School Climate

School climate has throughout the ages been considered as a key indicator of school effectiveness and many educational theorists have expressed similar views. Appleberry (1969) described an ‘open school climate’ as one that focused on authentic interactions among members, thus facilitating a humanistic pupil control perspective. Researches on school climate (Hoy, 1972a; Hartley & Hoy, 1972; Deibert & Hoy, 1977) led to the conclusion that openness and humanism in school climate facilitated positive student outcomes; in particular, such schools were less alienating and produced more self-actualizing students.

Freiberg and Stein (1999) described school climate as ‘the heart and soul of the school and the essence of the school that draws teachers and students to love the school and to be a part of it’, and Ornstein (2004) described organizational climate as the ‘total environmental quality within an organization’. He believed that the recent attention to the effectiveness of public schools and their cultures have shed more interest on the importance of climate.

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The National School Climate Council (NSCC) (2013) has developed a definition of school climate: “School climate refers to the quality and character of school life. School climate is based on patterns of students’, parents’ and school personnel’s experience of school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices and organizational structures”.

According to the National School Climate Centre (2013), in New York,

“A sustainable, positive school climate fosters youth development and learning necessary for a productive, contributing and satisfying life in a democratic society. This climate includes:

• Norms, values and expectations that support people feeling socially, emotionally and physically safe.

• People are engaged and respected.

• Students, families and educators work together to develop, live and contribute to a shared vision.

• Educators model and nurture attitudes that emphasize the benefits and satisfaction gained from learning.”

• Each person contributes to the operations of the school and the care of the physical environment.

There is no consensus about what school climate dimensions are essential to assess, however, the National School Climate Council suggests that there are four major areas that school climate assessment needs to include: Safety, Relationships, Teaching and Learning and the external environment.

According to Hoy (2012), a few visits to a few schools will convince even the most casual observer that there are striking differences in the feel of schools. The school climate creates the atmosphere to meet the wide range of student needs. Hoy (2012) relates the school climate to school health. He argued that at institutional level, institutional integrity reflects the school’s ability to cope with its environment in positive ways. He framed the managerial level in terms of:

The principal’s leadership: initiating structure to solve problems, consideration to assist and support teachers, influence to help and protect teachers, and resource support to secure the materials needed for teachers to succeed.

42 1.4.3. School Culture

School culture is considered as the prerequisite for creating an excellent school. Firestone and Wilson (1985) provide a useful framework for the study of organizational cultures of schools. They suggest that the analysis of school culture can be addressed by studying its context, the expressions of culture, and primary communication patterns. The symbols through which culture is expressed often help identify important cultural themes. Three symbol systems that communicate the contents of a school’s culture are stories, icons and rituals. Bates (1987), however, argues that such formulations treat organizational culture as synonymous with managerial culture and are much too narrow to capture the essence of culture. This observation leads to a more general issue of whether most schools have a culture or a variety of subcultures.

Bolman and Deal (1997), however, report that often what is done or said is not nearly as important as its symbolic significance. Examining the culture of schools provides a less rational, more uncertain, and less linear view of organizational life than the standard perspectives on structure, rationality and efficiency. They refer to the culture perspective as the ‘symbolic frame’ for viewing organizations. They argue that the frame is based on unconventional assumptions about the nature of the organization and behaviour.

According to Beae, Caldwell and Millikan (1898),

When a group of people share the same world view, when their paradigms are consistent with each other or are sufficiently homogenous in their core assumptions, then a common ‘culture’

emerges. That group of people begins to manifest parallel behaviours, similar speech patterns, common ways of explaining their particular universe, in short, the group becomes tribal. Thus the principal, if he or she wishes to develop a strong cohesive culture for his or her school, must address those elements which handle the school’s environment for Learning. (p.18)

School culture is a deep phenomenon and difficult to understand, but the effort to understand it is worthwhile because much of the mysterious and the irrational in schools become clear when we understand it. Schein (1991) defines culture as

A pattern of basic assumptions- invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration- that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the

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correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems(p.9)

Levels of school culture

Schein (1991) describes the three ‘levels’ of culture: ‘Artifacts and Creations’

constructed from the physical and social environment are the most visible level of culture but often not decipherable; a set of ‘values’ pertaining to the school can predict much of the behaviour that can be observed; and ‘Basic Underlying Assumptions’ are taken for granted when they solve problems repeatedly. These implicit assumptions guide behaviour and tell group members how to perceive, think about, and feel about things.

