The basis of this study was a view that this is because the policies do not address issues that are fundamental to academic achievement. In response to this view, an investigation was conducted in this study on the relationship between academic performance, school culture and school leadership in two historically disadvantaged African township secondary schools (HDATSS).
UMZAMO'S SCHOOL CULTURE AND ASOCIATED LEADERSHIP: ALIENATING, AND DISEMPOWERING
FRAGMENTED UNDERSTANDINGS 136
SCHOOL CULTURES FOR GOOD ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN HISTORICALLY DISADVANTAGED
AFRICAN TOWNSHIP SECONDARY SCHOOLS: AN EMERGENT
THEORY 176
LEADERSHIP IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL CULTURES THAT ENABLE GOOD ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE IN HISTORICALLY DISADVANTAGED
AFRICAN TOWNSHIP SECONDARY SCHOOLS 203
LIST OF APPENDICES
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 236 School leadership policy and practice 236
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF PICTURES
FUNDISEKA COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL 95
MORNING ASSEMBLY AT FUNDISEKA COMPREHENSIVE
UMZAMO HIGH SCHOOL 140 PICTURE 4: GRAFFITI DSf AN UMZAMO HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM
The former was selected for his good academic performance, while the latter was selected on the basis of his poor academic performance. It is important to point out at this stage that the focus on the relationship between academic achievement and school culture and between school culture and school leadership was not prompted by a 'cause and effect' assumption about the relationships.
The key questions
The goal was to develop a better understanding of the school cultures that promise to enable good academic performance in the HDATSS and, in the process, develop a better understanding of the leadership implications for shaping such school cultures. What forms of leadership are associated with school cultures that enable good academic performance in schools.
Background to the study
The larger part of the community could not afford the alternatives and consequently settled for the 'Bantu education'. Striking about the findings was that both studies reported that disabling school cultures and ineffective leadership were variously perceived to be at the center of the loss of learning and teaching culture.
Rationale for the study
The findings of the study were that the schools were performing poorly despite being 'adequately' resourced materially and also despite being staffed by teachers holding the required levels of teacher certification (Bennett in The Teacher, October, 2001). The latter points to, among other things that only sixteen of the many educational projects that received financial support from the Danish Research Foundation (NRF) during the course focused on school culture.
Theoretical framework
Ontologically, this meant that although fundamentally underpinned by a nominal perspective, the perspective also included realism. The argument was that although it is consciousness and cognition that serve to give meaning to man.
Conceptual framework
Culture was the other central concept in the study and therefore needed clarification before a method could be chosen. In addition, what constituted the conceptualization of school culture in the study was Schein's (1985) view that culture refers to 'accumulated shared learning of a given group covering behavioral, emotional and cognitive elements of the total psychological functioning of group members' (cited by Lumby, 2003:160).
Structure
As indicated in the title, the chapter summarizes the study, presents conclusions from the findings of this study, and provides recommendations for management practices and policies focused on the formation of school cultures that enable good academic performance in HDATSS.
CHAPTER TWO
As a result of the international trend, the discussion will use the terminologies 'school effectiveness' and 'academic performance' interchangeably, depending on the literature that informs a particular discussion. As already indicated, the task of developing a better understanding of academic performance in HDATSS began with a review of school effectiveness and.
Academic performance
School culture
The above developments led to the conceptualisation of school culture in this study which reflected a combination of the shifts. The view was that while findings that provide behavioral 'snapshots' provide good understanding of school cultures that relate to good academic performance at the schools, the pictures do not provide information about what underlies such school cultures.
The importance of school culture for academic performance
Another aspect that helped expand the development of a better understanding of the relationship between school culture and academic performance was the set of theories that structure studies of organizational and/or school cultures. The literature review on school cultures demonstrated the complexities surrounding developing a better understanding of the relationship between school culture and academic performance.
What leadership means and entails
Expert power resides in individuals who possess knowledge that others want for themselves so much that they are forced to please the wielder of knowledge power in order to obtain or benefit from the knowledge for themselves. Referent power found in personal charisma, ideas, or beliefs that others so admire as to please the power holder in order to relate to him/her and thus become more like the power holder.
Leadership imperatives
The last of the imperatives, the cultural, refers to 'defining, strengthening and articulating, through words and actions, cultural values of a particular organisation' (Fugelstad & Lillejord, 2002:10). Although the imperatives are not clearly experienced or exercised in reality, their awareness has helped to highlight the cultural imperative as arguably central to the development of better understanding of the relationship between school leadership and school cultures.
Types of leaderships
The strength of the organizational type of leadership lies in the performance of formal administration and technological tasks. Informal leaders feel, think and act like everyone else, but at the same time they have the ability to express the judgments and expectations of the people in a way that the community accepts as a legitimate common expression of the souls and minds of the inhabitants.
Approaches to the study of leadership
The conclusion drawn from the review of traditional approaches to the study of leadership effectiveness is that none of the approaches provide a useful foundation for developing the desired understanding in this study. These approaches provided a very convincing supplement for developing a better understanding of the relationship between school leadership and school culture.
