The Unheard Voices of School Culture: An Exploratory Study from Non-Certificated Personnel's Perspective in K12 Schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT School culture is a construct that proves to be especially important for educational institutions. When considering current research relatable to school culture, certificated personnel appear to be the prominent perspectives captured, suggesting that certificated personnel have derived the concept of school culture. This then raises the question: where are the other voices and perspectives within our educational institutions? There are five specific components that must be present for school culture to be operational and effective. A conceptual model was developed to strengthen much needed conversation associated with school culture. Through a review of the literature pertaining to exploratory research, information redundancy, leveraging subcultures, relationships, change and human behavior and organization culture, the capturing of non-certificated voices and perspectives must occur to determine if the notion of school culture is limited. There were five emergent themes to erect from conducting the study and it is suggesting that these five must be present for the notion of school culture to be functional. The five emergent themes consists of perspectives on school climate/school atmosphere, connectivity/sense of belonging to the school, contributions to the school environment, respect, and strengths and stretches of the school.