(1995). 210223). (Eds. Gender and race in leadership preparation: a constrained discourse. (2001). (2001). Stream sports and activities from La Habra High School in La Habra, CA, both live and on demand. An example of the cultural challenges that emerge from this has been described by Hallinger and Kantamara (2001) in the context of Thailand. 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. More helpful is the model of Schein (1990), which, in contrast, has provided a generic and analytical model of culture. The processes of cultural change in schools have been considered extensively in the literature (e.g. In parallel, preparation and development sometimes include an element of raising awareness of cultures deemed to be other than that of the majority or the dominant group, what Stier (2003, p. 84) refers to as content-competencies, generally targeted at increasing knowledge of minority groups within the region or nation. Coleman, C. In a strict sense we might argue that the culture of every educational institution is unique, derived from the context in which the school operates and the values of those who have led or been part of the organization over time. & In this set article, Professor Louise Stoll explores the relationship between school culture and school improvement. London: Sage. Research in such contexts is still not extensive, although Billot, Goddard and Cranston (2007) report the findings of an international study which explores how leadership in successful multi-cultural schools is exercised in three different national settings (Canada, New Zealand and Australia). Throughout the world a great deal of effort and money has been expended in the name of educational change. (2007). 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. International Studies in Educational Administration. 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. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Bjerke and Al-Meer (1993, p. 31) suggest that in the Arab world: Discernment of the publicly espoused culture, the culture implicit in practice and the desired culture will inevitably comprise a kaleidoscope of differing opinions and wishes reflecting the perspectives of the individuals responsible for the design and delivery of development. , House, R. However, Lumby et al. Dorfman, P. W. An international perspective on leadership preparation. (2002). Everyone expects superiors to enjoy privileges, and status symbols are very important. Shah, S. Each of these contexts has a culture that expresses itself conceptually, verbally, behaviorally and visually, and which is a product of the complex interaction of communities, socio-economic contexts and contrasts, ethnic and faith-based values and beliefs, and the history of that community as a whole and of the individuals within it. 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. (1997). In this line, a study . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Journal of Management Development, 15(5), 421. The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace; National Association of Secondary School Principals (U.S.); National Association of Independent Schools. (1996). N. After graduation, 76% of students from this school go on to attend a 4-year college. Panel 4 A Typology of School Cultures. Exploring the cultural context of school improvement in Thailand. From showcase to shadow: understanding dilemmas of managing workplace diversity. This is but one element of the interplay of competing values, priorities and hierarchies of power which influence culture. (1999). Mansour, J. M. Moral leadership in education: an Indian perspective. Bridges, E. However, process models may not mesh with some cultures. as aberrations instead of being endemic to organizations (Hoyle & Wallace, 2005, p. 116). But what is an ineffective school? & & (forthcoming) provide a strong warning that collective cultures as well as honoring hierarchical superiority may also have an acute need to maintain self-esteem. Chinese culture and leadership. , This paper's . There exists a considerable literature on culture, which provides a range of conceptualizations. 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. Fullan (2001) has suggested that recognizing the need for, and understanding the processes involved in, cultural change are essential tools of leadership development, for it is in establishing a culture of change in school that successful school development can occur. , However House et al. International Journal of Leadership In Education, 4(4),297307. Educational Management & Administration, Billot, J. 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. Bennett New York: Teachers College Press. Rusch, E. Leading and Managing Education: International Dimensions. As Foskett and Lumby (2003, p. 8) indicate: C. D. The model identifies seven dimensions of organizational context that shape resultant culture, based on a series of key questions: These questions provide a helpful analytical framework, which can be applied in most educational contexts, and which seeks to identify the underlying values and beliefs within a school. Effective. Begley, P. (2003). Bajunid, I. This may be due in part to the fact that understanding culture and its connection to leadership in education is a poorly researched field. (2006). Leadership for a new century; authenticity, intentionality, spirituality and sensibility. 