Norms of Collegiality and Experimentation: Workplace Conditions of School Success

Semistructured interviews with 105 teachers and 14 administrators, supplemented by observation, provide data for a focused ethnography of the school as a workplace, specifically of organizational characteristics conducive to continued “learning on the job.” Four relatively successful and two relatively unsuccessful schools were studied. More successful schools, particularly those receptive to staff development, were differentiated from less successful (and less receptive) schools by patterned norms of interaction among staff In successful schools more than in unsuccessful ones, teachers valued and participated in norms of collegiality and continuous improvement (experimentation); they pursued a greater range of professional interactions with fellow teachers or administrators, including talk about instruction, structured observation, and shared planning or preparation. They did so with greater frequency, with a greater number and diversity of persons and locations, and with a more concrete and precise shared language. Findings suggest critical social organizational variables that lend themselves to quantitative study.