Underpinning conceptions
The choice of methodology was also influenced by an epistemology that was as eclectic as was the case with the supporting ontology. Similarly, the views on human nature underlying the selection of methodology for this study were concepts that were as eclectic as was the case with both.
The methodology
The lure of grounded theory for this study therefore lay in the approach's 'problem-solving' capacity, derived from the rigor of the methodology (op cit). It was hoped that this would help to gain a fuller understanding of the relationship focused on in this study.
Limitations of the study
The principal had indicated that he feared the workshop could highlight issues that could cause trouble in the school, given that the school had experienced riots in the past that had resulted in his displacement. This was discontinued when it became clear that the practice was disturbing to some observers.
Literature review
Access
The explanation made him believe that the study would be a 'lifesaver' for him/the school. Such 'access' was necessary because it was important for the purposes of this study that the participants acted naturally and normally.
Data collection
One way this was established was by spending a week in each of the 'staff rooms'. The aim was to develop a more in-depth understanding of the schools' cultures and associated leadership by examining the values, beliefs and assumptions of the schools' members about the concepts.
Lost data
Some staff members initially selected to form staff focus groups were later excluded because teaching commitments meant that not all proposed teacher interview participants were available at the same time. All respondents had busy schedules and would have experienced a re-interview as a serious inconvenience.
Data analysis
The categories that emerged from the comparisons were then “open coded” in the margins of the notes. The profoundly debilitating effect of the riots was reflected in the very poor matric performance of the city's schools.
Material resources
This was said to have left the school with a student population that mainly belonged to the poorer part of the city's community. The other five computers Fundiseka owned were quite old and had been donated to the school by a higher education institution in the city.
Grounds and buildings
Very few of the classrooms had posters and those that did had posters mainly about HIV-AIDS campaigns; classroom rules with only one or two displaying subject-related content. What was also striking about the school's buildings was that, unlike the majority of schools in the township, almost all the school windows were intact.
Curriculum
Routine
Student profile
Staff profile
The chapter concludes with a discussion of what culture has been found to influence the emotions and activities of the school community and therefore have a positive impact on the school's academic performance. Table 4 below shows the characteristics of school culture and associated leadership together with those that contribute to the formation of the characteristics and the effects these have had on the feelings and activities of school members, as described in more detail later in the chapter. .
Vibrancy
Teacher-centeredness mixed with robust and healthy banter between teachers and students and among students characterized all the lessons. The teachers are willing to give up the education to the best of their ability despite the limitations we have in terms of resources, but the teachers are willing - therefore the rest of the institution.
Open friendliness
The reason why the mistaken identity had occurred was that the teacher assumed to be the principal, when the school sports master was the school sports master, had announced at the assembly more often than the principal. It therefore meant that the school community was so indifferent to hierarchy that at the beginning of the year it had not bothered to introduce staff with hierarchical positions of authority to new arrivals.
Common understandings
The question was raised by the HoD's claim that social interactions in school. For him, the school culture was such that he would do anything to be a part of the school.
Leadership
What was striking about this was that the orientation was equally valued by the entire school community. At the end of the day, teachers try to approach newcomers in the right way by telling them the rules of the school.
Negotiated consensus
It is clear that once they get to the RCL, the RCL members go back to the students and invite them when something in the school needs to be done and ask them how they feel about it. In most cases when these decisions are made, students already know about them and know they will benefit.
Rituals and ceremonies
One of the rituals that the school relied on for the purpose of enculturation was the 'morning assembly'. The activities that the teachers used for this purpose during the morning assembly included repeatedly reading the school rules.
Integrated focus
A review of the discussion above reveals that what was enabling Fundiseka's school culture were the feelings that culture brought to the school community. Not only did the students not vandalize the school and the resources, they also did not attack their teachers.
Enthusiasm
This was seen as an attempt to ensure that the boycotts would not make it difficult to resume classes once the issue had been resolved.
Empowerment
The benefit of shared understanding for the school's academic performance was in the resulting concerted efforts. Enrollment at the school dropped drastically due to the school's poor academic performance.
Apathy
In most of the lessons observed there seemed to be no 'connection' between teacher and students. The apathy was so pronounced that some teachers avoided going to class as scheduled.
Guarded friendliness
Fragmented understandings
On the other hand, the principal blamed the teachers for the school's woes. That the above student considered himself a member of the VRL gave another indication of the school's fragmented understanding.
Disillusionment and alienation
The type of students who come to this school already have a tendency to tarnish the image of the school and therefore it is no longer the same. This was surprising given that the teacher had only been at the school for two months when the fieldwork ended.
Lethargy and low morale
The same disillusionment was also expressed by a teacher who had initially seen his position at the school that year as a relief over the long distances he had driven to his previous position. Among his complaints was that he had been treated unfairly on his very first day at the school, when the principal had informed him that the school did not have a position for him.
Lack of trust
The theory generated from the conclusions drawn from the findings of this study was that the school cultures most likely to facilitate good academic performance in HDATSS are those that are communal-social. The ensuing discussion focuses on what was inferred as potentially conducive to HDATSS academic performance in relation to school cultures that are.
Communality
Conveying the feeling was not only informal talk among all the school members, but also formal interactions between the members. This was even though this form of punishment was illegal and at the time one of the school's teachers had been expelled.
