CULTURE AND CLIMATE IN SCHOOLS

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CHAPTER 5

• CULTURE AND CLIMATE IN SCHOOLS

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The behavior of a group cannot be predicted
solely from an understanding of the personality
of each member. Various social processes
intervenethe group develops a mood, and
atmosphere. In the context of the organization,
we talk a bout a style, a culture, a
character. Mintzberg
I wish Jake would get his hand off me!
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Culture

• Definition A system of shared orientations that
  hold the unit together and give it a distinctive
  identity
• Created by a groups or organizations norms,
  shared values and basic assumptions
• The significance of an event is more about what
  the event means than the actual event

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Levels of Culture
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Norms

• Usually unwritten and informal expectations of a
  group or organization
• Can be communicated by stories and ceremonies
• People are usually rewarded when they conform to
  norms and punished when they do not conform
• Examples wearing a tie to work, respecting the
  administration

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Values

• Beliefs of what is desirable
• Often define what members should do to be
  successful and what standards to uphold in the
  organization
• Define basic character and give an organization a
  sense of identity
• Core Values dominate values shared and accepted
  by the majority of organizational members
• Example an organization giving retirement
  benefits to reward long term employment

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Strong Cultures

• Beliefs and values held intensity, shared widely
  and guide organizational behavior
• Can be a positive or negative aspect in time of
  change. If a culture is so set in their ways and
  resistant to change, change is unlikely to occur
• Example A department who has taught their way
  for years refusing to teach to the standards.

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Tacit Assumptions

• Definition abstract premises about the nature
  of human relationships, human nature, truth,
  reality and environment
• Deepest level of culture
• Members share a view of the world, their place in
  it and their way to cope with external factors
• These ideas are valued and passed on to new
  members
• Highly resistant to change
• Example A school who believes their teachers
  are motivated, responsible and capable of
  governing themselves

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Functions of Culture

• Culture has boundary-defining function it
  creates distinctions among organizations
• Culture provides the organization with a sense of
  identity
• Culture facilitates the development of commitment
  to the group
• Culture enhances stability of the social system
• Culture is the social glue that binds the
  organization together it provides the
  appropriate standards for behavior.

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Primary Elements that Shape Culture

• Innovation the degree to which employees are
  expected to be creative and take risks.
• Stability the degree to which activities focus
  on the status quo rather than change.
• Attention to detail the degree to which there is
  a concern for precision and detail.
• Outcome orientation the degree to which
  management emphasizes results.
• People orientation the degree to which
  management decisions are sensitive to
  individuals.
• Team orientation the degree of emphasis on
  collaboration and teamwork.
• Aggressiveness the degree to which employees are
  expected to be competitive rather than easygoing.

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Symbolshelp indentify cultural themes

• Stories narrative truth with some fiction
• Myths Belief demonstrated through fiction
• Legends Stories retold again and again with
  fictional details
• Icon Physical artifact (mottos, trophies)
• Rituals Routine ceremonies (faculty meeting)

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Analysis of School Culture

• Schools with strong cultures of efficacy, trust
  and academic optimism provide higher levels of
  student achievement

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A Culture of Efficacy

• Collective Teacher Efficacy the shared
  perception of teachers in a school that the
  efforts of the faculty as a whole will have a
  positive effect on students
• At the cultural level, this is a set of beliefs
  or social perceptions that are strengthened
  through their use and give a school a distinctive
  identity

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Sources of Collective Efficacy
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Analysis of the Teaching Task Assessment of
Teaching Competence

• Sources of Efficacy
• Mastery of Experience
• Social Persuasion
• Affective Status

Analyses, Attributions, and Interpretations
Estimation of Collective Teacher Efficacy

• Consequences of Collective Efficacy
• Effort
• Persistence
• Success

Performance
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Formation of Collective Efficacy
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Collective Efficacy

• Research Findings
• Strong school culture of efficacy leads to the
  acceptance of challenging goals, strong
  organizational effort, and persistence that leads
  to better performance.

