stoll and fink typology of school culture

Subordinates expect superiors to act autocratically. Stoll, & Mackay, 2014). & The processes of cultural change in schools have been considered extensively in the literature (e.g. P. & This may be due in part to the fact that understanding culture and its connection to leadership in education is a poorly researched field. Internationalisation, ethnic diversity and the acquisition of intercultural competencies. every organization must have a person in charge, acute awareness of the expenditure of time, an obligation to accommodate others right to participate. 5167). (1996). However, over a decade ago, Heck (1996) suggested that advances in statistical methods held some hope of achieving conceptual and metric equivalence in investigating theoretical models across nations and within organizations. (1996). Moller, J. The product will be a mosaic of sub-cultures, which may reinforce the cultural objectives of the whole school or, in some cases, appear as counter cultures that challenge the organizational hegemony. This suggests that they are prepared, appointed and developed to reflect a specific set of values and beliefs and are expected to simply transmit those imposed and inherited values to staff and to pupils within their institution. The (racially neutral) politics of education: a critical race Theory perspective. Similarly, Bajunid (1996, p. 56) argues that the richness of Islamic teaching is absent from concepts of leadership. A second view, though, is that of leaders as agents of cultural change, as discussed earlier in the chapter. Categorization of groups which might be assumed to hold a culture in common is therefore problematic. Bush (2007). Two typologies are developed. As a consequence, leaders must be equipped to work with both imported as well as indigenous culture. & . A number of research areas seem indicated as urgently required. Instead there are history, context, process, interactivity, power relations and change. Those attempting to loosen the bonds of dominant cultures implicit in preparation and development programs research and write within the very dominant orientations they are trying to question (Gronn, 2001). Kachelhoffer, P. While these are different aims, they both involve intercultural fluency. & Panel 4 A Typology of School Cultures. The former has received very little and the latter a good deal more attention (Gronn, 2001; Heck, 1996). Preparing head teachers to respond to these challenges will be a significant challenge, therefore, and this is a focus later in the chapter. Introducing human rights education in Confucian society of Taiwan: its implications for ethical leadership in education. Begley, P. Elmes P., Glatter (1996). Leading educational change in East Asian schools. Crossing the great divides: problems of cultural diffusion for leadership in education. Jackson, D. 210223). In a strict sense we might argue that the culture of every educational institution is unique, derived from the context in which the school operates and the values of those who have led or been part of the organization over time. Kennedy, A. Effects of cultural diversity on in-class communication and student project team dynamics: Creating synergy in the diverse classroom. Choices will continue as culture evolves and the perspectives of all players mutate over time. Washington Middle School located in La Habra, California - CA. Any research which attempts to map such differences in concept and practice will face severe methodological challenges. Ultimately, it is the cultural product/output of the school by which it will be judged, for it will be benchmarked against the cultural expectations that government, society and community have for their schools. Hallinger, P. Kaur Hayers, P. At first sight these components of culture may be thought to be significantly outside the control of schools themselves. The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace; National Association of Secondary School Principals (U.S.); National Association of Independent Schools. , Washington, K. | How to buy Many of our schools are good schools - if this were 1965. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 321332. (1996). A challenge to dominant cultures and the evolution of cultures which are seen as fitting will be achieved only by persistent efforts to increase the intercultural fluency of all involved, in part by increasing the evidence base, and in part through detailed translation of such evidence to impact the design and delivery of the development of leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 7(2), 163187. The extent of this range of sub-cultures and counter-cultures and their positive or negative interactions will be a key issue for those in leadership within the school and may cause cultural management issues to be significant or insignificant within the whole management task. For example, culture is suggested to both shape and reflect values (Begley & Wong, 2001), philosophy (Ribbins & Zhang, 2004), gender (Celikten, 2005), religion (Sapre & Ranade, 2001), politics (Hwang, 2001), ethnicity (Bryant, 1998) and history (Wong, 2001). Stoll & Fink (1996) created a typology of five types of school culture: moving (dynamic and successful determination to keep developing), cruising (rather complacent, often with privileged learners who achieve despite little school dynamism), strolling (neither particularly effective or ineffective, but long term not keeping pace with change . Everyone expects superiors to enjoy privileges, and status symbols are very important. 