The Czech School Culture and Strategies for Its Development. The Pre-Research (original) (raw)

The concept of school culture has come to education from the field of the business management. It is a factor difficult to define but omnipresent and relatively stable. It contains the convictions and values, understanding, attitudes, meanings, norms, symbols, rituals, ceremonies and preferred patterns of behaviour. This factor is expressed in the behaviour of people at school. The school culture is usually defined at the transrational level (values are regarded as metaphysical, based on convictions, codex of ethics and moral insight), at the rational level (values coming out of social context, norms, customs and expectations are dependent on collective decision-making) and at the subrational level (values are regarded as personal preferences and feelings, they stem from emotions and behavioral characteristics). The school culture is related both to the internal and external school environment. It is linked with work and educational processes at school and it is significant for the school development. Its essence and manifestation is formed in the process of history of a particular school as an institution and include both formal and informal aspects. At school there is usually one dominative culture and its subcultures (the subcultures of pupils, of specific groups of employees etc.). school and "organizational" criteria (we left out schools founded less than five years ago, schools after any fundamental reorganization and schools occupying more than one building). According to the number of the community's inhabitants and number of school's pupils there were chosen three groups of schools in the Brno region. Each group includes five schools: at a particular time" 3 (1). But at the moment when the heads start talking about their school and its concrete conditions, their statements are obviously well thought out, clear and stable. This opinion stability, supported by the agreement among all the questioned heads, is particularly obvious with those items placed at the top ranks in the chart of priorities.