On Action Research in Schools as Organizations

University of Tromsö, 5th of May 2010

Petri SaloProfessor in Adult Education

Åbo Akademi University, Faculty of EduationVasa, Finland

psalo@abo.fi

The motto of an folk enlightener

Think for yourself!

So, what is Action Research?

Our dependence on language

Metaphors as compressedstories/narratives

Create a metaphor, parableAction Research is like ...

ACTION RESEARCHSystematic 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

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.

(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?

ACTION RESEARCH IN SCHOOLS?A close encounter

Organizational sociology is the study of formal groups organized to achieve their goals efficiently. Examples of formal organizations are business corporations and govern-ment 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 perspectiveAn 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 organizationsSchools are total messes

How to understand and develop a mess? How to act and research

in a mess?

“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.”

TEACHERS ACTION THEORIES ?

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 changeis adjusted to the context in

which the change is to be furthered

It resembles the life of an enter-tainer, 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 decision-making 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 theirown personal style of teaching. (Lieberman & Miller 1990, 153-156).

LESSONS LEARNED WHEN ACTING AND RESEARCHING IN A SCHOOLSchools are complex organisationsSchools are interactionsintensive organizationsSchools are bureaucratic-hierarchic organizationsSchools are institutionsSchools are interconnected/loosely coupled systemsSchools are organized anarchiesSchools 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

Formal Political Dramaturgical

Metaphor Machine Arena Theatre, Scene

Decision-making Decision-making A struggle A play

Focus on Ends Means Identity

Meaning making Organizational Subcultural Individual

Rationality Instrumental Procedural Expressive

Secludedindependence

Concentration on results/

utility

Formal support

Informal support

C o n s e r v a t i s m oriented to the present

Personaland

intrinsicreward

Focusingon teaching

Secludedindependence

Concentration on results/

utility

Formal support

Informal support

C o n s e r v a t i s m oriented to the present

Personaland

intrinsicreward

Focusingon teaching

The private arena

The arena of interaction

The public arena

Arena = Sandy place, area sanded for combat (Websters Encyklopedia 1989)

MICROPOLITICS