Similarly, Hoy and Miskel (2001) describes three levels of organizational culture: ‘Tacit Assumptions’ as the abstract premises such as nature of human relationships, truth and reality and relationship to the environment; ‘values’ as openness, trust, cooperation, intimacy and teamwork; and ‘norms’ as supporting colleagues and principal, handle discipline problems and assistance to students. They also refer to culture as shared norms which directly influence behaviour.

School Climate and School Culture

The concepts of climate and culture have often been interpreted differently or have been used interchangeably in educational research, yet both are closely linked. The relationship between culture and climate was supported by Schein (1985, 1996) when he stated that norms, values, rituals and climate are all manifestations of culture. Hoy and Feldman (1999) refers to culture as shared norms and climate as shared perception; they believe that even though the conceptual distance between the two is small, it is nonetheless real. According to them, this small difference is meaningful and crucial because shared perceptions of behaviour are more readily measured than shared values.

They describe climate as having fewer abstractions than culture and conclude that climate presents fewer problems in terms of empirical measurements. They consider climate as the preferred construct when measuring the organizational health of a school.

On the contrary, in his study, Van Houte (2004) investigated whether culture and climate can be considered interchangeable concepts in school effectiveness research. He concluded that culture has become increasingly more important in educational research and has challenged climate as a means to describe the character of educational settings.

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According to him, the culture concept is more accurate, since it is clear how culture originates and how culture may influence individual members of the organization where as there is no clarity about these matters for climate. However, Van Houte also cautions about whether there is one monolithic culture or different cultures coexisting within the same organization.

Relating climate and culture to school effectiveness, Schlechty (1997) states that simply altering the structure and expectations of schools has failed over the last 50 years. He suggests that structural change that is not supported by cultural change is bound to fail because it is in the culture that any organization finds meaning and stability. Similarly, Dufour and Eaker (1998) claim that reform efforts of the last 30 years have failed to improve student achievement in schools because they failed to adequately address the importance of culture and climate of schools.

McNeil, Prater and Busch (2009) study the effects of school culture and climate on student achievement. They used the Organizational Health Inventory (OHI) (Johnstone, 1988), which is considered to have high reliability to measure the ten dimensions of school climate – Goal focus, Communication, Optimal power equalization, Resource utilization, Cohesiveness, Morale, Innovativeness, Autonomy, Adaptation and Problem solving adequacy. They classify the 29 schools in southeast Texas into three categories based on student achievement – Exemplary, Recognized and Acceptable (no school was categorized as low-performing). They use descriptive statistics and statistical tests (analysis of variance) to show that schools with Exemplary rating also demonstrate healthier climates than schools with Acceptable ratings. Their findings also suggest that the dimensions Goal focus and Adaptation describe aspects of school health and culture that are crucial to the academic success of students within the school. Since Goal focus and Adaptation were the only two dimensions that exhibited statistical significance between the categories of school cultures, it follows that they justify special attention when developing a healthy school climate. McNeil et al. (2009) therefore, conclude that it is through the principal’s ability to interact with the climate of the school in a manner that improves Goal focus and Adaptability that the learning environment is improved.

45 Culture, Climate and School Leaders

Many organizational theorists have long reported that paying attention to culture is the most important action that a leader can perform. Sergiovanni (1984) claims that the cultural aspect is the most important dimension of leadership.

Schein (1991) describes elaborately on how school leaders embed and transmit culture.

