Friday, 2 June 2017

Week 26

SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE COMMUNITY, SCHOOL CULTURE AND PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENTS
What are socioeconomic status of the community, school culture and professional environments?
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), the socioeconomic status of a family is “a combination of education, income and occupation” (APA, 2016). The socioeconomic status of a community reflects the collective background of the families residing there.
Stoll (1998) defines school culture along three dimensions, the relationship among its members; the organisational structure including the physical environment and management system; and the learning nature. Some internal and external factors that shape a school's culture include the school's history, the students' socio-economic background, external contexts such as national educational policies, and societal changes (Stoll, 1998).
The OECD (2015) measures the school environment based on instruction time, student-teacher ratio, teachers’ salaries and teachers’ working time.
To better understand the concepts,

Why do you need to know about this?
Stoll (1998) places the importance of understanding school culture as the starting point for leading change towards school improvement. The organisational culture is an invisible powerful force that influences the members’ behaviour. Hongboontri and Keawkhong (2014) show that the school culture impacts on teachers’ beliefs and instructional practices, but this relationship is also reciprocal. Your relationship with your teaching community builds a sense of belonging. For example, the reason social networking is so successful is because it enables people to feel a sense of connectedness and belonging.
Stoll (1998) points out that the socioeconomic background of a school’s students influences its culture. The varied needs, expectations and even pressure from the community towards schools is thought to be linked to the socioeconomic level of the community. In addition to school culture, professional environments are considered a factor that impact on the professional practice. Kraft and Papay (2014) suggest that professional environments are related to improvement by individual teachers.
THIS WEEK’S ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY
Activity 2: Current issues in my professional context
Create a blog post where you critically analyse issues of socioeconomic factors, school culture and professional environments in relation to your practice.
Following these steps may help:
Step 1: Identify the socioeconomic status of the community, organisational culture and professional environments.
Use the following questions to guide your thoughts:
  • Is there any statistical data that indicates the socioeconomic status of your school’s community? What does it tell you about the characteristics of the community?
  • What is the culture that the school is striving for? How is it manifested?
  • How would you describe the professional environment in your school?
Step 2: Analyse the issues around the socioeconomic status of the community, the school culture and professional environments. 
Use these following questions to guide your thoughts:
  • What issues arose from the socio-economic status of your school’s community? How is it similar or different from those of similar socio-economic status? How have the issues been addressed?
  • What issues arose from the professional environments in your school? How these issues impact on your practice? How have the issues been addressed?
  • What role does your school’s culture play in addressing the discussed issues?
Refer to page 10 of Stoll’s (1998) article in which Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) identified 10 influencing cultural norms of school improvement. Does your school culture embed the mentioned norms? If not, what is missing and how may you and your school foster a positive school culture.
Read page 6-14 of this Principal's sabbatical report by Gargiulo (2014) on The Engagement and Academic Success of Students from Lower Socio-economic Status to have some idea of the strategies the school have actioned to address the school issues.
Does your school have similar approach? What would work and not work? Why?
* Please note that all of the above questions serve as a guide to your reflection. When writing your reflective journal, you don’t have to answer each and every question.
References
APA. (2016). Education and Socioeconomic Status. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education.aspx
Hongboontri, C., & Keawkhong, N. (2014). School Culture: Teachers' Beliefs, Behaviors, and Instructional Practices. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(5), 66-88. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2332&context=ajte
Kraft, M.A. & Papay, J.P. (2014). Do supportive professional environments promote teacher development? Explaining heterogeneity in returns to teaching experience. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 476-500. Retrieved from http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mkraft/files/kraf...
OECD. (2015). Education at a Glance 2015: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing, Paris.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2015-en. Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/96...
Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture
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