Date

4-29-2026

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

William Townsend

Keywords

homelessness, highly mobile, students, educators, mentors, McKinney-Vento Act, rural community, COVID-19

Disciplines

Counseling | Education

Abstract

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to explore how educators perceive an implemented mentoring program in which they will serve as mentors of homeless and highly mobile students in a rural school district. The mentoring program will include educators working as mentors to students coded as homeless through the McKinney-Vento Act for Homeless Education. The educators participating in the mentoring program will be the participants in this study. The participants will include middle school (6th-8th grade) through high school (12th grade), teachers, counselors, librarians, the district’s homeless liaison, and the federal programs coordinator for an East Tennessee school district. The theory guiding this study is Jean Miller’s Relational Cultural Theory, as applied to working with students in an educational setting through developing relationships. This will encompass how educators work within the confines of the dynamics of student demographic information, poverty, their role as mentors in students’ lives, their role in encouraging the importance of obtaining an education, COVID-19, and how federal legislation impacts the policies created for homeless students. This research will consider these factors while also examining a program that pairs educators with identified homeless students for further examination into the educators’ perceptions of how their interactions with students will lead to growth and emotional connection. The research will also consider the influence these interactions will have on their work in education. Information will be gathered through qualitative journal entries and interviews.

Download

Share

COinS