Respect |
Responsibility |
Safety |
Goals |
Normative Culture is a behavioral medium rather than a set of rules, which uses peer pressure positively with students and staff and thus creates, shared expectations regarding attitudes and behavior. At the North Texas Job Center, the Normative Culture provides our community a common language to use when talking about expectations.
Expected attitudes and behaviors are called "norms." Being a member of our Job Corps community requires that students and staff act according to the norms of Respect, Responsibility, Safety, and successfully achieving Goals.
When a student breaks a norm, the error is expected to be pointed out in a positive manner. The student is then expected to acknowledge helpful feedback in a respectful way. At the North Texas Job Corps center, confrontations within the normative culture are seen as opportunities to solve a problem.
Under the Normative Culture, students and staff must take responsibility for their actions, show respect for others, keep the situation safe, and work toward achieving goals. Concurrently, all members of the community serve as positive role model for one another.
Under the guidance of staff, our students meet in small groups to take accountability for their actions and listen to the advice of their peers. Students are encouraged to take ownership of their own behavior rather than placing blame on others or on circumstances outside their control. Through this process they learn that the power to create positive changes lies within each individual. Perhaps for the first time, they then feel capable of changing their behaviors and, consequently, their lives.
Unlike a rules-based approach where the rules differ according to the situation, Normative Culture's guidelines never change. As the concepts of Normative Culture have been intrinsically introduced into the policies and procedures of the North Texas Job Corps Center, the work environment for our students and staff has positively changed.
The purpose of Normative Culture is to expand within each student and staff member an outlook that is helpful in any environment and through which they can achieve a successful life.
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