The Relationship between School Culture and Organizational Health in Primary Schools

Year 2012, Volume: 4 Issue: 4, 599 - 620, 01.05.2012

Servet Özdemir

Abstract

Purpose. Organizational culture is defined as a combination of beliefs, values, and norms in the organization. What is common in the definitions of organizational culture is that it is considered as the shared common values (Mullins, 1996; Robbins, 1990; Schein, 1992; Şişman, 2002). From this point of view, an organizational culture of a school consists of the beliefs, values, norms, heroes, assumptions, symbols, and rituals in this school setting. In an effective school, the school culture encourages students to be successful, and teachers share the common values. One of the main characteristics of an effective school is an open school culture that support students' learning. Cheng (1993) emphasizes that teachers' motivation and job satisfaction are higher in the schools with strong cultures. In the relevant literature, there are several classifications of organizational culture. Although these classifications differ from each other in some ways, it is possible to say that some similarities exist among them. For example, Şişman (2002) defines organizational culture under the categories as rational, developmental, compromising, and hierarchical. Harrison (1972) and Handy (1981) gives a classification as power, role, task, and individual culture. According to Hofstede (1997), organizational culture may be used under four characteristics such as power distances, avoiding from indefiniteness, individualism/collectivism, and femininemasculine. Terzi (2005) also classifies the school organizational culture as the dimensions of support, success, bureaucratic, and task-oriented. Healthy schools have open climates and strong cultures (Hoy & Miskel, 1987). A school culture has important effects on the behaviors of teachers. In healthy schools, teachers like and help each other. Teachers do their jobs eagerly in a school with a strong culture. In this regard, clarifying the relationships between school culture and school health may contribute to the understanding of teachers' behaviors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between school organizational culture and school health in Turkish primary schools. Based on the explanations above, this study addresses the following questions: 1. Are there any significant relationships between teachers' perceptions of school organizational culture and school health? 2. Do the dimensions of school organizational culture significantly predict the components of school organizational health? Design. The present study used a survey model for collecting data. The dependent variables of the study were the dimensions of school organizational health as academic emphasis, institutional integrity, professional leadership, resource support, and morale. The factors of school culture (support-oriented, success-oriented, bureaucratic, and taskoriented) were the independent variables. Participants. The study sample included 281 primary school teachers who participated in an in-service teacher education activity designed in Ankara. These teachers were 191 males (68%) and 90 females (32%). Out of this sample, 65 teachers (23.1%) were in the age group of 30-34 and 55 (19.6%) teachers were in the age group of 35-39. The majority of the sample consisted of the teachers who have been working at their present schools for 1-5 years (56.9%). Instruments. The School Culture Scale developed by Terzi (2005) and the School Organizational Health Scale developed by Korkmaz (2007a) were used to gather data from the primary school teachers. The first scale entitled as The School Culture Scale consisted of 29 Likert type itemsdistributed by four factors. These factors are: support-oriented (8 items), success-oriented (6 items), bureaucratic (9 items), and task-oriented (6 items). Higher scores of each factor denote a higher level of school culture. The reliability coefficients ranged from .76 (bureaucratic) to .88 (supportoriented).The second scale used in the study, the School Organizational Health Scale, involves 21 Likert type items rated on a scale from 1 (rarely) to 4 (always). It has five dimensions: academic emphasis, institutional integrity, professional leadership, resource support, and morale. The reliability coefficient of the scale was .79. Data Analysis. In the process of analyzing data, Pearson correlations were used to find out the relationships between the dependent and independent variables. In addition, a standard multiple regression analysis was performed to predict the dependent variables and determine if the independent variables are significant predictors or not. Results. Results indicated that a task-oriented culture is domain in the primary schools ( Χ = 3.91). Results from this study also showed that the morale dimension of school health was the highest rated by teachers ( Χ = 2.93). The academic emphasis dimension of school health was positively related to support oriented (r = .30, p < .01), success oriented (r = .26, p < .01), bureaucratic (r = .18, p < .01), and task-oriented (r = .40, p < .01) dimensions of school culture. School institutional integrity was also positively associated with the bureaucratic culture (r = .32, p < .01). Moreover, the dimension of professional leadership was positively correlated with the taskoriented school culture (r = .20, p < .01). The dimensions of school culture as support-oriented (β = .26, p < .01), bureaucratic (β = .19, p < .01), and taskoriented (β = .31, p < .01) positively and significantly predicted the academic emphasis dimension of school health. However, the success-oriented school culture was not a significant predictor of academic emphasis (β = –.01, p > .05). Although support-oriented culture (β = .23, p < .01) and bureaucratic culture (β = .33, p < .01) variables were the positive predictors of institutional integrity, success-oriented culture (β = –.23, p < .01) was a negative predictor of it. Results revealed that the professional leadership and resource support dimensions of school health were positively and significantly predicted by the culture dimensions of support-oriented and successoriented. The support-oriented culture was the only significant predictor of morale dimension of school organizational health (β = .56, p < .01). This finding refers that teachers' morale may increase with the higher levels of perceived support. Discussion, Conclusion, and Implication. The present study examining the relationships between teachers' perceptions of school organizational culture and school health has supported the notion that school culture is an important factor contributing to the school health. According to the perceptions of teachers, primary schools generally have a task-oriented culture. This finding is consistent with some earlier studies' findings (Koşar, 2008; Terzi, 2005). A high level of teachers' morale may be considered as an important and interesting result of this study. Results demonstrated that the success-oriented culture in the schools needs to be improved because it is not found to be related to academic emphasis dimension of school health. Professional developments and successful applications of teachers should be more encouraged and supported by the school principals. Teachers are more likely to do their jobs desirably and enthusiastically in a support-oriented school culture. Therefore, some social activities for improving communication and perceived support among teachers should be organized. According to the results, principals' leadership behaviors may enhance teachers' feelings of support and success. In this regard, it is suggested that school principals should act as an instructional leader for teachers. As the teachers may experience high level of morale in the schools with high levels of support-oriented cultures, it is recommended that a positive school culture including collaboration, open communication, and altruistic behaviors among teachers should be given more importance in daily operations of schools settings.