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. Develops two "ideal culture" typologies (traditional and collegial) and discusses each for its heuristic, conceptual, methodological, and explanatory potential in school effectiveness and school . Cross-cultural issues in development of leaders. Nick Foskett, Print publication date: July 2008 | Privacy policy (2006). It has 525 students in grades 9-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. 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), Jackson, D. Heck, R. Lumby, J. As in the GLOBE project, subgroups within nations might be also identified for inclusion. If alternatively, culture is viewed as multiple, unstable, persistently contested, reflecting the differing perspectives and power of individuals and groups, changing the culture of a school is a different kind of endeavor. 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. Women and leadership: The views of women who are . L. Stoll, D. Fink. Notwithstanding these different positions, knowledge of how leadership is conceptualized and enacted locally is a sine qua non of successful design. Preparing head teachers to respond to these challenges will be a significant challenge, therefore, and this is a focus later in the chapter. Much of it has been misdirected and some of it wasteful. Mills R. While there may be commonalities within a whole school, in practice each of these levels will differ in the detail of its culture. Prosser, 1998). , 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: Effects of cultural diversity on in-class communication and student project team dynamics: Creating synergy in the diverse classroom. & 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. (Eds. Walker, A. (2001). No one theory of leadership is implied. Hofstede (2003) has argued strongly that there are measurable differences between the cultures of nations. One of the best known divisions was by Stoll and Fink (2000), which distinguishes mobile, . Walker, A. Leaders navigate cultural choices which are always constrained. Walker, J. Culture is shaped by five interwoven elements, each of which principals have the power to influence: Fundamental beliefs and assumptions, or the things that people at your school consider to be true. Bajunid, I. 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. Such a perspective suggests that the dominant culture, were it to be discerned with any certainty, would be embedded, unexamined and therefore unchallenged, in preparation and development programs. & London: Paul Chapman. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39(1), 6894. But the real purpose of schools was, is, and always will be about learning. 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. This suggests that they are prepared, appointed and developed to reflect a specific set of values and beliefs and are expected to simply transmit those imposed and inherited values to staff and to pupils within their institution. In the period since the 1970s many commentators have created sometimes a single description of school culture, and sometimes typologies providing alternate descriptions. M. Organizational development in the Arab world. The purpose of this book is to re-orient the current agenda in education towards learning. Davis 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. Complex and important concept School culture is one of the most complex and important concepts in education. Fink, D. ABSTRACT The relevance of the concept of culture to school effectiveness and school improvement is explored. A. A welfarist culture, alternatively, emphasizes the individual needs of pupils. Organizational change, leadership and learning: culture as cognitive process. International Studies in Educational Administration, 32(2), 417. Young The first relates to the ways the day-to-day operations of the school interact with the outside world. In Watch Events 3 Live Search by typing your school, event, association. The study identifies how cultural literacy amongst the principals of the schools is a key element of the positive achievements they report. Dorfman The chapter considers five main themes. Cultures consequences: management in Saudi Arabia. (2003). 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. 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). Not only may there be particular cultural assumptions about the relationship between staff and principal, the principal and regional/national authorities, but underpinning ontological assumptions may be distinctive. The former has received very little and the latter a good deal more attention (Gronn, 2001; Heck, 1996). British Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 363386. (Eds. Firstly, it examines key theoretical models and perspectives on culture. Informa UK Limited, an Informa Group Company Home | About RHO | Collections 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. , Online publication date: May 2009, Print ISBN: 9780415988476 Hodgkinson, C. Cultures Consequences, Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations (2nd ed.). 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. In Saudi Arabia a command system is accepted by culture and tradition and schools have, in any case, little power to take decisions. Stoll and Fink (1996) developed a model in determining the school culture. The implication is that if leadership preparation and development is to aspire to cultural fit, a high degree of sophistication is required. There have been strong responses to the lack of critical awareness of these processes. (1996). Journal of Managerial Psychology, 1(2), 95117. Whittier Christian High School is a highly rated, private, Christian school located in LA HABRA, CA. Secondly, it considers the important issue of the macro relationship of culture and globalization. Skip to page content. London: McGraw-Hill. Changing Our Schools: Linking School Effectiveness and School Improvement. | Free trial However, a model which merely identifies cultural elements doesnt take account of the dynamic nature of culture and it is useful therefore to consider culture in the context of a systems perspective on organizations. (1991). Cultures which are comfortable with hierarchy or with the co-creation of knowledge may find affinities with process modes. 