32. Organizational Education
Poster
Diversity As A Strategy Of (Organizational) Learning Processes In Social Movements
Lea Alt
Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Saarland, Germany
Presenting Author: Alt, Lea
Both institutionalization and deinstitutionalization processes are a reality for organizations and movements (Schröder 2015; Wolff 2020). Social movements can be read in their public transformation, in their emancipatory curiosity, as well as in their varied approaches to solutions, which oscillate constantly between these poles. According to this interpretation, social movements primarily portray public spaces as places that encourage people to join together in spite of their differences. In order to facilitate mutual listening, negotiation, critique, and agreement as well as working on shared issues and potential solutions, social movements offer venues for people from various origins, languages, and ages (Schröder 2018). From such a viewpoint, it can be assumed that diversity serves as a foundation for social movements as well as a means of creating organizational and learning processes that help challenge the status quo (Simpson & den Hond, 2022). In light of this, this research project investigates the extent to which diversity, which serves as the foundation of social movements, also influences the (organizational) learning of social movements and, in addition, the degree to which diversity is utilized by social movements as a tactic to achieve their objectives.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe paper uses ethnographic data from 11 interviews with activists conducted at the World Social Forum 2022 in Mexico as its empirical foundation. The interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish. The World Social Forum was founded in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, by activists from the "global south." It began as a counter-meeting to the World Economic Forum, when the most influential individuals in the world (including politicians and businesspeople) congregate to discuss the future of the planet. The World Social Forum emerged as a venue that unites and networks civil society internationally in response to criticism that resulted from this. The "open space" is the World Social Forum's distinctive feature. The concept of an open area is to allow motions that symbolize various conceptions of "another world" to come together. We will outline the traits of enabling spaces in social movements and examine the function that diversity plays in these spaces along with the data. More specifically, it will be looked at to what extent diversity in open spaces helps to organizational learning processes.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe presum that the open confrontation with the occasionally sharply contrasting contents, processes, and structures of social movements is how learning processes are released. On the basis of unusual meetings and the diversity observed in open spaces, social movement activists can explore, challenge, and reinterpret their own hidden meaning structures and patterns as well as those of others. We assume that diversity in this sense is used by activists in open spaces as a strategy to initiate processes of organizational learning.
ReferencesLea Alt (M.A. social work) works at the University of Applied Sciences in Saarbrücken/ Germany as a research assistant in the research project "Methods of Social Transformation and Social Work" under the direction of Prof. Dr. Christian Schröder and as a practice advisor in the study program Social Work and Childhood Education.
32. Organizational Education
Poster
Enculturating a Protective Professional Community – Processes of Teacher Retention in a Swedish Hard-to-Staff School
Jeffrey Casely-Hayford1, Per Lindqvist2, Christina Björklund1, Gunnar Bergström1,3, Lydia Kwak1
1Karolinska Institute, Sweden; 2Linnaeus University; 3University of Gävle
Presenting Author: Casely-Hayford, Jeffrey
Retaining teachers is a challenge facing education systems worldwide (European Commission, 2021). The importance of teacher retention is underscored by staffing difficulties at the school-level due to teachers’ turnover rate. High levels of teacher turnover poses social, financial, and educational problems to schools (Sorensen & Ladd, 2020). Moreover, studies have shown that schools with a large proportion of students from a lower socioeconomic background are disproportionately affected by teacher turnover (Allen et al., 2017). Schools that face continuous retention difficulties are commonly referred to as “hard-to-staff schools” in the literature (Opfer, 2011), and teacher turnover at these schools is mainly driven by challenging work environments, which makes it difficult for teachers to teach and prevents effective student learning (Glazer, 2021; Simon & Johnson, 2015). Studies examining how teacher retention can be facilitated in these hard-to-staff schools have identified resilience as a key resource that can counteract the challenges that teachers in these school face (Whipp & Geronime, 2017). Although this area of the literature continues to receive attention, most of the studies are conducted in an American context. In Sweden, the focus of the current study, schools situated in socioeconomically disadvantages areas face turnover rates as high as 40% (Helmersson, 2018).Therefore, stopping the revolving door of teachers coming and going from these schools is a key part of pursuing educational equity and school effectiveness.
This study is part of a doctoral research project and aims to contribute to this research area by presenting a positive deviant case: a Swedish hard-to-staff school that has had a low teacher turnover rate over time. The term positive deviance is used to illustrate how teacher retention at this school deviates from what one would expect to see in a school of a similar profile (Mertens et al., 2016). As such, this positive deviant case can be viewed as an exception to the rule – a champion of stability – which is of great interest as it can provide insights into potential mechanisms that can facilitate teacher retention in hard-to-staff schools. We explore this positive deviant case by examining the factors contributing to teacher retention at the school. In line with research showing that teacher shortages are particularly problematic in specific subjects and for specific types of schools (Cowan et al., 2016), we add further nuance to our inquiry by focusing on “at-risk” teachers i.e., teachers certified to teach in subjects known to have high staffing difficulties in Sweden. By doing so, we aim to provide unique insights that can advance the understanding of teacher retention in hard-to-staff schools in Sweden. Additionally, exploring this positive deviant case within the highly decentralised market-based education system found in Sweden provides us with the opportunity to make a unique contribution to the teacher retention literature.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis study used a case study research design as it is useful for exploratory investigations (Gerring, 2004), and suitable for studying positive deviance in organizations (Mertens et al., 2016). This urban public school was fairly small (students <500). The school had a high proportion of students with an immigrant background; low proportion of students with parents possessing post-secondary schooling education; and a high proportion of students with a low grade point average.
