Developing a Context for a Common Vision for Professional Ethics: Ethical School Culture

• In Event: Professional Ethics for Future Teachers: Toward a Common Vision

Abstract

There are two main approaches in comparative studies that focus on both ethics and culture: one is concentrated on different ethical perceptions that are rooted in county culture, policy and norms (Melé & Sánchez-Runde, 2013; Minkov & Hofstede, 2011); and the other is concentrated on globalization through similarities in moral attitudes and behavior across countries (Terry, 2011, Tullberg, 2015). With these approaches in mind, the present study reflects whether a shared emergent concept, 'ethical school culture', came about, using comparative and cross-national data sources. The findings demonstrate the meaning of this concept including its dimensions through the prism of different educational systems based on analyzing 30 codes of ethics for teachers from different countries.

The study described a multi-dimensional model of 'ethical school culture' that included six dimensions: “caring for the students”, “teachers' profession”, “teachers' collegial relationships”, “parental involvement”, "community involvement" and “respecting rules and regulations”. This model includes a variety of teacher interactions: with students, teachers, parents, community and law enforcement and school regulation. It seems that the multi-dimensional model of 'ethical school culture', reflecting the similarity between the emergent dimensions in this study and the dimensions in the Corporate Ethical Virtues (CEV) model (Kaptein, 2008; Kaptein, 2010), such as 'clarity', 'supportability', 'discussability', and 'sanctionability' , may give some conceptual validity to our generated multidimensional model.

Results
Categories that emerged in this study and did not appear in the CEV model, such as 'caring for the students' and 'parental involvement' and 'community involvement', may be related to the fact that the generated dimensions are specific to educational systems. The study’s focus, which generated common categories that characterize 'ethical school culture' across a variety of countries with different national cultures, justified the universal approach.

Scholarly significance
In essence, this study provides a new and deeper insight into the concept of 'ethical culture' in educational systems, a perspective that had not been investigated despite the widespread recognition of the importance of ethics in an organizational context. Understanding the meaning of 'ethical school culture' can help to develop a context for a common vision for professional ethics.

Author

• Orly Shapira-Lishchinsky, Bar-Illan University