Defining and Measuring a Strong School Culture

• In Event: Understanding the Interaction Between School Culture, Leadership, and Trust

Abstract

This paper speaks to the conference theme through an empirical analysis of the relationship among commonly discussed elements of effective school cultures. We focus on two aspects of a strong adult culture that have emerged from different research trajectories. The first is organizational learning while the second focuses on teachers’ professional cultures, often referred to as professional community. Our analysis looks at these two features, and four additional school culture characteristics associated with student achievement: academic press, student support, trust, and negativity. We find that there is support for a model of a strong school culture that incorporates all of these elements, but that student support and trust are more strongly related to organizational learning and accountability for student achievement.

Authors

• Karen Seashore Louis, University of Minnesota

• Moosung Lee, University of Canberra