The Relationship between Attitudes Toward the Organization and Administration of Parish Education Programs and the Presence of Parish Boards of Education

Abstract

The fall semester of 1973 presented a Marquette University graduate student in educational administration with two important challenges, One of these was a course which required students to devise instruments for evidence quantification, and the other, another course, focused on the development of dissertation proposals, As that student, I responded, hopefully well, to those challenges by commencing a study effort aimed at assessing the attitudinal impact of parish boards of education, During that semester, I was able to develop an attitude scale survey instrument, complete a pilot study in two Milwaukee parishes, and put together the essence of the proposal that has led to the study detailed in this dissertation, In addition to the motivational impact of the two courses, my own interest in lay participation in parishes and my discovery of that rapidly expanding phenomenon, the board movement in Catholic education, helped me formulate the question, Do Boards of Education make a difference in parishes? It seemed appropriate to attempt to answer that question, at least in part, by examining and comparing attitudes of people in various parish groups, While this study has by no means exhausted inquiry into the question, it has at least investigated whether or not there exists some degree of consonance between attitudes toward parish education programs and the presence of boards