Teachers' professional development in departmentalised, loosely coupled organisations: Lessons for school improvement from a case study of two curriculum departments

Abstract

This paper describes a case study of 2 departments in a school, where teachers were inquired about their school's needs for improvement and how the institution and their department impacted upon their own professional development. The results show that the teachers' experiences of professional development, their interpersonal relationships within their department, and their views about school improvement differed radically between the 2 organisational subunits. Results are discussed on the basis of their implications for whole-school improvement efforts in departmentalised, loosely coupled educational institutions. The paper makes a case for the continuing relevance of models of schools as loosely coupled organisations and for the combination of social network analysis and qualitative research methods to illustrate how loose coupling manifests itself in schools and how it impacts on teacher development and on school capacity for improvement.

Notes

1. The study was part of an international research project partially supported by SALTSA. SALTSA is an acronym for the joint programme for working life research in Europe. SALTSA is a joint undertaking by the three Swedish confederations of employees (Trade Unions) – LO, TCO, SACO – and the National Institute for Working Life, which is based in Stockholm. The purpose of the programme is to facilitate problem-oriented research collaboration on working life related issues in Europe.

2. Today, the department is only one of the many subunits and teams into which many schools are organised. However, it continues to be a significant context for understanding teachers' work. I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to my attention.

3. Other relevant dyadic measures include multiplexity and symmetry (reciprocity, mutuality) (Brass, 1995).

4. Basic Integrated Schools represent a recent model of school organisation in Portugal that brings together several levels of education, organisationally, under the same school, the same senior management team, and the same educational project. The aim is to provide pupils with continuity and coherence in their experience of schooling, from kindergarten until the end of compulsory education (Grade 9).

5. The names of people, departments, and the school referred to in this paper are pseudonyms.

6. There were many observed, relevant differences between other pairs of departments in the school, but these did not reach statistical significance at the .05 level. In most of the cases, this was probably due to the small size of the department samples and of the school sample itself.