The literature review on school culture was aimed at acquiring better understanding of the concept's relationship with academic performance. The focus was on the
following issues:
• what the school culture concept means and entails;
• theoretical approaches framing school and/or organisational culture studies; and
• school and/or organisational models that have so far been generated as explanations to issues relating to organisational/school effectiveness in general and academic performance in particular.
The meaning of school culture
Despite increasing awareness among educationists on the importance of school culture for academic performance, education researchers are yet to translate the awareness into increased research activity on the subject. The reviewed literature suggested that at the root of this reluctance is the complexity of the concept of school culture. This is because the concept means different things to different researchers.
What brings about this multiplicity of meanings is that the concept is derived from organizational culture which itself derives its meanings from sociological and
anthropological conceptualisations and which themselves assign multiple meanings to the concept. Also contributing to the multiplicity is that culture is socially constructed and therefore has its meaning largely dependent on people's perceptions. Further contributing to the complexity is that even though culture is always present, it does not readily define itself. Great patience is therefore required if the concept is to be fully understood and articulated. This makes the concept's study a rather intricate, nebulous and elusive undertaking (Schein, 1985).
Traditionally, culture conceptualisation confined itself to behavioural aspects and, as a result, was mostly depicted merely as 'the way we do things around here' (Deal and Kennedy, 1992 in Lumby, 2003: 160). Examples of such depictions include:
• Observed behavioural regularities such as language and rituals used around deference and demeanor (Goffman, 1959,1967; Van Maanen, 1979b);
• The rules of the game for getting along in the organization, 'the ropes' that a new comer must learn in order to become an accepted member (Schein, 1968,1978; Van Maanen, 1976,1979b; Ritti and Funkhouser, 1982) (Schein, 1985: 6)
An examination of this level of conceptualisation reveals a trend that perceived cultural members as passive entities whose participation in a culture is primarily determined by a conditioning driven by a desire to be accepted into a particular group.
This trend translated into a view of organizational culture as comprising of norms that evolve in working groups as determinants of 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay'.
For schools this translated to '... proper behaviour for teachers in schools or colleges towards their students, towards parents, towards students' sponsors, and towards each other' (Bennett, et al, 1993:3). Such conceptualisation results, for example, in
perceptions of 'whether it is deemed acceptable behaviour for a teacher to enter another teacher's classroom, or whether a teacher can acknowledge failure or difficulty' (op cit). A shortcoming of these conceptualisations is that they ignore explicit and consensual underpinnings to culture formations, particularly in organisations such as schools.
The 1980s witnessed a departure that challenged the behavioural confinement of culture conceptualisation and helped deepen understanding of the school culture concept. Perceived as particularly unsatisfactory about the confinement was the view of culture participants as passive entities rather than active participants in the
formation of cultures. Indicative of the shift were terms that depicted culture as 'shared learning', 'psychological functioning', 'meaning systems', 'beliefs', and 'values', as is the case in the following conceptualisations of organisational/school culture as:
• is dynamic and develops over time as a product of a group's history;
demography, economic development, ecological environment and geography;
and
• has different layers that are composed of:
- symbols which for schools may include emblems and heroes serving as role models because they embody characteristics that are highly prized by the group;
- rituals and rules followed in a given environment; and
- values which form the core of all cultures and represent collective beliefs about what is good or bad, normal, rational and valuable for any given group.
Sealing the conceptualisation of school culture for ihe purposes of this study was Schein's (1985) view that any organizational conceptualisation that ignores member assumptions regarding the other culture constituents overlooks the essence of organizational culture and is therefore incomplete. Schein's argument is that
behavioural patterns are no more than mere artifacts of culture and therefore cannot define the cultural concept. His view is that it is only after deeper layers of culture, made up of assumptions, have been discovered, can it be determined whether the patterns represent culture or not. For the author, (school/organisational) culture therefore is about:
A pattern of basic assumptions - invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, tiierefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.
(Schein, 1985: 9)
The above developments led to the conceptuahsation of school culture in this study that reflected a combination of the shifts. Consequently, what was explored in the sample schools comprised not only behavioural patterns but also the beliefs, values and assumptions that underpinned the norms. It was hoped that such a combination would help develop understanding that would better inform practice aimed at the
formation of school cultures associated with good academic performance in HDATSS than had been the case with studies that had their conceptualisation confined to the superficial normative aspect. The view was that while findings providing behavioural 'snapshots' provide good understanding of school cultures associated with good academic performance at the schools, the pictures do not provide information on what underpins such school cultures. What this means is that the 'snapshots' do not provide information on why such cultures are desirable for these particular schools and
therefore potentially enabling for them.