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A Culture of Trust

• Trust is a little like air No one thinks much
  about it until it is needed and is not there.
• Important in that
• Facilitates Cooperation
• Enhances Openness
• Promotes Group Cohesiveness
• Improves Student Achievement

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Faculty Trust

• This is a teachers willingness to be vulnerable
  to another party based on the confidence that the
  latter party is benevolent , reliable, competent,
  honest and open.
• Culture of trust can be measured based on degree
  of faculty trust in
• a.) parents students b.) principal
• c.) principal

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Faculty Trust Cont.
High Student Parent Trust
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Measuring Faculty Trust

• Administer the Omnibus T-Scale to all Faculty
• Use following fomulas to calculate score
• Standard Score for Trust in Clients (TCl)
  100(TCl-3.53)/.621500
• Standard Score for Trust in the Principal (TP)
  100(TP-4.42)/.725500
• Standard Score for Trust in Colleagues (TCo)
  100(TCo-4.46)/.443500
• Add all 3 and compare against standard
  performance index of other schools

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Academic Optimism

• The beliefs about the strengths and capabilities
  in schools that helps promote optimism. This in
  turn promotes both effectiveness and trust with
  an academic emphasis

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Academic Emphasis

• Faculty Trust

Collective Efficacy
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Culture of Control
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Pupil Control Findings
Custodial School Climate

• Greater Teacher Disengagement
• Lower Levels of Moral
• More Close Supervision by the Principal
• More Alienated Students
• Greater Student Vandalism
• More Violent Incidents
• More Suspensions

Changes towards Humanistic are slow and often
unsuccessful
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Frames For Viewing School Climate
Openness
Health

Citizenship
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A Climate of Organizational Openness

• Halpin and Croft (1962) began mapping the domain
  of organizational climate of schools because the
  concept of morale did not provide an adequate
  explanation for schools differing markedly in
  their feel
• Developed the Organizational Climate Description
  Questionnaire (OCDQ) to measure important aspects
  of teacher-teacher and teacher-principal
  interactions
• There are now three contemporary versions of
  OCDQ one for elementary, one for middle schools,
  and one for high schools (see tables 5.3 and
  5.4)

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OPEN CLIMATE
Principal Teachers
Listens and is open to teacher suggestions Gives genuine and frequent praise Respects professional competency of faculty Gives teachers freedom to perform without close scrutiny Provides leadership behavior Supports open and professional interactions among faculty (high collegial relations) Teachers know each other well and are close personal friends (high intimacy) Cooperate and are committed to their work

• OCDQs provide valid and reliable means to map
  openness behaviors of teachers and administrators
  in schools
• The open climate is marked by cooperation and
  respect within the faculty and between the
  faculty and principal
• Behavior of both principal and faculty is both
  open and authentic

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CLOSED CLIMATE
Principal Teachers
Principal stresses routine trivia and unnecessary busywork (high restrictiveness) Ineffective leadership seen as controlling and rigid (high directiveness), also unsympathetic, unconcerned, and unresponsive Non-supportive, inflexible, and hindering (low supportiveness) Faculty responds minimally, exhibits little commitment (high disengagement) Faculty that is divisive, intolerant, and apathetic Low intimacy and no collegial relations

• Virtually the antithesis of the open climate
• Principal and teachers simply appear to go
  through the motions
• These misguided tactics are accompanied by
  frustration and apathy, but also by a general
  suspicion and lack of respect of teachers for
  each other as either friends or professionals

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Discussion

• OPEN OR CLOSED?
• Which type of climate do you think exists at
  your school?
• (Use the appropriate OCDQ to determine the
  openness of your school climate.)

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OCDQ Research Findings

• Studies demonstrated that schools with openness
• have less sense of student alienation toward the
  school and its personnel
• Have stronger principals who are more confident,
  self-secure, cheerful, sociable, and resourceful
• Teachers who express greater confidence in their
  own and the schools effectiveness (are more
  loyal and satisfied)
• Generates more organizational commitment to the
  school
• Positively related to teacher participation in
  decision making
• Positively related to ratings of school
  effectiveness
• Positively related to student achievement in
  mathematics, reading, and writing in middle
  schools

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A CLIMATE OF ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH

• Calls attention to conditions that facilitate
  growth and development or those that impede
  healthy org. dynamics
• A school with a healthy org. climate copes
  successfully with its environment as it mobilizes
  its resources and efforts to achieve its goals
• The org. health of secondary schools is defined
  by seven specific interaction patterns in
  schools. They meet the needs of the social
  system and represent the three levels of
  responsibility and control within the school.
  (Table 5.5)