According to him,

The most powerful primary mechanisms for culture embedding and reinforcement are:

• What leaders pay attention to, measure and control;

• Leaders reactions to critical incidents and organizational crises;

• Deliberate role modeling, teaching, and coaching by leaders;

• Criteria for allocation of rewards and status;

• Criteria for recruitment, selection, promotion, retirement, and excommunication.(p.224)

The most important secondary articulation and reinforcement mechanisms according to Schein (1991) are:

• The organizational design and structure;

• Organizational systems and procedures;

• Design of physical space, facades and buildings;

• Stories, legends, myths, and parables about important events and people;

• Formal statements of organizational philosophy, creeds and charters. (p.237)

Hallinger and Heck (1998) and other education theorists reported that the principal’s impact on learning is mediated through the climate and culture of the school and is not a direct effect, hence the principal does not directly affect student achievement, but rather indirectly by impacting on the climate of the school. This view is further supported by Witziers et al. (2003) who claim that leadership is no longer proposed as having a direct influence on learning outcomes but as having an indirect influence through the way it has an impact on school organization and school culture.

There is substantial evidence in the literature to suggest that a school principal must first understand the school’s culture before implementing change (Leithwood et al., 2004).

Fullan (2001) contends that the concept of instructional leader is too limited to sustain school improvement. He also promoted the idea that school principals serve as change agents to transform the teaching and learning culture of the school.

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Similarly, Bush (2005) argues that although societal culture is beyond the control of educational leaders, they are able to influence organizational culture. He believes that leaders have the responsibility for sustaining culture.

1.4.4. The School Curriculum

The broadest view of the curriculum is all experiences students have under the guidance of teachers. Marsh and Willis define curriculum as “all the experiences in the classroom which are planned and enacted by teachers, and also learned by the students.” According to Schwab, in our education system, curriculum is divided into chunks of knowledge we call subject areas such as English, French, Mathematics, Science and others. However, the definition given by John Dewey, based on experience and education is “the total learning experiences of the individual.” Print (1991) sees the curriculum as “all the planned learning opportunities offered to learners by the educational institution and the experiences learners encounter when the curriculum is implemented” (p.9). The curriculum is therefore directly related to student learning and student achievement. The interaction of the planned curriculum with the students, teachers, school leader and the locality modifies the planned curriculum and a new curriculum emerges for the school.

The transmission of this planned curriculum occurs through the official and taught curriculum. Students also acquire numerous learning experiences that were not planned and not intended, this is referred to as the hidden curriculum. Students thus, learn through the formal curriculum, the informal curriculum as well as the hidden curriculum.

The curriculum is at the heart of the school program and is carefully planned for maximum effectiveness. It is also regularly adapted to the economic, social, cultural and individual needs of the students.

Curriculum Reform

In many countries and throughout the modern era of educational change, curriculum innovation has been regarded as an essential strategy for educational reform. Initiatives towards curriculum reforms are in the form of new curricula within the existing schools or new kinds of schools with a particular kind of curricula. For all kinds of curriculum reforms, teachers have a leading role in curriculum development.

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In the UK, the Education Reform Act of 1988 introduced a centrally prescribed National Curriculum. Baker (1993) seeks to promote ‘radical change’ in the education system in order for it to ‘match the needs of 21^st century Britain’ and to achieve higher pupil standards. This systematic approach to curriculum was expected to produce educational change of a kind that was not achieved by previous teacher-led initiatives. Such trends were also seen in other countries.

According to McCulloch (2005), the eventual impact of the National Curriculum remains to be seen, but it is already evident that its hopes for radical change are highly problematic. He stated that reforming the content and form of what is taught has often appeared to be even more important than other familiar approaches, such as reforming the organization, yet he claims that in spite of such hopes, over the longer term curriculum reform has generally failed to generate educational change of a fundamental kind. Fullan (1991) reports that the structures and cultures of schooling have proven to be highly resilient to fundamental change, and what has appeared to be novel in principle or policy has commonly been interpreted in practice along familiar lines.

