Celebration and humour"we feel good about ourselves" a holistic concept. School culture refers to a total of shared values expressed through norms, rituals, expectations, behaviour and everyday practices. 206207). Kachelhoffer, P. Commentary. School culture can have an positive. & The key issue, of course, arising from globalization is that educational leaders will be faced increasingly with challenges to manage cultural change within their institution. The aim is to encourage leaders to address obliviousness to their own culture and challenge approaches which may inappropriately embed a single culture and/or a culture alien to some participants. Rusch, E. 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). Education Leadership Review, 3(2), 2831. & (2001). Celikten, M. 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. British Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 363386. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 14(1), 3035. 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. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 401414. 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). Culture also impacts on delivery. Abstract. However, these may be taken-for-granted, and only apparent to those designing and delivering development when a lack of fit is pointed out by specific groups. Understanding international differences in culture would provide a basis for planning cultural fit in preparation and development programs. Sarason, S. School leaders work within pressing cultures which sustain themselves by multiple conscious and unconscious mechanisms (Lumby with Coleman, 2007). M. D. In contrast the assessment of educational leaders often assumes that consideration of cultural fit is unnecessary in relation to standards which are uncritically accepted as international. & (2002). Wong, K-C. as cited in Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003, p. 132). , Stoll, L. 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. , Bjerke and Al-Meer (1993, p. 31) suggest that in the Arab world: Informa UK Limited, an Informa Group Company Home | About RHO | Collections (2005). Powell, Farrar and Cohen (1985) used research from fifteen high schools to depict a culture of easy and uncritical acceptance of underachievement. & (2001). Towards a framework of investigating leadership praxis in intercultural. Sarason, S. In part this reflects a revolt against the perceived global homogenization of leadership. & (1996). In 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. Secondly, it considers the important issue of the macro relationship of culture and globalization. However, boundaries are permeable. Research concerning leadership in multinational corporations defines three components of cultural fluency, cognitive complexity, emotional energy and psychological maturity (Iles & Kaur Hayers, 1997, p. 105). Conflict and change. The first relates to the ways the day-to-day operations of the school interact with the outside world. The dynamic culture of However culture is often defined in broad general terms as, for example, the way we do things around here (Deal & Kennedy, 1982), obscuring complex and contested conceptualizations. (Eds. Changing the culture becomes merely a question of technical fit, of shaping leadership development to align it to local culture. All this is set within a strongly performative macro context in many countries. Hofstede, G. Hargreaves (1995) developed a different typological model in which he distinguishes formal, welfarist, hothouse, and survivalist school cultures based on the educational priorities of the school in the context of external market environments. (2002). T. Heck, R. (2001, October). P. W. However, such a perspective ignores the ability of schools to select many of the cultural inputs. A more extensive discussion of the variation in culture and practice internationally is offered by Foskett & Lumby (2003) and Lumby et al. DiPaola, M.F. 143158). P. J. Moller, J. Educational Management and Administration. Leading and Managing Education: International Dimensions. Bottery, M. & (2003). Trond (Litvin, 1997, pp. In fact, Hofstedes work shows very great variation within regions. & Such a knowledge base would allow theory to be developed in a more culturally aware way. , Education researchers have also assumed such common attributes, for example, integrity (Begley, 2004; Bhindi & Duignan, 1997). Lack of uniformity of culture is therefore an issue even among small, apparently homogeneous groups Distinguishing rhetoric from practice is a second challenge. According to Mortimore (1991), a lot of improvement efforts have failed because research results were not translated adequately into guidelines for educational practice. In & In the period since the 1970s many commentators have created sometimes a single description of school culture, and sometimes typologies providing alternate descriptions. 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. Lumby et al. J. Walker, J. The study identifies how cultural literacy amongst the principals of the schools is a key element of the positive achievements they report. Buckingham: Open University Press. 