Transcript in schools - Åbo Akademi

On Action Research
in Schools as Organizations
University of Tromsö, 5th of May 2010
Petri Salo
Professor in Adult Education
Åbo Akademi University, Faculty of Eduation
Vasa, Finland
[email protected]
The motto of an folk enlightener
Think for yourself!
So, what is Action Research?
Our dependence on language
Metaphors as compressed
stories/narratives
Create a metaphor, parable
Action Research is like ...
ACTION RESEARCH
Systematic collaborative action for affecting and
changing practices and the societal conditions in
which they are embedded. Action research is
anchored in practitioners theory-embedded practical
experience, it relies on knowing-in-action and
reflection-on-action, and aims at reinforcing social
conciousness in an dialectical and collaborative
manner.
Petri Salo 27 april 2010 after an early ride on bicycle
on the flat Finnish countryside
Action research
as collaborative enlightenment
ACTION RESEARCH IN SCHOOLS?
A close encounter
Systematic collaborative action for affecting and changing
practices and the societal conditions in which they are embedded.
Action research is anchored in practitioners theory-embedded
practical experience, it relies on knowing-in-action and reflectionon-action, and aims at reinforcing social conciousness in an
dialectical and collaborative manner.
(For) what is a school? How are the everyday activities
in schools organized? What/where is the core of a
school? How do the actors in schools act? And why do
they act as they act? How do they relate to (professional)
development and change?
Organizational sociology
is the study of formal groups organized to achieve their goals efficiently.
Examples of formal organizations are business corporations and government agencies. Unlike other social units like families and neighborhoods
that meet personal needs, formal organizations operate in a deliberate
way to accomplish complex goals. Organizational sociologists might study
a corporation to learn how to best set up work groups to enhance
worker productivity.
Yahoo Answers 27.04.2010 (Question resolved two years ago)
A analytical and critical perspective on organization theory focusing
on four phenomenons: power, change, the human factor and the
context
An inside perspective focusing the everyday acting and reasoning of
the actors.
The aim is to of understand how things are rather than explain or
foresee how they could or should be
The micropolitical perspective
An insider perspective focusing the everyday acting and reasoning
of the teachers and heads
Focus is on how different actors or groups in schools manage
to carry through their interests, aims and opinions with a disregard
for the interests, aims and opinions of other actors.
The political aspect has to do with power, influence and the possibility
of affecting and transforming purposes and values differing from one's
own. Also cooperation and collegiality are interpreted in terms of
power, decrees, steering and control.
School leadership is associated with formal power and control, not
with direction and legitimacy as in the cultural perspective.
POWER/FORMAL/STRUCTURE & INFLUENCE/INFORMAL/CULTURE
Organizational characteristics of the school
(a) The activities in the school are politically directed and
controlled, and are therefore largely dependent on environment
(b) The goals and aims are diffuse and contradictory, equivocal
criteria for taking up a definite position with regard to the
fulfilment of an aim are lacking
(c) The basic conflict concerning control and autonomy between
the bureaucratic–hierarchic organization and the professionally
acting teachers
(d) The internal integration is weak and mutual dependence small
(e) The knowledge base of the school is weak. The outcome of the
teaching is therefore difficult to establish and measure equivocally
The immediate conclusion of an
inexperienced action researcher
Schools are not rational
or learning organizations
Schools are total messes
How to understand and develop a mess?
How to act and research
in a mess?
TEACHERS ACTION THEORIES ?
“One can compare the school with different patterns of
society… HOW DO YOU MEAN? …at the department of health
care they work in a democracy, at the department of radiology
we have a dictatorship while the department of physiotherapy
seems to be in a state of anarchy.”
“All the important decisions at our school for the moment are
made by the Supreme Soviet, an Olympic committee, the Mafia,
call it whatever. “
“I have no degrees in Education and I am not certain that it is a big loss. In my
experience teachers having formal degrees are not at all better than those
without a teacher training. … The best lectures I have attended to have been
given by nurses without such a background. I think that Education as
science is, how shall I put it, science for science’s sake, didactics and all
that.”
The more
things change
(in schools)
the more they
remain the same
Every effort to change the
culture of school is dependent
on two conditions
An explicit theory on change,
and that the theory on change
is adjusted to the context in
which the change is to be
furthered
It resembles the life of an entertainer, one is standing on a stage,
sometimes you get some positive
response and some-times you notice
that it went all to blazes. (Salo 2002,
217)
Teachers, in short, face some of the
same imperatives as theatre people
without possessing equal resources.
Lortie (1975, 166)
Individualism, conservatism, presentism
Schools are loosely coupled (Weick 1976)
eggcrate organizations (Lortie 1975)
Carbage-can model for decisionmaking in an organized anarchy
(Cohen, March & Olsen 1972)
MEANS?
ENDS?
Teaching as an activity, `performed´ in an isolated classroom, is
extremely complex and uncertain. The goals are vague and conflicting,
the professional knowledge base is weak and the coupling between
teaching and learning is loose. Teachers have to find and create their
own personal style of teaching. (Lieberman & Miller 1990, 153-156).
LESSONS LEARNED WHEN ACTING AND
RESEARCHING IN A SCHOOL
Schools are complex organisations
Schools are interactionsintensive organizations
Schools are bureaucratic-hierarchic organizations
Schools are institutions
Schools are interconnected/loosely coupled systems
Schools are organized anarchies
Schools are (micro)political organizations
Researchers, stay out of schools!
Main features in the formal, political and dramaturgical
perspective on schools as organizations (Salo 2008)
Perspective on
school as an
organization
Metaphor
Decision-making
Focus on
Meaning making
Rationality
Formal
Political
Dramaturgical
Machine
Arena
Theatre, Scene
Decision-making
A struggle
A play
Ends
Means
Identity
Organizational
Subcultural
Individual
Instrumental
Procedural
Expressive
MICROPOLITICS
The private
arena
Personal
and
Focusing
on teaching
intrinsic
reward
The arena
The public
of interaction
arena
Secluded
Secluded
independence
independence
Informal
support
Conservatism
oriented to the present
Concentration
on results /
utility
Formal
support
Arena = Sandy place, area sanded for combat (Websters Encyklopedia 1989)