McCulloch (2005) further observed that the problematic nature of curricular change is basically due to particular strategies devised for curriculum reform which have been highly influential in determining the structure and eventual impact of particular initiatives. Often there has been an unresolved issue over what should be the role of schools and teachers, yet in an obvious sense, any reform of the curriculum would be dependent on the goodwill and ability of schools and teachers in carrying it out in practice.

Teachers and Curriculum Reform

Strategies of curriculum reform have tended to be directed by the state, from policy decisions in order to follow the new trends in development and to meet the demands of society. Lawton (1980) argued that teachers by and large failed to assert effective control over the curriculum or to take responsibility for curriculum reform, when they had the opportunity to do so. Moreover, Wrigley (1985), one leading participant in these initiatives in the UK confessed ‘We are slow to see the abiding difficulty of effective innovation.’ He also added that despite the celebrations of teacher autonomy, there

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remained major constraints on curriculum reform and innovation such as the influence of teaching materials, teacher’s own education and experiences, and often external examinations.

It was widely feared that the National Curriculum would destroy the capacity of teachers to contribute in their own ways towards curriculum reform. Some critics warned that the very notion of teacher professionalism was under direct threat (Gilroy, 1991).

Teaching Practices and Curriculum Reforms

Despite numerous reforms, classroom situations have not evolved much. In his study, Klette (2010) considers schools and classrooms in UK, Norway and Sweden during major reforms in 1997 and subsequently in 2006. The new national curriculum put new professional demands on the teachers as well as requiring new forms of classroom practices. A vast research literature tends to arrive at status quo as a way of describing how reform efforts interplay with educational practices. There is persistence of recitation and resistance to change and adopt new teaching strategies. Most teachers reported that the curriculum guidelines had little or no impact on their lesson planning, teaching, their students’ involvement and student achievement. Klette (2010) reports that according to research literature there are some routinized patterns of teaching that seem to continue to define interaction, roles and repertoires in classrooms.

Despite numerous reforms effort trying to transform classrooms into spaces of enquiries, investigations and sites of unfolding learning processes based on pupils’ individual needs and interests, teachers continue to design and redesign classrooms as sites of recitation and plenary teaching. (p.1005)

He also reported that teachers dominate, regulate, define and evaluate all communication and activities in the classroom. Approximately 75% of the time, teachers talk, regulate and monitor all official classroom conversation.

According to some authors (Cuban, 1984; Tyack and Tobin, 1994), school and its practices are sealed by traditionalism and stasis. In a case study in France and Mexico on stability and transformation in configurations of activity, Veyrunes and Yvon (2013) showed the persistence of the traditional pedagogical formats in these two countries despite significant contextual and cultural differences. One traditional idea about pupils’

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work organization is the work contract (seatwork); it is very common as it helps teachers to maintain order and to bring pupils into activity. It is a teacher-centered teaching method and is under the control of the teacher. It persists despite reform initiatives and the preparedness of teachers to explore new pedagogies. Its adaptation and transformation nevertheless lead to lifelong learning. As Veyrunes and Yvon (2013, p.81) stated: in the process of change,

the pedagogical format remains identical but the configuration of collective activity evolves… The stability gives to the actors a certain comfort and lets them reach the aims they fix…Changes are thereby digested and incorporated into existing practices, or even invalidated.

Hence, despite reform initiatives by the higher authorities, the relevant training of teachers and the willingness of teachers to innovate and explore new teaching strategies, pedagogical formats tend to be stable with minimum modifications. Collective activity of pupils, engaging them in the learning process is difficult to achieve. A new configuration emerges based on the teachers’ perceptions and actions.

School factors directly or indirectly determine school effectiveness. They depend on many factors including leadership capacity and style at all levels, on teachers who

School factors directly or indirectly determine school effectiveness. They depend on many factors including leadership capacity and style at all levels, on teachers who