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. Hanges 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. School culture is the set of shared values, beliefs and norms that influence the way educators and administrators think, feel and behave in schoolplace. Collard (2006), for example, contends that much of the global level educational development through programs of agencies such as UNESCO and the World Bank is based on an import model which he portrays as a tidal wave of western values, sweeping away existing cultural environments. Stoll and Fink identified 10 cultural norms that influence school improvement (see summary in Panel 2). Challenging the boundaries of sameness: leadership through valuing difference. Transactional leadership, often viewed negatively in many Anglophone countries, may be a more appropriate theoretical basis in many contexts. Teacher cultures have received most . Choices will continue as culture evolves and the perspectives of all players mutate over time. Nick Foskett, Print publication date: July 2008 At the interface with exogenous and endogenous cultures, preparation and development reflect choices which are more than technical. Processes and structures designed for a time that has passed are no longer appropriate in a rapidly changing society. Dorfman and House (2004) suggest three competing propositions: that cultural congruence in development and leadership is more effective; that cultural difference can be stimulating and bring about positive change; that leadership is universal activity. However House et al. Internationalisation, ethnic diversity and the acquisition of intercultural competencies. The result is that most preparation and development takes egalitarian participation and transformational leadership as key (Bush & Jackson, 2002). It will therefore involve engagement with the moral choices which lie at the heart of leadership. Gupta Leaders navigate cultural choices which are always constrained. (Eds. (1997). School administration in China: a look at the principals role. org/10.4135/9781446219362 Keywords: Bennett None is universally applicable nor comprehensive in its utility, yet they provide a range of perspectives to assist in clarifying this miasmic concept. The recent emphasis has been on achieving standards through managing schools, teachers and the teaching process. 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. (1998). Leadership and Diversity; Challenging Theory and Practice in Education, Macpherson, R. (1971). Can leadership enhance school effectiveness? ), Handbook of Leadership Development (pp. Preparation and development programs therefore face a twofold challenge: In the next section we shall examine the issues of culture and leadership preparation and development. 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. International Studies in Educational Administration, 32(2), 417. There exists a considerable literature on culture, which provides a range of conceptualizations. In the opening chapter to this section of the Handbook, Fink and Stoll review the contemporary field of educational change and ask why educational change is so difficult to understand and achieve in present times. Leader and leadership development may therefore be as effectively focused on teacher leaders as on principals in these two countries. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 1(2), 95117. Cross-cultural understandings of leadership: themes from Native American interviews. 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. We must be aware that the spread of good practice internationally through the educational management literature, through the actions of international organisations such as UNESCO, and through the impact of professional development programmes, all of which are dominated by the perspectives of western educational management practitioners and academics, is in danger of presenting such a global picture of good practice. Murphy International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 309319. The assumed commonality in attributes and behaviors may also be evident in axiological assumptions. Mentoring is therefore flavored by ease and acceptance of the views of seniors but sensitivity to negative feedback. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 2029. as aberrations instead of being endemic to organizations (Hoyle & Wallace, 2005, p. 116). A second view, though, is that of leaders as agents of cultural change, as discussed earlier in the chapter. The mechanics of diffusion and the appropriateness of the results have been subject to unequal research interest. ), The Life and Work of Teachers (pp. New York: Teachers College Press. (1995). . (2002). Creating this culture of change by constantly challenging the status quo is a contact sport involving hard, labor-intensive work and a lot of time. There have been strong responses to the lack of critical awareness of these processes. Fink, D. , Walker, A. a set of shared values and preferred actions among members of a society that largely determines among other things, the boundaries within which leader development is possible. No one theory of leadership is implied. ABSTRACT In 1986, the Halton Board of Education in Ontario, Canada initiated an Effective Schools Project. International Journal for Leadership in Education, 4(4), 321332. The values they espouse or eschew, the aspirations and achievements they have, and their contribution to communities (local, regional, national), whether positive or negative are the cultural product of the school. They may also tackle the issue of how culture can be managed. (2001). Prosser, 1998). Bhindi , Hanges 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. Ranade, M. Cartwright, M. (1996). Hofstede (2003) has argued strongly that there are measurable differences between the cultures of nations. 