Public school culture is fairly similar even amidst ethnically and geographically diverse schools. For example, there is prohibition of classroom prayer. Students and school staff must maintain a professional and platonic relationship at all times. Any student or school staff engaging in illegal behaviors must be reported. These are just some things that every public school must do or else face potential legal problems. That being said, the culture in the school can be split up into subcultures where the differences can clearly be seen.
Cultural context has always been an important area to examine. Organizations often have their own sub-culture demonstrated by the ones working there. An example is corporate culture. Each company has its own corporate culture and corporate cultures often develop as an ethos generated and maintained by images, ritual, symbols, and social processes. "Rituals are often embedded in the formal structure of the organization, as in the case of the president's weekly staff meeting, the real function ... some form of peace with each other" (Morgan, 2006, p. 52). The school has a culture among its student population. The inner-city school has students that experience poverty and exist within the 'drug culture'. Meaning, impoverished students engage in risky behaviors like selling drugs in order to potentially escape their life of struggle.
The teachers and principal of the school may not come from the inner-city. Many in fact come from...
Their experiences translate to a different culture that is not exposed to the realities that the student culture face. Furthermore, there's a desired level of professionalism and decorum that must be maintained. This also translates to a different culture within the organization and marked differences from the students and the school staff. Although some similarities exist between populations, they marked differences are what separate the two.
Getting people to collaborate and organize so the school can meet the same goal can be difficult. "The main problem that systems theory tries to solve is the problem of complexity. The notion of complexity is very often correlated to variables such as entropy and energy, organization and disorganization and others that eventually converge to comprehensibility or incomprehensibility" (Mavrofides, Kameas, Papageorgiou, & Los, 2011, p. 353). However, because schools work towards objectives the majority of the time, it is easier than with other organizations. One common goal is to help every child achieve a high quality education. Students like James who performed well in the past and then struggled due to drug addiction, require additional services that a school staff member would need to collaborate with external sources in order to achieve. School protocols, policy, and rules help make that process smoother because the tools and information are given to make…
