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Over time, organizations tend to develop personalities. As a group of people (the organization) responds to persisting conditions (the environment), behaviors become patterned and evolve into expectations, or norms (Deal & Peterson, 1999). Organizations develop means for reinforcing these norms through rewards and punishments, and the strongest norms become rituals, traditions, or rules. People within organizations become "trained" to follow these norms, gradually becoming unaware that they have been trained. This is organizational culture at work. It is a phenomenon that evolves slowly over many years. The culture dictates the way things are done and the way people are supposed to act.
The influence of culture upon improving schools is very important. School culture is a key factor in determining whether improvement is possible (Deal & Peterson, 1999). While it does not directly effect student achievement, culture does have a trickledown effect. Culture provides the context in which the whole educational process occurs. Assessing the type of culture that exists in a particular setting provides valuable insight for leaders who are looking to improve their school.
Research on school culture has revealed many cultural typologies (Deal & Peterson, 1999); A typology is simply a label given to a set of characteristics. Some school cultures have been identified as more supportive of student achievement than others. One can imagine by the labels given to some typologies whether they are desired contexts for schools, such as: toxic
fragmented contrived balkanized stuck organic collaborative moving wandering
A collaborative school culture has been identified as an effective context for student and teacher learning. This article invites school leaders to study their culture; to assess the collaborative nature of their organization. For those interested in developing a collaborative school culture, this article will try to make that endeavor easier to visualize by focusing on processes that foster collaborative cultures.
This process of fostering collaborative culture includes the following steps:
1. Learning about the concept of school culture
2. Collecting data to assess your school culture
3. Creating structures and opportunities for collaboration
4. Rewarding teachers that collaborate
Learning About Culture
"School leaders who are insensitive to the culture of the school are unlikely to have the knowledge and skills to intervene and may also be negatively disposed towards intervention"...