The Structure and Culture of Staff Collaboration: managing meaning and opening doors

Abstract

The importance of staff collaboration has been emphasised in the discourse of educational reform, yet it may be easier to talk about the notion as a philosophical ideal than to achieve it in practice. Individualism is highly regarded in schools, so how is the idea of staff collaboration accommodated? This paper reports the findings of a study that explored the construction of staff collaboration in six primary schools in Inner London. In five of these schools, staff assumed collaboration to mean participation in policy formation, but in fact policies were formulated by the head teacher. In these schools staff were engaged in ‘pseudo‐collaboration’, which served to protect the head teacher from challenge, and the teachers from change. In the sixth school, collaboration was interpreted as dialogue to establish shared meanings between staff. The head teacher had implemented a number of innovations to achieve shared meanings, such as the creation of a ‘Senior Management Team’, and the establishment of an open‐door policy throughout the school. It is concluded that it is crucial to attend to both the structure and culture of a school if the underlying principles of staff collaboration are to be achieved.