The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change. New York: Teachers College Press. Who. Cultural influences on organizational leadership. Bajunid, I. Organizational change, leadership and learning: culture as cognitive process. In the context of education this is seen through the promotion of policies and practices around the globe that have been initially developed in the west, based often on western approaches to educational management and the key concept of economic rationalism. Crawford 206207), There are no essential, innate and immutable characteristics of race, age, gender, disability or other demographic categories. 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. Elmes 331360). These are the cultural, verbal, visual and behavioral components of the school in action through which a wide range of cultural messages and aims will be delivered. & 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. House, R. The processes of globalization have been a significant feature of all dimensions of society and economy over the last three decades. 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? 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. A person in charge is not required. If leaders believe that a dominant culture is identifiable or achievable, and that it is a single, stable and unifying phenomenon, then changing it becomes a matter of choice, but relatively straightforward and without any moral ramifications. Stoll and 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), Cincinnati: South Western. School leaders work within pressing cultures which sustain themselves by multiple conscious and unconscious mechanisms (Lumby with Coleman, 2007). Wallace, M. 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). , 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. In the education sector, the PLC provides a pathway to a learning organisation: one which comprises 'a group of people who take an active, re ective, collaborative, British Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 363386. In many countries the principal may indeed be key. & Ogawa Leader development across cultures. For the purposes of this chapter, these two snapshots highlight issues that result from consideration of culture, such as who are the primary leaders and how might the leadership theory used in their development be shaped in response to differing ontological, epistemological and axiological assumptions? While the former classroom and lecture based model is widespread, they suggest that the process model of problem solving, mentoring and internship holds more hope of reflecting indigenous cultures. (Eds. (2001). & San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. This may be interpreted in several ways ranging from the operational to the political. & Moral leadership in education: an Indian perspective. , Dorfman, P. W. A number of summative frameworks for analyzing culture have therefore been developed which seek to reduce the complexity of culture to simplified types which can be labeled for ease of comprehension. The first is the blending of western (or, more correctly, exogenous) cultural values with existing cultures to generate a new cultural environment, a model sometimes described as the melting pot perspective. Rather, cultural competency, the ability to recognize, analyze and engage purposefully with culture at the macro and micro levels is a foundational skill, which positions educational leadership as critical contributors to shaping society and not just the school. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 8(3), 207221. (forthcoming) point up the greater sensitivity within some cultures where responsibility for success is group owned and/ or where maintaining face is a high priority. More research of this kind, exploring fit not only to the dominant culture of the nation/region, but also fit to the multiple cultures within the nation or region would provide a potentially powerful antidote to programs which are currently not culturally inclusive. 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. 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). Bridges, E. 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. Walker, A. & Bajunid., 2005; Sapre & Ranade, 2001; Walker, 2006; Wong, 2001), and faith (Shah, 2006). , The first proposes four 'ideal type' school cultures, based on two underlying domains; the second, a more elaborate and dynamic model, proposes two 'ideal type' school cultures, based on five underlying structures. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ABSTRACT The relevance of the concept of culture to school effectiveness and school improvement is explored. Effects of cultural diversity on in-class communication and student project team dynamics: Creating synergy in the diverse classroom. In We are using cookies to provide statistics that help us give you the best experience of our site. We consider later in this chapter the implications of this for the professional development of lead-ers within educational institutions. This paper's focus is school culture as 10. If culture embeds, among other things, power relations, then the issue of programs matching or challenging dominant cultures becomes a matter of negotiating competing notions of appropriate power relations, political and social structures. The recent emphasis has been on achieving standards through managing schools, teachers and the teaching process. Stoll (2000) gave a general definition on the foundations of school's cultures. Cultural Influences on Leadership and Organizations: Project Globe. According to Mortimore (1991), a lot of improvement efforts have failed because research results were not translated adequately into guidelines for educational practice. (1997). M. Davis For most leaders this provides perhaps the most challenging dimension of leadership, for it is necessary to understand what those cultures are, why they exist and what aspects of them can or cannot, or should and should not, be subject to change to achieve the schools goals. The very public travails of The Ridings School have further heightened the national preoccupation with ineffective schools. ), Strategic Human Resource Management (pp. A. Schein, E. H. Begley, P. The political perspective would see educational leaders as seeking to generate in their pupils and staff a critical view of society, to challenge existing orthodoxies and to become citizens able to participate in social and cultural change. Following our examination of globalization and culture in the previous section, we consider here the picture of culture within educational leadership internationally. (1998). The dynamic culture of Dalin's(1995) typology of schools. Curricula and delivery which are founded on a set of cultural assumptions, even those which are dominant within the region or country, are likely to miss the mark for many. Prosser, J. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 1(2), 95117. M. D. More helpful is the model of Schein (1990), which, in contrast, has provided a generic and analytical model of culture. Much leadership theory reflects Anglophone and particularly US culture which Hoppe (2004, p. 335) suggests is consistently described as being individualistic, egalitarian, performance derived, comfortable with change, and action-and-data-oriented. In Walker, J. (2007). Such an approach to cultural change is, of course, a key component of western approaches to educational leadership, and has been criticized for representing a fundamental misunderstanding of what culture is and can be. Does it perceive itself as dominant, submissive, harmonizing or searching out a niche within its operational environment? & J. Hodgkinson (2001) argues that culture is always determining, subliminally and subconsciously, our value orientation and judgments. Managing diversity in transnational project teams. 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. For example, 86% of the worldwide variance on individualism-collectivism and 70% of variance across power-distance are found in Europe (Sparrow & Hiltrop, 1998, p. 73). An international perspective on leadership preparation. In , London: Paul Chapman. Stream sports and activities from La Habra High School in La Habra, CA, both live and on demand. | Contact us | Help & FAQs Another output lies in the cultural characteristics and values of the young people who are the product of the school once they have completed their time there. Cultural processes, the second element of a systems perspective, will be reflected in almost every dimension of the operation of the school. Leadership is therefore a community property shaped by a complex interrelationship between individuals and context, rather than resulting from individual intent and competition. | Promotions Gender and race in leadership preparation: a constrained discourse. She challenges whether any classification of humans is tenable in the light of increasing certainty deriving from advances in natural science that whatever taxonomy is adopted, the complexity of human beings, biologically, linguistically and culturally, cannot be placed into easily described categories: London: Paul Chapman. Conceptualizing the schools culture through such a systems approach helps clarify the challenges for school leaders in relation to culture. Training and educating principals for such cultural literacy is the focus of later sections in this chapter. Spicing it op: Blending perspectives of leadership and cultural values from Hispanic American and African American women scholars. Corporate rituals: The rites and fituals of corporate life. C. Stoll and Fink identified 10 cultural norms that influence school improvement (see summary in Panel 2). E. (1995). (2002). & P., Glatter (2001). & In part this reflects a revolt against the perceived global homogenization of leadership. (Eds. Bell 6886). There are different typologies that can be used to assess. Mabey Aitken, R. (2005). Scheins model provides a greater level of sophistication by focusing on a challenging interrogation of the culture of the school and linking culture more strongly to underpinning values and beliefs. (2001, October). Leadership and intercultural dynamics. Bush, T. Thirdly, it offers an international perspective by looking at the micro relationship of culture to the multiple identities and cultures of individuals and organizations. 178190). What we mean by the term culture is both argued to be generally understood (Lumby, Walker, Bryant, Bush & Bjork, forthcoming) and suggested not to be understood, misunderstood or so variously understood as to be verging on meaningless. We have looked at three theoretical aspects of culture here. C+. Women and leadership: The views of women who are . Where there is any element of selectivity of pupils, whether by ability/prior achievement or by geography or by capacity to pay, then the school will be involved in processes of cultural selection. From the approach adopted for teaching and learning, to the cultural values espoused in the pastoral and ethical functions of the school, to the relative value ascribed to possible destinations for pupils beyond school, the fabric of school life will be imbued by these cultural processes. ISBN: 9781135277017. 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). Leader and leadership development may therefore be as effectively focused on teacher leaders as on principals in these two countries. Lack of uniformity of culture is therefore an issue even among small, apparently homogeneous groups Distinguishing rhetoric from practice is a second challenge. In others, variation is considerable and the primary drive to develop teaching and learning, attainment and achievement may be located elsewhere. In terms of cultural inputs it is important that leaders within a school have the skills and knowledge to read the cultural landscape of the school, to recognize those aspects of it which can be controlled or manipulated, and decide which should be influenced and in what ways. (Hargreaves 1995; Maslowski 2001, pp. There exists a considerable literature on culture, which provides a range of conceptualizations. Washington Middle School located in La Habra, California - CA. Collard, J. Within this, however, there may exist several cultures: Stoll and Fink (1996)25 pupil culture, teacher cultures, a leadership culture, non-teaching staff culture, and parent culture. (2001). J. He created a series of descriptors of the culture of schooling with a particular focus on how key cultural characteristics equate to the absence of a productive learning environment. as cited in Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003, p. 132). Tippeconic, J. Hanges, S. Mills, M. Stoll and Fink (1996) developed a model in determining the school culture. Rowney, J. The first approach led to selection of 25 most frequently found publications on the school as learning organisation and/or learning school. Goddard, T. 