2 C. BELLEI ET AL. The school leader is therefore at the fulcrum point, subject to exogenous effects of culture, refracted in part through his or her leadership development and personal cultural locus, and in turn engaging with endogenous culture in the school and its community. , (Eds. (1993). International Journal of Leadership In Education, 4(4),297307. (1999). Stoll, L. Archer, M. Its view of the nature of truth and reality how does it define what is true and what is not and how is truth defined in the context of the social or natural world? , R. In terms of cultural outputs school leaders need to understand both what the external societies expect from the school and what they wish to achieve themselves this will require an integration of their personal and professional values, their vision of the purpose of schooling, and the visions and values of the key external stakeholders. The capacity of any individual or group to engineer culture is questionable (Adler, 1997; Morgan, 1986). According to Mortimore (1991), a lot of improvement efforts have failed because research results were not translated adequately into guidelines for educational practice. R. Organizational development in the Arab world. School Culture. (1991). At the exogenous level, there appears to be widespread cultural homogeneity implicit in leadership development; that is, whether explicitly acknowledged or not, development is underpinned by some degree of belief in leadership as an invariable activity (Walker & Walker, 1998; Bhindi & Duignan, 1997): this despite recognition that even the word leader has very different connotations in different cultures (House, 2004). London: Paul Chapman. Chinese culture and leadership. , Hoppe (2004) suggests that experiential learning proves enjoyable and effective for US leaders while French and German leaders often view this approach as time-wasting childs play (p. 353). The adoption of similar sets of competences, for example, reflects to some degree airbrushing out the influence of local culture (Davis, 2001; Macpherson, Kachelhoffer & El Nemr, 2007). By contrast Singaporean cultures emphasis on collective action and respect for seniority underpins acceptance and effective use of mentoring as an important mode of development, defined as a process whereby an expert or senior person guides a less experienced leader (Tin, 2001). Hallinger (2001) also points to the ubiquitous use of theories such as Learning Organization and School Based Management, which are firmly embedded in similar cultural norms. Hofstede, G. The discourse of diversity: from biology to management. School culture can have an positive. For example, being dynamic and dependable, encouraging and displaying integrity were agreed to be positive leader attributes across all the nations involved. (Eds. Very many illustrations could be offered of the different expectations and practice of leadership throughout the world. The project established 21 common perceived effective leadership attributes and behaviors within the 57 participating nations, providing evidence of widespread assumptions about leadership. International Studies in Educational Administration, Thomas, D. C. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, v6 n1 p23-46 1995 Explores the relevance of culture to school effectiveness and school improvement. , Cross-cultural issues in development of leaders. Moral leadership in education: an Indian perspective. (2004), Understanding valuation processes; exploring the linkage between motivation and action. The dynamic culture of Gupta Managing diversity in transnational project teams. as cited in Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003, p. 132). There are different typologies that can be used to assess. (See, for example, Buruma and Margal-its book, Occidentalism: The west in the eyes of its enemies.) Intercultural Education. Women and leadership: The views of women who are . Culture can take different forms. & & Discourse and Organization. Prosser, J. , Hodgkinson, C. The GLOBE project was undertaken in a business context. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 2029. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. More helpful is the model of Schein (1990), which, in contrast, has provided a generic and analytical model of culture. of the teachers, students and school community. Understanding Schools as Organisations Wang, H. As within continents or regions, within each nation, a common culture cannot be assumed, the differences between the culture of Native Americans, Hispanic and African American women and that of white males within the United States being an example given above. Crawford Gronn, P. House, R. J. Analysis of the content of programs might suggest that such commitment is largely camouflage for neglect of such values (Lopez, 2003; Rusch, 2004). ), Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity (pp. M. Education researchers have also assumed such common attributes, for example, integrity (Begley, 2004; Bhindi & Duignan, 1997). Certainly it would be helpful to undertake an educational equivalent of the GLOBE project (House et al., 2004) and to establish the education leadership attributes and behaviors that are held in common across a large number of nations and those elements