Human Relations and Communications: Theories Present in Education Today

Human relations, interactions and communication are the foundation of educational leadership. As with most businesses, the need for strong leadership and communication is more important than ever, especially because of the growing accountability of schools and school systems. In order to work well within the organizational environment of a school, superintendents, coaches, teachers, parents, community members and students must be able to communicate in a variety of effective modalities (Razik & Swanson, 2010). Behind these modalities are human relationship concepts and communication theories that help leaders to make decisions based on research that can help improve their organizational communications systems. Over time, the theories have developed and the ways of effective communication have changed along with the technology that promotes them. There are many communication and human relations theories that can still be applied today given the effective and efficient ways that educational leaders can now communicate.
Hill: Interactional Conventional Theory and Modern Forms of Communication
A theory on communication that looks at how society continues communication or may even change the ability to communicate is the Interactional Conventional Theory (Razik & Swanson, 2010, p. 132). Society continuously evolves throughout history. With these changes the ability to communicate also has to change. Over the last twenty years technology has redefined our idea of how to communicate. As students become more comfortable with chatting, texting and other new forms of communication this has lead teaching to evolve its forms of communication as well. If communication is based on cultural norms then as technology changes the norms of society so must the ability to communicate (Razik & Swanson, 2010, pp. 132-133).
New forms of communication are created all the time. Technology has enhanced communication from the traditional face to face or group conversations to e-mail and

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