amongst faculty and students in community college academic environments. Key among these insights is the need for purposeful and intentional dialogue that fosters a sense of civility in the learning environment, enhanced policies that are more prescriptive regarding civility and responsive to identified disruptive behaviors, collaborative civility initiatives involving key stakeholders (including students) led by faculty and college administrators who oversee conduct processes, and, finally the use of empirically driven data than can inform methods of response, mitigation, and elimination of student and faculty incivilities in the classroom setting.