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Healthy Schools Unhealthy Schools
Protected from unreasonable community and parental pressures The board resists efforts of vested interest groups to influence policy Principal provides dynamic leadership (both task and relations oriented) Is also supportive of teachers, yet provides direction and maintains high standards. Moreover, they have influence with their superiors and the ability to exercise independent thought and action. Teachers are committed to teaching and learning, set high but achievable goals, maintain high standards, and the learning environment is orderly and serious Students work hard on academics, are highly motivated, and respect other students who achieve academically Classroom supplies and instructional materials are accessible Teachers like and trust each other, are enthusiastic about the work, and are proud of their school Vulnerable to destructive forces Teachers and administrators are bombarded with reasonable demands from parental and community groups Principal does not provide leadership, little direction, limited consideration and support for teachers, virtually no influence with superiors Morale of teachers is low Teachers do not feel good about each other or their jobs. They act aloof, suspicious, and defensive. The press for academic excellence is limited Everyone is simply putting in time
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OHI and Research Findings

• OHI (Organizational Health Index) can measure
  health of a school. Administered to professional
  staff.
• Three valid and reliable contemporary versions
  available online one for each school level.
• Consistent with many characteristics of effective
  schools
• A correlation between the openness and health of
  schools (open schools tend to be healthy and
  healthy schools tend to be open)
• Healthy schools have high trust, high esprit, low
  disengagement, and more committed teachers
• Research also shows that org. health is
  positively related to student performance (higher
  achievement levels, lower dropout rates, higher
  student commitment)

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A CLIMATE OF CITIZENSHIP

• Another frame for viewing the climate of a school
  in terms of the citizenship behavior of its
  members
• Organizational citizenship is behavior that goes
  beyond the formal responsibilities of the role by
  actions that occur freely to help others achieve
  the task at hand
• Citizenship behavior has five specific aspects
  altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship,
  courtesy, and civic virtues (Table 5.6)
• Prototype of a climate of citizenship is a school
  in which teachers help each other and new
  colleagues by giving freely of their own time
• Measured by Org. Citizenship Behavior (OCB) scale

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OCB Research Findings

• OCB is another useful tool for measuring another
  important aspect of school climate.
• Organizational citizenship is positively related
  to collegial principal behavior, teacher
  professionalism, academic press, and school
  mindfulness.
• Schools with high degrees of citizenship are more
  effective and have higher levels of student
  achievement.

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CHANGING THE CULTURE AND CLIMATE OF SCHOOLS

• Long term systemic effort is more likely to
  produce change than short-term fads.
• Three general strategies for change
• Clinical Strategy
• Growth-centered
• Normative Procedure

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The Clinical Strategy

• Focuses on the nature of relationships among the
  schools subgroups
• The manipulation of the intergroup and
  interpersonal interactions can foster change
• Proceeds through the following steps
• 1. Gaining knowledge of the org. through
  careful observation, analysis, and study (using
  OCDQ, OHI, and OHB)
• 2. Diagnosis, providing labels for diagnosing
  potential trouble areas (ex. Poor morale, high
  disengagement, etc.)
• 3. Prognosis, clinician judges seriousness of
  situation and develops a set of operational
  strategies to improve the situation
• 4. Prescription, How can the situation be
  remedied? Taking necessary steps
• 5. Evaluation, evaluate the extent to which
  prescriptions have been implemented and are
  successful

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The Growth-Centered Strategy

• Involves the acceptance of a set of assumptions
  about the development of school personnel as a
  basis for administrative decision making
• The assumptions are
• 1. Change is the property of healthy school
  organizations.
• 2. Change has direction. (can be positive or
  negative, progressive or
• regressive)
• 3. Change should imply progress. (should
  provide movement of org.
• toward its goals)
• 4. Teachers have high potential for the
  development and
• implementation of change. (principals
  are always ready to provide
• teachers with more freedom and
  responsibility in the operation of the
• school)

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A Norm-Changing Strategy
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Resources

• All OCDQ, OHI, and OCB instruments, scoring
  instructions, and interpretations (for
  elementary, middle, and high school levels) are
  available online for use at
• www.coe.ohio-state.edu/whoy