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). Professing educational leadership: conceptions of power. Downloaded by [Teldan Inc] at 05:45 14 September 2015 . (2004). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Their typology distinguishes club, role, task and person cultures in organizations, and enables a simple analysis of the dominant cultural themes within a school or a team. Develops two "ideal culture" typologies (traditional and collegial) and discusses each for its heuristic, conceptual, methodological, and explanatory potential in school effectiveness and school . Stoll and 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), struggling (ineffective but trying to address issues), and finally sinking (ineffective and not improving). International Studies in Educational Administration. Internationalisation, ethnic diversity and the acquisition of intercultural competencies. In ), Handbook of Leadership Development (pp. DiPaola, M.F. (2002). The (racially neutral) politics of education: a critical race Theory perspective. As a consequence, leaders must be equipped to work with both imported as well as indigenous culture. Prasad There are no essential, innate and immutable characteristics of race, age, gender, disability or other demographic categories. A perspective on women principals in Turkey. You can find out more in our Privacy Policy. International Studies in Educational Administration, Thomas, D. C. Lumby, J. Heck, R. & The International Journal of Educational Management, 15(2), 6877. 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. Two distinctive views of this connection can be identified (Collard, 2006). 210223). The attempt to mould culture in any direction involves alignment with some and challenge to others. Just as there is an interplay between culture and modes of delivery, assessment may also be rendered more or less effective by the degree of cultural fit. Macro Relations: Culture and Globalization, Culture and Leadership Global Perspectives, Preparing Leadership for Cultural Fluency, Culture and Leadership Issues and Future Research, International Handbook on the Preparation and Development of School Leaders, Lumby, Walker, Bryant, Bush & Bjork, forthcoming, House, Paul, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, Dorfman & Mansour 2004, http://www.thunderbird.edu/wwwfiles/ms/globe/Links/process.pdf, http://www.ucea.org/JRLE/pdf/vol1/issue1/Tippeconic.pdf, http://www.ucea.org/JRLE/pdf/vol1/issue1/Walker.pdf, conceptually, through the ideas that are valued and promoted, verbally, through the language, terminology and discourses in use, behaviorally, through the activities, social interactions and rituals that occur, visually, through the designs and styles adopted by the organization in its physical and material components. Culture is so rooted in all aspects of human activity that its all encompassing nature may limit its usefulness in practice to conceptualizing leadership and shaping the development of leaders. , House Sarason (1971, 1996), writing of US schools, was one of the earliest to insist that improving schools was primarily a question of changing culture. It is also a response to the greater sensitivity brought about by the increasing diversity within many societies and the insistence that a perspective based on a single dominant culture risks sustaining a hegemonic, ineffective and excluding approach. & A. , School Culture. | How to buy He suggests that schools are bastions of conservatism, not centers of social experimentation. The first relates to the ways the day-to-day operations of the school interact with the outside world. Morgan, G. (1999). (2004). Where preparation and development engage at all with culture, the current prevalence of content-competencies (Stier, 2003, p. 84) does not begin to equip leaders with the skills needed to relate to exogenous and endogenous cultures. The focus on culture at the macro or societal level is matched by concern with the micro or organizational level, the school level. & , How principals manage ethnocultural diversity: Learnings from three countries. One of the best known is that applied to schools by Handy and Aitken (1986), which draws on observations across diverse organizations. Improving. Bottery (1999) has described this as managerial globalization, in which the adoption of western managerialist approaches and business-based forms of accountability underpins educational reform and development. Mansour, J. M. Young DiTomaso, N. (1996). Ribbins (2004). The purpose of this book is to re-orient the current agenda in education towards learning. 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. Hoppe, M. H. The Leadership Quarterly, 7(2), 163187. Mentoring is therefore flavored by ease and acceptance of the views of seniors but sensitivity to negative feedback. C eBook ISBN: 9780203872239 Adobe Leaders navigate cultural choices which are always constrained. Prosser (1998) has shown how culture is expressed at different levels within an organization, ranging from the individual classroom, to teams of teachers, to the whole school. Preparing head teachers to respond to these challenges will be a significant challenge, therefore, and this is a focus later in the chapter. A new typology of school-level values is reported in three cultural contexts. (2003). Choices will continue as culture evolves and the perspectives of all players mutate over time. & While there may be commonalities within a whole school, in practice each of these levels will differ in the detail of its culture.
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