School governance, culture, and student achievement

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of different social contexts of schooling on the effectiveness of schools, and is based on the premise that higher organizational levels influence all that takes place in the levels below them. This research depicts the core levels of school governance, school community, classroom culture, and their impact on student learning, and specifically studies the influence of the administrative and governance structures of public and private schools on the underlying level of the community of these schools. In turn, it is expected that the school community influences the educational culture of the primary learning process of pupils in classrooms. The results of multilevel analyses show that the differences in the maths achievement of pupils can be explained, in part, by these social contexts of learning. Furthermore, the findings show that coherence between school governors, school leaders, teachers and the school community (parents) produces a sense of community that, in turn, shapes conditions in schools that have a positive effect on pupil achievement. Differential effects of schooling in public and private education are mediated by the school governance characteristics of these schools, especially the differences in influences of the school community (parents) on the policy of the school board.

Training needs of rural school council members

“…However, there are some promising signs expressed by individual members of school councils. They envisage their school council can or will evolve into facilitators creating stronger and deeper partnerships between parents, teachers and their school community (Beare 1984, Hofman, Hofman andGuldemond 2002). Here, the 'capacity-building orientation' labelled by Fullan and Quinn (1996) has its origins and is evident as council members focus on i) improving the quality of education provided to the students, and ii) producing significant changes to the relationship between a school and its community as they work towards building a learning community in tune with the local educational needs of their rural communities (Senge 1990).…”

“…Finally, Hofman, Hofman and Guldemond (2002) examined the impact of school governance structure on student achievement in Dutch schools. The authors found that when school board members were attuned to the school community's wishes, the decision making processes of the school board were more collaborative and a 'communal educational policy' (p. 268) evolved.…”

Predicting organizational commitment from organizational culture in Turkish primary schools

“…One of these studies (Marcoulides et al 2005) revealed that the values and beliefs of the students about the school culture affected their evaluation of the learning process that takes place in the class and the classroom techniques that teachers use. On the other hand, Hofman et al (2002) emphasized the importance of supportive school environment on the academic achievement of the students.…”

An aspect on the school culture in Turkey and the United States

“…School culture undertaken as conditional elements is generally evaluated to be positive. While some of subjects of the most examined are collaboration and collegiality for example, Barnett and McCormick 2004;Canizo 2002;Fast 1998;Fowler 2006;Giles 1998;Gruenert 2005;Horn-Hasley 2007;Lavette 2005;Leonard 2002;Lima 2006;Lucas 2001;Kannapel et al 2005;Raymer 2006;Strahan 2003), another important subject is the affect of school culture on student achievement (for example , Branch 2005;Fowler 2006;Giles 1998;Hofman et al 2002;Lavette 2005;Lima 2006;Heck 1993, 2005;McLaughlin 2005;Patterson 2006;Smith 2006;Vislocky 2005).…”