UO's Murray was expelled from school, now he focuses on keeping kids there

By Jim Barlow, Office of Communications

Christopher Murray studies the impacts of  student-adult relationships

Christopher J. Murray is all about relationships. As teenager, his own problem behaviors led to his permanent expulsion from the Prince Georges County public schools in Maryland.

Now a professor in the department of special education and clinical sciences in the University of Oregon's College of Education -- which he describes as "a powerhouse of ideas” -- Murray studies teacher-student relationships in some of the nation's toughest and poorest public schools.

His research suggests that interactions between students of color with disabilities and their teachers are critical to keeping kids in school. He studies these relationships from the perspectives of both students and teachers.

Not bad work for a guy who just a few years after being shown the door went back to earn a G.E.D. (general equivalency diploma), moved on to a junior college and then the University of Maryland, where he received his undergraduate degree in political science and psychology. He later went on to earn master's and doctoral degrees in special education, respectively, from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and the University of Washington in Seattle. Before joining the UO in 2006, Murray began his studies of low-income urban schools on Chicago's south side while on the faculty at DePaul University.

"Relationships do matter," said Murray, a member of UO's department of special education and clinical sciences, in describing their impact on students. "One of the things I have been finding is the quality of your relationship -- defined as positive features of your relationships with teachers such as communication, warmth, and trust as well as negative features of these relationships such as alienation and hostility -- predict students’ emotional health, in terms of things like depression and anxiety, behavioral adjustment, rates of delinquency, aggressive behavior and academic or school-related adjustment in terms of grades, and academic achievement.

"What I am most interested in is examining whether relationships predict these things over time and how can you intervene to promote more positive relationships," he added. "The quality of relationships between teachers and students do matter, and this may be especially true for students who are at risk because of having a disability or because of living in poverty."

A recent study, "Poor, Black, Learning Disabled, and Graduating," published last spring in the journal Remedial and Special Education, followed 11 graduating seniors, all of whom were African Americans, living in poverty, who also had disabilities. The study examined factors that contributed to these youths high school graduation in a location where approximately eight in 10 students fail to complete high school. Themes that emerged included individual skills, family supports and teacher-student relationships. The study quotes many of the students in their own words.

"The big message is that multiple factors contribute to student adjustment," Murray said. "In addition, what I tried to do in that study was develop a more in-depth understanding of those factors from students' perspectives: How they perceive their own skills, such as self determination to do well or achieve; their relationships with their parents and how those relationship play out in terms of whether their parents are assisting them with school work, or whether their parents are just consistently communicating with them in their lives about anything; as well as the impact of teachers such as specific aspects of their relationships with teachers, the structures that teachers provide, and students’ ongoing involvement with teachers throughout their high school experiences."

Murray's past research spans from childhood to adolescence but he is particularly interested in youth and adolescence.

"I think my research is unique because I study populations that are understudied," he said. "Those are students with disabilities, who live in poverty, many of whom are students of color. I do study adolescence… but I propose that the quality of your relationships with adults -- and this hasn't just been established by me but by a number of people -- during early adolescence and adolescence actually is critically important, although our society tends to have the view that it is natural and healthy for youth to break away from adults. There is generally this idea that it is OK for adults to become less involved with teenagers. I, and a growing number of other researchers, argue the opposite -- that is really important for teenagers to have warm, supportive relationships with adults, including teachers."

The importance, he said, is for students staying in school.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 10.3 percent of all 16- to 24-year-old students in the U.S. in 2006 were dropouts. For whites, the dropout rate was 6.8 percent. Rates for African American and Hispanic students were, respectively, 11.8 percent and 23.8 percent.

Dropping out of high school usually means less income potential in jobs, if employment is found. Dropouts over the age of 24 tend to report being in worse health than adults who are not dropouts, regardless of income, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Dropouts also make up about half of the nation’s prison population, Murray noted in his recent study.

Students in low socioeconomic districts, he said, often don't understand that their schools may be at a disadvantage in terms of financial support or retaining quality teachers. "They don't realize their school has a reputation of high teacher burnout or that they are in a district that enforces accountability measures that can lead to their schools being closed or turned into charter schools."

Urban teachers in low-income settings often "feel overwhelmed by the challenges they face both in terms of the needs of their students but also because many large urban districts -- like Chicago -- do not provide teachers with the supports they need to address the tremendous challenges they face. These and other challenges create a context where teacher-turnover and teacher shortages are the norm.

Some of Murray's research directly centers on teachers, especially who work with students with disabilities. This summer, in the same journal, Murray co-authored a study with a colleague at DePaul University that analyzed the perspectives of 118 teachers in 20 urban schools. They found that while collaboration was widespread in their schools, just 57 percent of the teachers were applying what they viewed as both positive and effective in their own classrooms.

In the more than 20 academic papers he has published, Murray has been establishing that relationships matter in terms of performance in school, emotional health, and behavior. His goal is to develop interventions that boost relationships and promote positive student adjustment, school completion and positive long-term outcomes among high-risk youth.

"The things I am most interested in, in a broad way, are factors and processes that promote positive adjustment among students who are exposed to risks associated with living in poverty” he said. "I am trying to understand how to promote resilience among high-risk youth. It's also important to prevent the conditions -- like poverty -- that put students at risk in the first place. However, until that happens, it is also important to try to find ways to promote positive adjustment and positive long-term outcomes among students who are living in high-risk conditions."

Source: Christopher J. Murray, associate professor, special education, 541-346-1445, cjmurray@uoregon.edu