Informing data analysis in this study were pointers by Strauss and Corbin (1990: 75) that good grounded theory is.
• inductively derived from data;
• subjected to theoretical elaboration; and
• judged adequate to its domain.
For the authors, such analysis begins:
... by focusing on an area of study and gathers data from a variety of sources, including interviews and field observations. Once gathered, the data are analyzed using coding and theoretical sampling procedures. When this is done, theories are generated, with the help of interpretive procedures, before being finally written up and presented.
(Strauss and Corbin, 1990: 75).
In line with the above, together with recommendations by authors such as Dick (2002), analysis commenced concurrent with data collection and proceeded
throughout the process. Of main concern throughout was a desire to understand what was happening at the schools, why it was happening, how the players managed that which was happening, and how all of this was impacting on academic performance.
Paving the way was immediate note taking of key issues gathered either through observations, questionnaires, conversation or interviews. This helped ensure a 'true' picture of the schools' cultures and associated leadership. Also at the heart of the analysis were constant comparisons of issues not only between the two sample schools but also within each school. For example, the deputy principal who had been shadowed for a day had displayed different behaviours in each of the classes he taught on that day. A comparison of the behaviours revealed that the styles were contingent to class levels and that were therefore aimed at different purposes, as discussed in more detail in the discussion on leadership implications in Chapter 7.
Categories emerging from the comparisons were then 'open coded' in the margins of the notes. Such coding consisted of:
• labeling or conceptualizing phenomena;
• naming emerging categories; and
• developing further categories in terms of properties and dimensions
The above helped precipitate theoretical sensitivity on gathered and unfolding data.
Further assisting the process were techniques that consisted of:
• steering thinking out of the confines of technical literature and personal experience. The former posed a challenge because being a lecturer in
education management meant a rather broad pre-exposure to related technical literature. Having been removed from school contexts for about fifteen years, the latter posed less of a challenge;
• stimulation of inductive process;
• focusing on presented data and shying away from taking certain issues for granted;
• allowances for clarifications and debunking of participants' assumptions;
• focusing on what people were saying and what they could be meaning;
• refraining from rushing past 'diamonds in the rough' when examining the data;
• asking questions and providing provisional answers or allowing provisional labeling;
• exploring possible meanings of concepts; and
• discovering properties and dimensions in data (Strauss and Corbin 1990:76-7)
Basic questions asked throughout the analysis process were, as advised by Strauss and Corbin (1990:77: who? when? where? what? how? how much? and why? The purpose was to open up the data and 'think of potential categories, their properties and dimensions' (op cit). This questioning helped direct to pertinent literature. For
example, this had been the case when the analysis first started pointing at common understandings at Fundiseka. The succeeding questions were: Who and how many possess the understandings? How, where and when were the understandings
generated? Who helped generate the understandings? Answers to these questions were then compared not only with the situation at Umzamo, but also with literature claims.
Open coding was followed by what Strauss and Corbin (1990:96) refer to as 'axial coding'. This involved putting the data back together in new ways that made connections between categories. This was done 'by utilising a coding paradigm involving conditions, context, action/interactional strategies and consequences' (op cit). The focus was on specifying categories in terms of the conditions that gave rise to them, the context (its specific set of properties) in which they were embedded; the action/interactional strategies by which they were handled, managed, carried out; and the consequences of those strategies. The exercise gave rise to what Strauss and Corbin refer to as sub-categories (op cit). The subcategories were then linked to categories in a set of relationships denoting 'causal' conditions, phenomenon, context, intervening conditions, action/interactional strategies, and consequences. The model utilised for this exercise was what the authors (Strauss & Corbin, 1990: 99) labeled as 'The Paradigm Model', as depicted below:
(A) CAUSAL CONDITIONS -> (B) PHENOMENON -* (C) CONTEXT — (D) INTERVENING CONDITIONS -+ (E) ACTION/INTERACTION - * (F) CONSEQUENCES
The presentations in the next four chapters of sample schools' cultures, and their associated forms of leadership, are made along lines that depict the above even though not in the exact order. The presentations however reflect all of the seven phases of the model.