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). (1997).Organizational behaviour (3rd ed.). It takes the view that culture can be unified and that dissent, anomaly, conflicts of interest or ambiguity are viewed. Ruiz-Quintanilla, A. We have looked at three theoretical aspects of culture here. Leadership and intercultural dynamics. Such a knowledge base would allow theory to be developed in a more culturally aware way. Despite the widespread acknowledgement that culture varies considerably and that leadership preparation and development could be adjusted in relation to the culturally embedded ontological, epistemological and axiological differences between cultures, the content, method of delivery and assessment of preparation and development shows relatively little variation throughout the world (Bush & Jackson, 2002). These elements are but the tangible appearance of the underpinning set of values and beliefs, which shape the intended outcomes of the educational enterprise within a school. ), Leading Schools in a Global Era: A Cultural Perspective, Peabody Journal of Education, Litvin, D. R. DiPaola, M.F. Hofstede, G. 330). 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. P. Walnut Elementary 625 N. Walnut St. La Habra, CA 90631 Phone: 562-690-2369. Conflict and change. In crafting school culture, school leaders (principals, teachers, and parents) act as models, potters, poets, actors, and healers. Hothouse culture exists where the pressure is to high academic achievement, typically in response to government or parental pressure to deliver high quality examination results. The Leadership Quarterly, 7(2), 163187. 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. Bryant, M. Redefining the field of European human resource management: a battle between national mindsets and forces of business transition? & Bajunid., 2005; Sapre & Ranade, 2001; Walker, 2006; Wong, 2001), and faith (Shah, 2006). According to Mortimore (1991), a lot of improvement efforts have failed because research results were not translated adequately into guidelines for educational practice. Cultural inputs have many facets these will include the external cultural context (society, community and economy at local, regional and national scales), and the cultures brought to the school by all those engaging with it (teachers, parents, pupils, for example). Rather, in leadership every person has a role to play (Bryant, 1998, p. 12) undertaking a leadership act as need and personal understanding or skill require. (2001). It enriches the theory related to school culture and the research findings that have been identified in the Western settings. The result is that most preparation and development takes egalitarian participation and transformational leadership as key (Bush & Jackson, 2002). He suggests that schools are bastions of conservatism, not centers of social experimentation. House, R. J. Tin, L. In V. (2003). 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. (2007). In another region of China, Hong Kong, teacher contact hours are considerably higher and leadership is more firmly placed with the principal. Educational leadership: an Islamic perspective. Litvin (1997) attacks such essentialism, ascribing the taxonomy of groups to a Western Platonic purportedly scientific paradigm. (Litvin, 1997, pp. & (2007). Culture can then be viewed in shorthand as: Cartwright, M. typology of Rosenholtz (1989) differentiates static and dynamic school culture. R. Hallinger 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? A preparation for school leadership: International perspectives. Those undertaking preparation for development may have differing value priorities which are culturally shaped. Journal of Educational Administration, 34(5), 7497. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bell Rejection of the cultural assumptions in preparation and development programs abound on the grounds of gender (Brunner, 2002; Coleman, 2005; Louque, 2002; Rusch, 2004), ethnicity (Bryant, 1998; Tippeconic, 2006), national culture (Bjerke & Al-Meer, 1993; Hallinger, Walker. For example, Walker, Bridges and Chan (1996) provide a rare example of research into the fit of a particular learning approach, problem-based-learning, to a specific cultural context, Hong Kong. 331360). , & Leader and leadership development may therefore be as effectively focused on teacher leaders as on principals in these two countries. Al-Meer, A. (2001). Gupta (2004), Understanding valuation processes; exploring the linkage between motivation and action. Global forces, national mediations and the management of educational institutions. In. 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. In In Cranston, N. However, boundaries are permeable. , In an increasingly complex, diverse and unpredictable world, it is necessary for schools and those working with them . For example, the East or the West continue to be used as descriptive terms for cultural groups in the context of considering leadership. The focus on culture at the macro or societal level is matched by concern with the micro or organizational level, the school level.