Keywords

school culture , school health , bureaucratic culture , primary school

İlköğretim Okullarında Okul Kültürü ile Örgütsel Sağlık Arasındaki İlişki

Abstract

Bu çalışmanın amacı, ilköğretim okulu öğretmenlerinin okul kültürüne ilişkin algıları ile örgütsel sağlık algıları arasındaki ilişkileri incelemektir. Araştırmaya 2009 yılında Ankara'da düzenlenen bir hizmetiçi eğitim etkinliğinde görev alan 281 ilköğretim okulu öğretmeni katılmıştır. Araştırmada verilerin toplanması amacıyla Örgüt Kültürü Ölçeği ve Okul Örgütsel Sağlık Ölçeği kullanılmıştır. Verilerin analizinde Pearson korelasyonu ve çoklu doğrusal regresyon analizi uygulanmıştır. Araştırmanın sonuçları ilköğretim okullarında görev kültürünün baskın olduğunu göstermiştir. Bürokratik kültür boyutu ile destek kültürü arasında negatif ilişki bulunmuştur. Okul kültürünün destek, bürokratik ve görev boyutları okul sağlığının akademik önem boyutunu pozitif yönde ve anlamlı düzeyde yordamaktadır. Ayrıca, okul kültürünün destek ve başarı boyutları okul sağlığının mesleki liderlik ve kaynak desteği boyutları ile pozitif ilişkili bulunmuştur. Destek kültürü, öğretmen moralinin tek anlamlı yordayıcısıdır. Sonuç olarak, okul kültürünün ve sağlığının geliştirilmesine yönelik bazı önerilerde bulunulmuştur.

Keywords

okul kültürü , okul sağlığı , bürokratik kültür , ilköğretim okulu

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