The above coding facilitated the identification of categories (roughly themes) and properties (sub-categories or dimensions). The emergence of categories and
properties and links between the categories further resulted in the identification of core categories which formed the basis for the formation of theoretical propositions leading to the generation of a theory on school culture features that have the capacity of supporting good academic performance in HDATSS and the generation of a related 'theory' (implications) on leadership associated with such cultures. Notes on the unfolding theories were then memoed. The memoing assisted with the integration of categories and took place in steps consisting of:
• the explication of the story line;
• relating subsidiary categories around the core category by means of a paradigm;
• relating categories at the dimensional line;
• validating the relationships against data; and
• filling in categories that needed further refinement and/or development.
(Strauss and Corbin, 1990:117)
The above was followed by process'. Process involved the linking of consequences of action/interaction as they pertained to the management of, control over, or response to, the schools' cultures. This was accomplished by noting:
• consequences that resulted from the action/interaction responses - for example the consequences of common understandings at Fundiseka, as presented in the next chapter - or the lack of common understandings at Umzamo, as presented in Chapter 5; and
• how the consequences became part of the conditions influencing the sequences
(Corbin and Strauss 1990:143)
Theoretical sampling constituted the final 'stage' of the analysis. This involved the sampling of theories on the basis of concepts that displayed 'relevance to the evolving theory' (Strauss and Corbin, 1990:177). The purpose was to sample events,
incidents, and responses that were indicative of categories, their properties, and dimensions, so that they could be developed and conceptually related. The sampling also helped with the noting of 'variation and process, as well as density' (op cit). The sampling continued until theoretical saturation was perceived as having been
achieved. The saturation gave a signal that it was time to move on to sorting by sequencing properties in an order that was thought would make the theory clear.
In practice, the analysis process was not as linear as implied by the above description but occurred rather in 'back and forth' movements.
'Findings' workshop
Forming part of the analysis were 'findings' workshops conducted in each of the sample schools about two months after Held work had ended. The intention was to obtain feedback on the categories developed during analysis and to make the findings available to the schools in the belief that researchers owe participants such access, particularly for studies that are as intrusive as are ethnographies, as conveyed in the following quotation:
The least that these people can expect by way of acknowledgement of this help is to be made aware of the nature of the ethnographic findings: it is a matter of courtesy that the ethnographer should, by some means, offer them access to the results.
(http://www.poorbuthappy.com/ethnography/Handbook_Of_Ethnography?v=12iO)
CONCLUSION
Despite some limitations, as is the case with all methodologies, the methodology by means of which this study was conducted offered what other methodologies might not have been in a position to offer. Firstly, the power of the methodology in this study
lay in the capacity of ethnography to provide rich data that otherwise would not have been accessed had the study been conducted within alternate methodologies. Such richness was of critical importance for a study aimed at providing findings that feed into insights with respect to how good practice might be achieved.
Furthermore, the protracted data collection period over six months at Fundiseka and three months at Umzamo allowed constant analysis and provided opportunities for clarification on confusing issues. Implying this, among other things, were impressions of disorder conveyed by Fundiseka during the first week of data collection, as
described in the next chapter, and that such an impression had changed as data collection proceeded and the 'true' picture of the school's culture was revealed.
Opportunities for such 'revisioning' or filling in of gaps are denied by the majority of methodologies.
Also giving power to the conclusions drawn in this study was the incorporation of grounded theory in the methodology. The process did not only involve inductive reasoning but also included making deductions from patterns emerging from analysis.
While the former freed the study process from restrictions posed by theoretical frameworks or hypotheses, the latter contributed to the achievement of
'generalisability' on school cultures that have potential to enable good academic performance to the majority of HDATSS (see Chapter 6) and draw implications on leadership that promises the formation of such school cultures (see Chapter 7).
CHAPTER 4
FUNDISEKA'S SCHOOL CULTURE AND ASSOCIATED LEADERSHIP:
ENTHUSING NEGOTIATED COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP The chapter describes findings on the school culture and associated leadership of Fundiseka Comprehensive High School, the sample school selected for its good academic performance, in five sections. The description begins with a brief historical background of the school then proceeds to a brief description of the most visible and most apparent cultural manifestations of the school's culture: the material, human and curriculum compositions. This is followed by a presentation on social manifestations of the culture, namely: the activities and interactions, together with underpinning values, beliefs and assumptions. The next section of the chapter then discusses strategies the school was found to be relying on for bringing about the desired behavioural norms. The last section presents the 'effects' that the school culture was found to have on the school community's feelings and activities related to academic performance.
