School climate in international school settings: differences in teacher perceptions among international and domestic-oriented departments

ABSTRACT

The study analyses teachers’ perceptions of school relations and climate in a ‘non-traditional’ international school between the Greek national education departments and the IB department. Comparing perceptions of inwards and outwards oriented departments is relatively neglected in literature which treats schools and their culture(s) as monolithic entities. Cluster sampling was employed, consisting of 300 teachers and 316 parents. The analysis of data was performed using Pearson product moment correlation and one-way ANOVA. Teacher perceptions among the international and the domestically oriented departments diverge in statistically significant ways in fundamental pedagogical dimensions including teacher cooperation and mentoring, issues of fairness and disciplinary control and cooperation and relations with parents. A pluralistic interpretation of school climate can be a more relevant predictor of teacher perceptions than the orthodox monolithic constructs. The results suggest international schools’ research can benefit from resorting to both idiographic and nomothetic research paradigms.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ACS, Campion School, ISA, Pinewood American International School in Salonica and St. Catherine’s British Embassy School (https://ibsiga.wordpress.com/).

2. Anatolia College in Salonica and HAEF are non-profit, Costeas-Geitonas School, Doukas School, Moraitis School and Ionios School are family-owned (https://ibsiga.wordpress.com/).

3. A translation of the Ministry’s questionnaire by the authors can be found in Table 1A in the Appendix.

4. For instance, a minimum overall scale for reliability rating of 0.75 was achieved for all types of respondents, construct validity was adequately established though intra-factor correlations and content validity was also evidenced.

5. Actually, there is a statistical difference regarding teacher alertness of non-educational issues within the GNED; twice as many kindergarten and elementary teachers report being aware of such pupil problems than teachers of older students.

6. Overall, less than one in six teachers expected noteworthy results by cooperating with parents on disciplinary issues and less than one in three on educational issues. In contrast, two out of three parents considered collaborations with teachers to be effective on such issues. The positive attitude displayed by parent seems to contradict larger studies in Tyrol, Italy and Baltimore (Cavrini et al., 2015, p. 2047; Ramsey et al., 2016, p. 10), but might be due to sample bias and school type differences.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christos Hatziconstantis

Christos Hatziconstantis is the Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) coordinator and he also teaches Economics at the IB Moraitis and Doukas School in Athens. He has a PhD and an MSc in Economics, a MA and a Certificate in Education and a Certificate in Counselling. His research interests focus on school effectiveness and international education research.

Email: [email protected]

Tania Kolympari

Tania Kolympari is a PhD Researcher at the University of Ioannina with a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation. She holds a Med in Educational Assessment from the University of Athens and MSc in Education and Disability from the University of Rome. She also has a BA in Early Childhood Education from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a BA in Primary Education from University of Athens. Her research focuses on policy analysis, politics and policy-making in education, interest groups, political sociology, educational assessment, and administration and supervision policies in education.

Email: [email protected]