Perspectives in Education: Educators' Perceptions of Trauma
Trauma in Educational Settings
Kelly McDermott, Elle Montauban, Natalya Rakevich, and Nick Suchecki
The purpose of the study: We investigated educators’ definition of trauma utilizing a narrative frame and gathering short answer survey responses. This study asked educators the question, How do you as an educator define trauma? We utilized the definition of trauma from SAMHSA as a guide to understand the definition provided by the educators. The objective of this exploratory case study was to understand how educators in these four varied settings define trauma
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This qualitative exploratory study was a pilot crafted with the intention to be a precursor to future research. The study was conducted through a partnership of fellows at Lesley University’s Institute for Trauma Sensitivity. Convenience sampling was utilized and short survey responses were gathered through Qualtrics for anonymity. Participants were from four varied sites including a group of elementary and middle school educators in the Ukrainian non-occupied territories of Kirovograd and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The other three sites were in Massachusetts. Educators in an urban fully inclusive K-12 school, early childhood educators in a smaller suburban school, and music educators working across multiple suburban schools participated in the study. The objective of this exploratory case study was to evaluate how educators in these four varied settings defined trauma. We adopted the definition of trauma from SAMHSA (2023), for analysis purposes. Results were analyzed employing a structured tabular approach designed by Robinson (2022), for working with brief texts to develop and analyze themes.