that are culturally contingent. & Cranston, N. Educational Management & Administration, Billot, J. Prasad They may also tackle the issue of how culture can be managed. Unproductive, toxic schools have fragmented staffs, eroding goals, and negative, hopeless atmospheres. There exists a considerable literature on culture, which provides a range of conceptualizations. Here we shall consider three of these perspectives which we believe provide diverse insights reflections on the tangible components of culture and a number of models of those components in action; consideration of the organizational scales at which culture is important in educational contexts; and a systems view of culture which enables the areas of potential management influence of culture in schools to be identified. Its view of the nature of human relationships are people essentially collaborative or competitive, do they function best in groups or as individuals? (1986). Matching culture to preparation and development engages with what is perceived to be universal, what appears to be distinctive to the region or nation or group of people, and what is unique to the individual. Our intent in this paper is to provide a retrospective of the past few years to provide some helpful insights into the change process in school systems. Transactional leadership, often viewed negatively in many Anglophone countries, may be a more appropriate theoretical basis in many contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leaders navigate cultural choices which are always constrained. The design of curriculum and delivery is therefore to an extent a cultural guessing game requiring those responsible for preparation and development to hold a high level of cultural fluency themselves and to support the development of cultural fluency in others. Prasad, P. (2003). Walker, A. Boosting pupil's progress development Working together to respond to changing context Know where they are going and having the will and skill to get there Possess norms of improving schools1.MOVING REFERS ON THE FOLLOWING: A primary aim of the chapter therefore is to explore how we understand culture in its infinitely variable expressions, and how it relates to the design and implementation of leadership preparation and development programs. Clearly in these two instances, Western derived theories of autonomy, planning and change management are all thrown into question. Such a perspective suggests that the dominant culture, were it to be discerned with any certainty, would be embedded, unexamined and therefore unchallenged, in preparation and development programs. Cultural influences on organizational leadership. One consequence is that there is currently no precise means of assessing dimensions variously labeled as cultural distance or degree of diversity (Iles & Kaur Hayers, 1997, p. 107) or diversity amount and diversity degree (Thomas, 1999; Taras & Rowney, 2007); that is the differences between the culture of one location of leader development and another, or the extent of cultural differences within a leader development group. Walnut Elementary 625 N. Walnut St. La Habra, CA 90631 Phone: 562-690-2369. (2007). Journal of School Leadership, 12(2), 693720. Develops two "ideal culture" typologies (traditional and collegial) and discusses each for its heuristic, conceptual, methodological, and explanatory potential in school effectiveness and school . An international perspective on leadership preparation. Good schools of this were 1965 the context of change a story of change - the Halton effective school project school effectiveness can inform school improvement the possibilities and challenges of school improvement school . While there may be commonalities within a whole school, in practice each of these levels will differ in the detail of its culture. Spicing it op: Blending perspectives of leadership and cultural values from Hispanic American and African American women scholars. 206207). Journal of Educational Administration, 36(1), 828. Powell, Farrar and Cohen (1985) used research from fifteen high schools to depict a culture of easy and uncritical acceptance of underachievement. The chapter considers five main themes. (2006). Gender and race in leadership preparation: a constrained discourse. (Hargreaves 1995; Maslowski 2001, pp. This unique culture will reveal itself through a number of institutional characteristics: While these representations are identifiable and mostly tangible, the illusiveness of the concept of culture lies in the fact that it is an holistic concept which is more than the sum of these component parts. Prosser, 1998). The first is that culture is neither unitary nor static (Collard & Wang, 2005), and while change may be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, trends and developments in internal and external influences will move the culture forward. Skip to page content. Bryant, M. There have been strong responses to the lack of critical awareness of these processes. However House et al. Cultural isolation is difficult, even in societies which seek strongly to conserve traditional cultural values within their educational systems. (2006). Hallinger, P. However, his analysis of national culture has been abused to support stereotypical views and crude dichotomies, such as between Western cultures and those of Asia. (Hoppe, 2004, p. 333). Corporate rituals: The rites and fituals of corporate life. This paper's