SCHOOL CULTURE TYPOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP IN ATENEO DE ILOILO

By Dr. Herman M. Lagon1 and Mr. June Andy S. Puga1

1
Ateneo de Iloilo-SMCS, Atria Park District, San Rafael, Mandurriao, Iloilo City;
hermanlagon1@gmail.com

Introduction

The Department of Education strongly encourages schools to have a collaborative and

outstanding culture that resonates its vision, mission, and goals. Scores of books on school
leadership, like the St. Ignatius-inspired Heroic Leadership (Lowney, 2003), affirm this
educational principle.

School culture, for Edgar Schein (2010) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) Sloan School of Management, is a relatively stable pattern of organizational behavior that
lies outside the immediate awareness of the organization’s members and reflects the shared
behavioral, emotional, and cognitive learning the group has undergone over time. As an
organization evolves, the behaviors of the organization develop a consistent pattern based upon
its shared assumptions.

Meanwhile, American school leadership expert Jerry Valentine (2006), for his part,
linked the positive correlation between school culture and school leadership. He said that the
school leader is also very instrumental in shaping the school’s culture and leading reform. He
stressed that leadership presence and sustainability of reform are highly associated with the
school’s culture.

Inspired by all these, this descriptive study was conceptualized to measure the authentic
school culture typology and school leadership category of Ateneo de Iloilo-Santa Maria Catholic
School (ADI-SMCS). It is also a response to the reality that the school is known for its so-called
Atenean brand, symbols, and “givens” yet no scientific measure of such has been done in the
past. The doubling of the school population and the various structural and administrative
alterations that the school has experienced in just a span of six years is also another valid source
of motivation for this initiative.

Consequently, the output of the study may serve as a baseline to start cultivate the
Atenean culture for it to reach its maximum potential as a collaborative educational community.

Materials and Methods

With the “fix” mode in the scientific calculator, 76 teachers of both grade school and high
school departments of Ateneo de Iloilo-SMCS were selected and given the following instruments
to fill out: (a) School Culture Typology (SCT) Survey and (b) School Culture a Survey (SCS)—
standardized tools of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASDC).
The authors of the instrument, namely Steve Gruenert, Todd Whitaker, and Jerry Valentine of
the Middle Level Leadership Center in the University of Missouri, gave the researcher
permission to use the instrument for this purpose.
 SCT is a worksheet (Figure 1) that aims to approximate the cultural typology of the
school. It is a constant sum system of evaluation matrix that is comprised of 12 factors of school
leadership namely student achievement, collegial awareness, shared values, decision making,
risk-taking, trust, openness, parent relations, leadership, communication, socialization, and
organizational history.

SCS, on the other hand, is a 35-item, 5-point Likert Scale instrument that measures the
following leadership factors: collaborative leadership, teacher collaboration, professional
development, collegial support, unity of purpose, and learning partnership.

The survey sheets were distributed last school year. They were eventually collected,
collated, and analyzed with the use of measures of central tendencies and standard deviation.

Results and Discussions

The SCT Survey showed that the school is dominantly having a collaborative type of
school culture (Figure 2). However, it also has a secondary blend of contrived and comfortable
type of school culture. It is worthy to note that the school does not pointedly show a culture that
is toxic, fragmented, or balkanized.
 3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
Toxic Fragmented Balkanized Contrived Comfortable Collaborative
Collegiality Collaboration

Figure 2. Overall Result of School Culture Typology Survey of Ateneo de Iloilo-SMCS

Teachers

A school with collaborative culture, according to Valentine and Gruenert (2006), is that
which teacher development is facilitated though interdependence and the majority agrees on
educational values. Furthermore, there is a commitment among stakeholders to achieve the
mission of the school under the environment of collaboration, trust, collective reflection,
innovation, teamwork and continued self-development.

Meanwhile, comfortable collaboration is a culture that is nearing collaborative culture but

is somehow less tolerant to criticisms and critical questions but are more concerned on giving
advice or tips and offering comfortable support for each other. In the contrived culture, the forms
of collaboration are determined and structures are created by the school leadership. The teachers
may become regulated and predictable, but such contrivance is necessary for the development of
a true collaborative culture.

Toxic culture, on the other hand, is displayed when teachers focus on the negative and
self-destructive aspects of the school’s operations and personnel, while a fragmented culture is
shown where teachers are isolated from other teachers and are insulated from outside
interference. A balkanized culture, on the other hand, is depicted where collaboration and sharing
occur within like-minded groups, friends, or cabals only leading to poor communication,
indifference, and groups (even the most effective teachers) going separate directions.

As to ADI-SMCS, the survey revealed that a collaborative culture is found to be shown

highly in the following areas: decision making, organizational history, socialization,
communication, shared values, collegial awareness, openness, student achievement, risk-taking,
and school leadership.
 Meanwhile, the school still need to pay attention to areas that may need further
improvements such as trust and parent relations. There are also residues of toxicity in school.
Similar observation were found confirming the existence of, although marginal, balkanized and
fragmented mentality as seen in Table 1.

