Page 175 - Demo

summary173SSchool culture is a collective name for the prevailing attitudes, values, and norms in a school, which are expressed in behavior: actions, routines and rituals (Maslowski, 2001). We use the lens of professional learning communities to examine school culture. Professional learning communities are characterized by a shared school vision, shared values and beliefs and mutual trust, which are reflected in joint and targeted professional development (Little, 2012; Stoll et al., 2006; Vangrieken et al., 2017; Warwas & Helm, 2018). A school culture with a shared school vision exists when teachers share the vision of the school where they teach, because it fits their own values and beliefs (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011). Sharing the school vision thus goes beyond “just agreeing to a good idea” (Isaacson & Bamburg, 1992, p. 42). A school culture with shared values and beliefs emerges when teachers have the same ideas about learning and teaching as their peers (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). Values and beliefs can relate to learning and teaching, such as subject matter or student-centered attitudes (De Vries et al., 2014) or to goals of education, which can be seen as qualifying or socializing (Biesta et al., 2015; Denessen, 1999). Hoy and Tschannen-Moran (2003) describe mutual trust as the willingness of teachers to be vulnerable, based on the assumption that their colleagues will be benevolent, reliable, and open. In professional learning communities, mutual trust is based on shared professional beliefs of individuals in relation to an organization’s vision, which can be described as ‘organic trust’ (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). Professional development is effective if it contributes to the development of teachers’ (teaching) behavior. In well-functioning professional learning communities, there is professional development through intensive or very intensive collaboration (Little, 2012). In this regard, it is important that joint professional development activities are targeted at the vision of the school (Postholm & Rokkones, 2015).Commitment is of great importance for the functioning of organizations in general, and schools in particular. Teacher commitment positively contributes to student learning (Meyer et al., 2019; Park, 2005; Sun, 2015), to teacher professional development (Day et al., 2007) and to reduced absenteeism and sick leave (Ostroff, 1992; Meyer et al., 2002). To investigate the nature of teacher commitment, this dissertation uses the three-component model of Allen and Meyer (1990), which distinguishes an affective, a normative, and a continuance component of commitment. Affective commitment assumes that employees have affection for a particular part of their job and are driven by it, in other words that they stay in their job because they want to (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Jak & Evers, 2010). Normative commitment assumes that employees feel they should stay in their job, for example because of moral pressure to be loyal to their employer or colleagues, a sense of obligation (Allen & Meyer, 1990). Ester Moraal.indd 173 22-09-2023 16:13