focus is school culture as 10. Understanding international differences in culture would provide a basis for planning cultural fit in preparation and development programs. Once the inputs are understood and the intended outputs identified, the major challenge for the school leader is then to organize and operationalize the processes within the school to enable pupils to travel from their cultural starting point to the output position the school seeks to achieve. Walker, A. Decisions to encourage acceptance or critique of the dominant culture and its effect lie at the moral heart of supporting the education of leaders. Following our examination of globalization and culture in the previous section, we consider here the picture of culture within educational leadership internationally. (Eds. Bjerke, B. Hallinger, P. Education Leadership Review, 3(2), 2831. Stoll and Fink identified 10 cultural norms that influence school improvement (see summary in Panel 2). Hiltrop, J. London: Sage. Who. Al-Meer, A. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Cardno, C. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 367381. A. These may be through processes of exclusion or processes of inclusion, resulting in a relatively homogeneous or diverse student body, but in either case the outcome will be a pupil profile which reflects a particular set of cultural characteristics. Salaman Similarly, the selection of teaching staff provides at least an implicit and possibly an explicit mechanism of shaping a key cultural input into the school. we elaborated a typology of school improvement trajectories: we identi ed 4 di erent trajectories of school improvement. Organisational Culture and Leadership. you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Redefining the field of European human resource management: a battle between national mindsets and forces of business transition? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 1(2), 95117. Professing educational leadership: conceptions of power. Bajunid (1996, p. 52) argued over a decade ago that in Malaysia there is an urgent need to inspire, motivate and work with relevant and meaningful concepts that the locals are at home and familiar with and to free educational leadership and management from the intellectual domination of Greco-Roman, Christian, Western intellectual traditions (1996, p. 63). We need to work in organisations, collectively developing an understanding of where they are going and what is important. A. & As a second exemplar, in China the millennia long influence of Confucianism has led to a compliance culture, the impact of this cultural norm being a tendency to see change as an event rather than a process (Hallinger, 2001, p. 67). In relation to leader preparation and development culture has been framed largely as an issue of diffusion, particularly of Western values and practice applied to the development of leaders in all parts of the globe (Leithwood & Duke, 1998). Changing the culture becomes merely a question of technical fit, of shaping leadership development to align it to local culture. (1997). Does it perceive itself as dominant, submissive, harmonizing or searching out a niche within its operational environment? Handy, C. London: Sage. The first approach led to selection of 25 most frequently found publications on the school as learning organisation and/or learning school. Although researchers are just beginning to document the effectiveness of the PLC culture, early indications show that it has a significant positive effect on student learning (Lee & Smith, 1996; Louis & Marks, 1998; Stoll et al., 2006; Wiley, 2001). His ideas were widely influential. The fourth theme addresses a key concern for both policy and practice which is the connection between culture and leaders preparation and development. It is probably for this reason that . His critique suggests that there is insufficient time given in such an approach to understanding existing cultures, both at a general level and in terms of the underpinning key components and variables, and the consequence is cultural imperialism. The New Meaning of Educational Change (3rd ed.). & Exploring the cultural context of school improvement in Thailand. In this line, a study . (1985). Sarason (1971, 1996), writing of US schools, was one of the earliest to insist that improving schools was primarily a question of changing culture. The challenge for leaders, therefore, is to manage that change in terms of speed, direction or nature to support the organizations goals. The development of a professional school culture is an important approach for promoting teacher learning (Stoll & Kools, 2017). It takes the view that culture can be unified and that dissent, anomaly, conflicts of interest or ambiguity are viewed. However, Cardno (2007) argues that the dilemma created by the need to give negative feedback and to save face, for example in appraisal, often emphasized as a cultural context in Chinese societies, is in fact universal. Stier insists that the latter cannot be achieved by content competencies alone. The government of Thailand sought to introduce the western concept of school-based management, but found this problematic in the context of an existing societal culture, typical amongst the staff of Thai schools, in which deference to senior management and leadership made the introduction of collaborative and distributed approaches to leadership very difficult.