Table 1: Statistical Results of School Culture Typology Survey

Contrived Comfortable
Toxic Fragmented Balkanized Collegiality Collaboration Collaborative
Student Achievement 57 27 93 204 211 184
Collegial Awareness 42 42 114 169 178 237
Shared Values 33 31 66 126 208 220
Decision Making 17 14 79 139 125 309
Risk-Taking 51 24 79 197 132 267
Trust 136 16 133 137 122 235
Openness 41 18 52 237 184 253
Parent Relations 71 74 85 252 159 115
Leadership 27 37 86 248 235 131
Communication 39 19 87 136 207 285
Socialization 45 28 64 122 203 289
Organization History 57 27 48 148 160 332
Total 616 357 986 2115 2124 2857

On the other hand, SCS results revealed that the respondents strongly agree in the level of
professional development in Ateneo. This means that teachers highly value the continuous
personal development and school-wide improvement in school as they seek ideas from seminars,
colleagues, organizations, and other professional sources to maintain current knowledge,
particularly current knowledge about instructional practices.

The survey also showed that the teachers strongly agree that there is this high sense of
unity of purpose in school. Ateneo teachers believe that there seem to be a collective effort to
work toward a common mission for the school as they understand, support, and perform in
accordance with that mission. Here they also affirm that the school’s mission statement reflects
the values of the community.

SCS results, as shown in Table 2, also noted that the teachers agree in the optimistic level
of collegial support, learning partnership, teacher collaboration, and collaborative leadership in
school. They believe that all these perceptions are shared by the school’s stakeholders.

Table 2. Overall Result of School Culture Survey (SCS)

Culture Category Total Weighted Mean Description
Professional Development 4.229 STRONGLY AGREE
Collaborative Leadership 3.982 AGREE
Teacher Collaboration 3.991 AGREE
Collegial Support 4.173 AGREE
 Unity of Purpose 4.310 STRONGLY AGREE
Learning Partnership 3.988 AGREE

Although all teachers concur on the items in the survey, the degree of agreement in some
areas under the categories of collaborative development, teacher collaboration, learning
partnership and collegial support are found to be areas for improvement.

It was revealed that there is still a need for teachers to be more informed on current issues
in school, to take extra time to observe each other teaching, to be more aware of what other
teachers are teaching, to trust each other better, to be more open in discussing disagreements
over instructional practices, and to spend added considerable time planning together as a form of
teacher collaboration. (See Table 3)

The survey results also highlighted that the parents and teachers should enhance their
communication line to work together and to have common expectations for student performance.
While this happens, the results suggested that the parents must trust more the teachers’
professional judgments, and, evidently, let the Ateneo way of education take its course in the
spirit of a stronger learning partnership.

On the other hand, the significant message of the survey among school leaders was that
they must trust the professional judgments of their teachers more, and invest further in giving
forms of affirmation or reward to teachers who perform well and to those who do innovations
e.g. experimenting with new ideas, techniques, or any forms of instructional advances in school.

Meanwhile, the survey also showed that the respondents have high agreement in items
that cover categories on collaborative development, collegial support, professional development,
teacher collaboration, and unity of purpose.

The results revealed that in ADI-SMCS, teachers dominantly work cooperatively,

understand the mission of the school, values professional development and school improvement,
are encouraged to share ideas, have opportunities for dialogue and planning across grades and
subjects, support the mission of the school, and are very much willing to help out whenever there
is a problem. The school’s vision also provides a clear sense of direction for teachers, and
reflects the values of the community.

Conclusions

Both the SCT and SCS surveys cemented the perceived collaborative culture and strong
school leadership of ADI-SMCS. It has also identified significant elements of contrived
collegiality, and a culture of comfortable collaboration. Naturally, there are still nominal traces
of undesirable “way of proceeding” found on issues of trust and parents relations. Despite such,
collaboration is highly observed in the areas of decision making, organizational history,
socialization, communication, shared values, collegial awareness, openness, student
achievement, risk-taking, and school leadership. Likewise, teachers strongly agree that the school
leadership is in the right direction, most especially in areas of professional development and
unity of purpose.
 It is hereby recommended that the details of the results of this study must cascade down
to the teachers through school summits, institutional meetings, and Professional Learning
Communities (PLCs) for affirmation, dialogue, reflection, and communal discernment. Similar
study may also be made with the staff, administrators, formators, students, alumni, and parents as
respondents, for triangulation. A phenomenological approach to the ADI-SMCS culture may also
be done for deeper appreciation and valuation of the so-called Ateneo way. The same may also
be conducted in other schools for their own benefit.

References
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASDC) now called the professional
Learning and Community for Educators
Ateneo de Iloilo-SMCS Revised Administrative and Faculty Manual (2016)
Gruenert, S. and Valentine, J. 2006. Cultural typologies worksheet. USA: Middle Level
Leadership Center.
Gruenert, S. and Whitaker, T. 2015. School Culture rewired: How to define, assess, and
transform it. USA: ASCD Premium.
Lowney, C. 2003. Heroic leadership. Chicago, USA: Loyola Press.
Schein, E. 2010. Organizational culture and leadership, 4th edition. USA: Jossey-Bass Business
and Management Series
The Jesuits. 1993. Ignatian pedagogy—A practical approach. The Vatican: Society of Jesus.
Valentine, J. 2006. A collaborative culture for school improvement: Significance, definition, and
measurement. Middle Level Leadership Center.

Acknowledgement
Ateneo de Iloilo-Santa Maria Catholic School
University of the Philippines-Visayas
Department of Science and Technology
Department of Education
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASDC)
AMDG+