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. , The challenge for leaders, therefore, is to manage that change in terms of speed, direction or nature to support the organizations goals. Conceptualizing the schools culture through such a systems approach helps clarify the challenges for school leaders in relation to culture. In the absence of a similarly complex or authoritative study of the cultural factors in educational leadership, the design of much preparation and development seems to adhere to an assumed commonality and to avoid detailed engagement with the culturally contingent (Lumby et al., forthcoming), resulting in an international curriculum for school leadership preparation (Bush & Jackson, 2002, pp. (2005). Archer, M. (2001). Cultural sensitivity demands consideration of how leadership is dispersed amongst the players within schools and the regional administration in a specific context before designing national and local systems in response. E. House Deciding which cultural assumptions to attempt to embed in the design and delivery of development, including the degree to which they will replicate or challenge dominant cultures; Deciding how best to equip leaders with intercultural competence, so that they in their turn can decide which cultural assumptions to attempt to embed in their school leadership, including the degree to which they will replicate or challenge dominant cultures. . Cultural globalization is the international transfer of values and beliefs, and while strictly it is multi-directional it is typically perceived as dominated by the spread of western, particularly American, values and symbols across the globe. We are using cookies to provide statistics that help us give you the best experience of our site. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Cardno, C. , Hoppe, M. H. For example, being dynamic and dependable, encouraging and displaying integrity were agreed to be positive leader attributes across all the nations involved. Culture and Agency. A new typology of school-level values is reported in three cultural contexts. Cultural diversity and group work effectiveness. , & Sarason (1971, 1996), writing of US schools, was one of the earliest to insist that improving schools was primarily a question of changing culture. (2004). Processual competencies, comprising intrapersonal competencies and cognitive competencies (2003, p.84), are also needed. Qiang, H. (1996). 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. The very public travails of The Ridings School have further heightened the national preoccupation with ineffective schools. Begley, P. Gender and race in leadership preparation: a constrained discourse. Identity based and reputational leadership: an American Indian approach to leadership. M. Beyond the school, though, lies a range of contextual cultures extending from the community within which the school lies to regional, national and international cultural contexts. Walker, A. Online publication date: May 2009, Print ISBN: 9780415988476 What is the significance of time is the organization most oriented towards the past, the present or the future? Walker, A. 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. School culture and culture in general are often labeled as self-evident. (1998). Kantamara, P. Sierra Vista Elementary 1800 E. Whittier Boulevard La Habra, CA 90631 Phone: 562-690-2359. , London: Sage. This search included empirical studies and theoretical pieces. Accessed online 16.2.07. Schools with strong, positive cultures feature service-oriented staffs, a collegial ambience, celebratory rituals, supportive social networks, and humor. 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: 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. Head teachers in rural China: aspects of ambition. 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. A person in charge is not required. Librarian resources 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. Understanding Schools as Organisations As we shall demonstrate later in the chapter, it is getting to understand these values and beliefs that is a critical first step for educational leaders in developing the skills to manage, develop and evolve culture in their school. International Journal of Leadership In Education, 4(4),297307. Each of the cultures influences and is influenced by each of the others. London: Sage. He suggests that schools are bastions of conservatism, not centers of social experimentation. Duignan, P. & The first is that leaders are passive ambassadors of culture. 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). London: Penguin. , In. As Foskett and Lumby (2003, p. 8) indicate: 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. Mabey (2000). The culture of a school is one of its critical organizational characteristics. While the analytical models described are helpful in conceptualizing the nature of culture, there are a number of key issues for leaders to recognize in reflecting on their own organizations. In this line, a study . 