Probing School Culture as the Key to Effective Educational Change

EasyChair Preprint no. 81, version 1

Abstract

In developing countries such as Morocco, research in education has long been focused on the methods and techniques likely to improve learning in individual classrooms and eventually enhance the quality of education served across schools nationwide. The norms, values, or more broadly cultures prevalent among actors within schools, namely teachers and administrators, have largely been overlooked by educational researchers. The purpose of this paper is highlighting the critical role of school culture in enhancing the quality of education across schools in national and international contexts. Specifically, the paper examines theoretical literature to pinpoint the meanings, levels, and components of school culture, and empirical literature, to underscore what types of school cultures facilitate or impede school improvement according to the research evidence. The issue of societal culture and how it can lead to strong or weak cultures within schools is also discussed to underline the macro variables in shaping culture and change across school organizations. The paper closes with implications for school leaders, teachers and administrators, outlining several pathways for cultivating effective cultures within their schools. Overall, the paper shows why there is a need for an alternative approach to educational change in which school and government leaders, particularly in developing nations, focus their efforts on reculturing rather than simply restructuring (Fullan, 2007), and the lifeworld of schools, the values domain, not only the systemworld, the technical-instrumental domain (Sergiovanni, 2003).

Keyphrases: educational change, educational leadership, school change, school culture

@Booklet{EasyChair:81,
  author = {Abderrahim Amghar},
  title = {Probing School Culture as the Key to Effective Educational Change},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 81},

  year = {EasyChair, 2018}}