Data was collected using chain-referral sampling in which initial participants refer the research team to additional subjects who have experienced the phenomenon of interest (Penrod et al., 2003). Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Our inquiry began with the school leadership who we viewed as key informants due to their ability to provide information about the stability of the teaching staff at the school. The school leadership provided the research team with a list of the teaching staff and as the study focused on “at-risk” teachers, we used purposive sampling criteria to ensure that participant referrals aligned with the selection-criteria (Morse & Field, 1995). Participant referrals met the selection-criteria if teachers had been at the school for 5 or more years and if they were teaching in a subject with known staffing difficulties. To inform our inclusion-criteria we examined municipal and national certification data to identify subjects with documented staffing difficulties since 2015. Teachers who fit our inclusion-criteria were interviewed and the chain-referral sampling procedure was repeated after each interview. The final study sample consisted of three members of the school leadership and eight teachers certified to teach in subjects such as textiles, art, science, and home economics. Our inquiry was geared towards describing and understanding the reasons facilitating teacher retention at this particular school. Due to this, we chose to conduct our data analysis using a modified Grounded Theory technique and the constant-comparison method based on the approach advocated by Glaser et al. (1967). This enabled the exploration of the possible determinants and allowed us to make descriptive inferences of the observed positive deviance focusing on theorizing rather than generating a theory. Constant comparisons were made throughout the data analysis and was used to develop and define the core category, categories and sub-categories.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe generated core category was described as the “Enculturation of a Protective Professional Community”. This core category was supported by three categories: supportive collegiality, visible collegiality, and constrained collegiality which captured social and relational processes which appeared to embed teachers in the school and subsequently facilitated their retention. The observed social and relational processes seemed to convey and consolidate the norms, practices and organizational culture that permeated this protective professional community and enhanced its protective element by providing teachers with access to the relational resilience garnered within the teacher community that enhanced their social capital. The teachers’ narratives described how belonging to this protective teacher community provided them with several beneficial affective and professional resources that helped them in their everyday teaching lives. However, the primary outcome was the facilitation of teacher retention at the school. In line with our mode of inquiry we also contrasted our results with the research literature to help us theorize about the potential mechanisms underlying the observed positive deviance. We used the Job Embeddedness Theory (Mitchell et al., 2001) and the theory of Social Capital to explain our findings. Interpreting our results from these theoretical viewpoints suggested that teacher retention at the school was facilitated by collegial embeddedness and the access to teacher social capital. Our findings align with other findings in the literature suggesting the protective properties that collegial support has for teacher retention. However, our findings go beyond these by suggesting the importance of exploring the nuances in collegial relations and their subsequent influence on teacher retention.
ReferencesAllen, R., Burgess, S., & Mayo, J. (2017). The teacher labour market, teacher turnover and disadvantaged schools: new evidence for England. Education Economics, 26(1), 4-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2017.1366425
Bunar, N. (2011). Multicultural Urban Schools in Sweden and Their Communities: Social Predicaments, the Power of Stigma, and Relational Dilemmas. 46(2), 141-164. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085910377429
Cowan, J., Goldhaber, D., Hayes, K., & Theobald, R. (2016). Missing Elements in the Discussion of Teacher Shortages. Educational Researcher, 45(8), 460-462. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16679145
European Commission. (2021). Teachers in Europe Careers, Development and Well-being. https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/publications/teachers-europe-careers-development-and-well-being
Gerring, J. (2004). What is a Case Study and What is it Good For? American Political Science Review, 98, 341-354. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055404001182
Glaser, B. G., Strauss, A. L., & Press, S. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine Publishing Company.
Glazer, J. (2021). The well-worn path: Learning from teachers who moved from hard-to-staff to easy-to-staff schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 105, 103399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103399
Hall, C., Lundin, M., & Sibbmark, K. (2018). Strengthening Teachers in Disadvantaged Schools: Evidence from an Intervention in Sweden's Poorest City Districts, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 66(2), 208-224. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2020.1788154
Helmersson, K. (2018). Särskilda insatser ska få lärare att stanna. Sveriges Radio. https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7036910
Mertens, W., Recker, J., Kohlborn, T., & Kummer, T.-F. (2016). A Framework for the Study of Positive Deviance in Organizations. Deviant Behavior, 37(11), 1288-1307. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1174519
Morse, J. M., & Field, P. A. (1995). Qualitative research methods for health professionals. (2 ed.). Sage Publications.
Opfer, D. (2011). Defining and Identifying Hard-to-Staff Schools:The Role of School Demographics and Conditions. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(4), 582-619. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x11400598
Penrod, J., Preston, D. B., Cain, R. E., & Starks, M. T. (2003). A Discussion of Chain Referral As a Method of Sampling Hard-to-Reach Populations. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 14(2), 100-107. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659602250614
Simon, N. S., & Johnson, S. (2015). Teacher Turnover in High-Poverty Schools: What We Know and Can Do. Teachers College Record, 117(3), 1-36. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811511700305
Swedish National Agency for Education. (2020). Skolverkets lägesbedömning 2020. https://www.skolverket.se/publikationsserier/rapporter/2020/skolverkets-lagesbedomning-2020
Sorensen, L. C., & Ladd, H. F. (2020). The Hidden Costs of Teacher Turnover. AERA Open, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858420905812
Whipp, J. L., & Geronime, L. (2017). Experiences That Predict Early Career Teacher Commitment to and Retention in High-Poverty Urban Schools. Urban Education, 52(7), 799-828. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915574531
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