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. , , , (2001). The Leadership Quarterly, 7(2), 163187. The implications of these strategies for leadership training and development have been analyzed by DiPaola (2003) who outlines a number of key components of principal preparation programs. & 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. At first sight these components of culture may be thought to be significantly outside the control of schools themselves. In many ways this is the summation of the school and reflects its overall purpose and aims, which have two distinct dimensions. , & 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. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bush School culture . Hallinger, P. For example, the East or the West continue to be used as descriptive terms for cultural groups in the context of considering leadership. Bush, T. , Walnut Elementary 625 N. Walnut St. La Habra, CA 90631 Phone: 562-690-2369. (Eds. Introduction. Global forces, national mediations and the management of educational institutions. All leadership development has embedded cultural values. Despite some advances since that time, understanding of culture and its relationship to leadership and its development remains empirically underdeveloped. 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. (Hargreaves 1995; Maslowski 2001, pp. El Nemr, M. (2005). It is characterized by very limited research at the within school subunit scale, and by the adoption of generalized models of culture from business and management disciplines at whole-school or national/international scales of analysis. The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change. 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). M. The challenge for educational leaders is to recognize and conceptualize each of these cultural realms and understand how it impacts on and provides implications for their own school. Shah, S. None is universally applicable or comprehensive, but all can serve to support an educational leaders reflection on the culture of a specific school. In many countries the principal may indeed be key. Hallinger, P. Farrar, E. Organisational Culture and Leadership. Ali, A. McCauley More helpful is the model of Schein (1990), which, in contrast, has provided a generic and analytical model of culture. Ruiz-Quintanilla, A. House, R. J. In & The processes of globalization have been a significant feature of all dimensions of society and economy over the last three decades. It takes the view that culture can be unified and that dissent, anomaly, conflicts of interest or ambiguity are viewed. & Unproductive, toxic schools have fragmented staffs, eroding goals, and negative, hopeless atmospheres. , & 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). For example, the balance of time given to study of the legislation relevant to schooling or to the implications of a particular faith, whether Islam, Christianity, or any other, will embed values within the curriculum through the choice of priority reflected in the time allocated. Exploring the cultural context of school improvement in Thailand. Following our examination of globalization and culture in the previous section, we consider here the picture of culture within educational leadership internationally. Handy, C. (forthcoming) distinguish transmission models, where experts pass on theoretical knowledge (often indiscriminately, as discussed earlier), and process models which use more community based styles of learning. Bryant, M. Moral leadership in education: an Indian perspective. 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. Collard, J. Heck, R. Leaders interact with culture at the organizational level both in terms of efforts to include the multiple cultures which may be present and also to sustain, adapt or change the dominant culture. 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. 17). However, Lumby et al. Cranston, N. typology of Rosenholtz (1989) differentiates static and dynamic school culture. Clearly in these two instances, Western derived theories of autonomy, planning and change management are all thrown into question. Stoll and Fink (1996) developed a model in determining the school culture. A. Crossing the great divides: problems of cultural diffusion for leadership in education. Lakomski, G. Paper presented to the As in the acquisition of any language, fluency can only be achieved by practice and not just by theory (Taras & Rowney, 2007). Educational Management & Administration, Billot, J. Everyone expects superiors to enjoy privileges, and status symbols are very important. In recognizing that culture has dimensions at a wide range of scales of analysis, we explicitly acknowledge that it raises challenges for school leaders in relation to each of these scales. Consequently, although there is relatively little empirical data on which to draw, the issue of fit between culture and the conception, development and enactment of leadership has become a key concern. G. , Consequently, a tendency to stereotype or discount alternative cultures must be halted by conscious, persistent effort (Lumby with Coleman, 2007). 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. (1996). In this set article, Professor Louise Stoll explores the relationship between school culture and school improvement. Iles, P. In , 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). P.J. Leadership learning the praxis of dilemma management. The third element of the system is the cultural output of the school. P. Schein (1985, p.6) considers the basic essence of an organisation's culture to be: (1986). Cultures consequences: management in Saudi Arabia. & Leading educational change in East Asian schools.