Criteria: Emphasis on the value of sustainability and sustainable practices for school culture, excellent analysis of data which takes into account sampling of 3,983 teachers over 182 schools.
Key Takeaway: This study underscores the vital role of a strong, positive school culture in fostering sustainable academic achievement. Key practices include encouraging a Professional Community where teachers share responsibilities, and promoting Organizational Learning for the integration of new information and ideas. While such measures may seem intuitive, policy makers often overlook the tangible effects of school culture, indicating a need for innovative strategies to foster and quantify a robust school environment.
Summation and Insights: Mapping School Culture/Sustainability:
Just how important is the culture of a school? While most educators recognize its role in high performing schools, some may be surprised to learn that when schools have a strong and positive culture, the ability to sustain continuing academic achievement becomes a reality in low-performing schools. But what sorts of everyday practices and attitudes contribute to a positive and productive school culture? This study breaks down some of the key cultural elements in schools that have high scores for sustainability and steadily foster student academic achievement.
Creating sustainably strong school cultures is rooted in practices related to the idea of Professional Community, in which teachers take on collective responsibilities for student success and have a strong sense that they are contributing to the education of all students – even beyond the walls of their own classrooms. Two key Professional Community practices are thought to contribute to a strong school culture. The first is “deprivatization of practice,” which means that there is an opening of classroom doors in order to create a culture of observation and discussion rooted in teachers sharing with one another their teaching practices. The second is the practice of “reflective dialogue.” Reflective dialogue is seen as the ability to go beyond merely sharing and observing to having evaluative discussions on what is working and what needs improvement in order to create student success. Both practices are considered crucial to developing another strong marker of a solid school culture, Organizational Learning. Organizational Learning is best understood as a marker for a school culture that can access and adapt new information, habits, and ideas into one’s school culture.
Creating a school culture that embraces the values of Professional Community and Organizational Learning is also thought to enhance other markers that signify a strong school culture. These are a) trust and respect among colleagues, which notes that when teachers have better relationships with one another, it has a general positive school impact; b) student support, or the ability for teachers and staff to support student academics and personal success, c) academic press, or priority given to student academic achievement, and d) low negativity scores among teachers and staff, when negativity is defined by the experience of racial and cultural tension, high absenteeism, and negative attitudes toward students.
Though many of these ideas or measures may feel intuitive, there are questions about how to address strong school culture for policy makers. The authors note that policy seldom focuses on the very real effects of school culture; here it is worth noting once more that even low performing schools experience sustainable academic improvement when a strong school culture is fostered. How to approach policy changes that address school culture is a real question; the authors also express concern as to whether adding quantified accountability metrics is the best approach. There is room for both educators and policy makers to brainstorm concrete practices to foster sustainable and strong school culture and make our schools more positive spaces.
Resource: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0742051X18301343?via%3Dihub
Year: 2019
Author: Moosung Lee, Karen Seashore Louis
Primary Author: Moosung Lee https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/faculties/education/staff/lee-moosung