Peer-reviewed article
Nurturing Community-School Relationships Using Art And The Environment To Create Spaces Of Care
Nicole P. Fynn ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This dissertation explores how art and environmental conditions can help schools and communities better support adolescents' emotional well-being, particularly around managing frustration. The researcher worked with six seventh-grade students using art-making sessions, focus groups, and journaling to understand frustration intolerance. The study found that art and environmental design can provide emotional support and that schools should more closely integrate community resources into social-emotional learning.
Key points
- Art-making and environmental conditions provided social and emotional affordances to adolescents in the study
- Frustration Discomfort Scale (FDS) survey results aligned with and helped explain adolescent behavior
- Community organizations can inform how schools integrate social and emotional skills into educational culture
- School-community relationships and purposes should be more integrated
- The FDS survey should be implemented in middle school advisory programs
Limitations
The study involved only six seventh-grade participants, making it unclear whether findings would apply to other age groups or broader adolescent populations. The document provides limited detail on the intervention outcomes, making it difficult to assess the actual effectiveness of art and environmental changes in improving well-being.
Abstract
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.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Art-making sessions combined with environmental design and community-school integration to create spaces of care
- Population
- Six seventh-grade students
Key finding
Art and environmental conditions provided social and emotional affordances to adolescents