FUNDISEKA'S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Fundiseka is located in KwaMashu, an African township situated ± 20-30 Kilometers north of Durban. The township was established in 1959 following the Group Areas Act of 1950 on one hand, and on the other hand, concern by the Durban Municipality over growing numbers of African 'squatter' populations settling in Cato Manor, popularly known as Umkhumbane. This settlement was deemed to be illegal
considering that at this time 'Africans were prohibited from owning land or building homes in an urban area, and were regarded as "temporary" sojourners'
(http://www.cmdaorg.za/history.htm). Most of the Africans living in the area were employed either as housemaids or gardeners to neighbouring residents of other races and were mostly tenants in land owned by the Indian population, with a few owning property after having purchased it 'illegally'. The majority of the people who first settled in KwaMashu were therefore mostly poor and illiterate or had received very elementary formal education.
Fundiseka itself was established in 1983 at a time when teaching and learning were at their lowest ebb in most of the country's African township schools as a result of generalized unrest of that time. KwaMashu was hit the worst by the unrest when compared to other townships around Durban. The profoundly debilitating effect of the unrest was reflected in the township schools' very poor matric performance
(Nxumalo, 1993). Unlike the majority of secondary schools in the township, Fundiseka somehow succeeded to engage in teaching and learning activities that enabled it to produce matric results that exceeded a 70% pass rate in the 1980s while the majority of the township schools struggled to achieve a 40% pass rate, with quite a big proportion achieving less than 20%. Although the school's matriculation pass rates had, in the previous five years, been dropping to below 50% average (except in 2000 when the school achieved an 80 % pass rate) the school's performance was still comparatively better than the majority of Black schools in the area (see Appendix 10 - names of schools have been deleted with Fundiseka allocated the symbol 'F').
It was this above average academic performance, under conditions that were as trying as they were for other schools in the area, which persuaded the sampling of this school for this study. The hope was that the school's performance offered valuable lessons to other schools struggling with their academic performance. To achieve such lessons the school was, as indicated in the previous chapter, studied together with a school struggling with its academic performance. Also, as already indicated, the inclusion of the latter was for purposes of comparison and sensitization to issues that otherwise could have escaped capture. It is for these reasons that data collection at this school lasted for a shorter period, as also pointed out in the previous chapter.
Fundiseka's above average matriculation examination performance put the school in great demand not only for its intended catchment area but also for communities beyond the area. This resulted in overflowing enrolments despite overwhelmingly large numbers of rejected applicants. Illustrating the demand at the beginning of the 2003 school year was the substantial number of parents who accompanied their children daily for about two weeks and patiently stayed at the school for entire days at a time in the hope that their children would secure placements. Displaying the
demand for the school was a response by one of the parents to a question on what his option would be if his efforts failed to secure placement for his son at the school. The
parent's response was that he just was not prepared to entertain such a possibility and that his intention was to keep on coming to the school until his son was accepted. The demand was so high that in this particular year the school was persuaded to convert its 'library' into a classroom to accommodate an additional Grade 8 class.
The demand for the school was particularly striking considering that a number of township schools had been losing prospective students to more historically
advantaged White, Indian and Coloured schools, following the government's open enrolment policy in the late 1980s. Even though the 'Great Trek' to the historically more advantaged schools had not affected the school's enrolment figures, the school was said to have lost a sizeable chunk of prospective students belonging to the township's professional and business community. This was said to have left the school with a student population largely belonging to the more poverty stricken section of the township community. Despite the poverty, the school's 'clientele' dutifully paid the school fees, with less than 30% failing to pay the full Rl 50.00 per annum amount.
FUNDISEKA'S MATERIAL, HUMAN AND CURRICULUM ATTRIBUTES This section describes the most visible and most apparent cultural manifestations of Ihe school's culture: the material, human and curriculum compositions.