All for one and one for all! Assessing school culture from a tribal perspective

This study was inspired by a turn of phrase used by the Principal of a Queensland regional school in his end of year address to the school community, in which he stated, It is our highly effective […] tribal connections that have provided the resources to cope with the many challenges of change. The school in question was a Queensland regional school observed to possess a strong and vibrant level of connectedness between students, teachers, parents, and ancillary staff; and matched by a long history of sustained academic and co-curricular success. The reference to the school community as a tribal entity was no throwaway line but a powerful metaphoric reflection of the leadership and educational philosophies that the school had progressively assumed, under the guidance of his leadership. Consequently, this study set out to analyse the nature of the culture of this highly effective school. It also focussed on how its leaders facilitated a sense of partnership across the school community, whilst establishing and maintaining a sustainable culture of success and taking into account both the academic and non-academic dimensions of the school's mission and vision. Hence, the concepts of tribalism and tribal connectedness became the lens through which the school culture was scrutinised from a first-principles perspective. The research activity for this study explored the notion of the school’s 'tribal' connectedness in three phases. The objective of the first phase was to make sense of the nature, qualities and strengths of the school’s culture, and whether or not a sense of tribalism was infused within it. This resulted in the formulation of the 'Schools as Contemporary Tribal Cultures Model’ (SaCTCP), which was an amalgam of traditional indigenous worldviews and contemporary research concerning the nature of community, culture, and connectedness. The second phase of the study drew on the framework of the SaCTCP to test and analyse the validity of the key suppositions underpinning the model. This required the development of a suite of three mixed-method instruments capable of assessing the level of connectedness within a school community. The third phase was the contextualisation of the model and the findings in a brief case study. The findings from the study provided evidence supporting the validity of the SaCTCP, particularly in reference to the importance of establishment and maintenance of a strong culture around a realistic and robust set of values, concerned with the wellbeing of individuals’ sense of personhood, and collective personhood or social cohesion of the community as a whole. The findings also yielded insights into the influence of gender-role dynamics over emergent qualities of the school’s culture and climate, the effects of time-in-culture on members’ values relative to those espoused by the school community, and the plasticity of mindsets, leading to members’ motivations to connect with the community and its culture. The SaCTCP and insights gained from the findings of the data analysis will provide researchers and practitioners in the field with a new perspective on school culture. It provides a perspective based on a paradigm focused on the facilitation of a sense of partnership across the school community and a sustainable culture of success in academic and non-academic dimensions of a school's vision and mission. ; Submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast, 2017.