Organizational Factors that Affect School Sense of Efficacy, Community, and Expectations

Abstract

This study contends that the alienation of teachers in high schools can be reduced through improvements in school organization. Using the High School and Beyond Administrator/Teacher Survey, the study explored the impact of 10 organizational features on efficacy, community, and expectations in 353 public high schools. When school size, urban location, the students' ability at entry, and the percentage of disadvantaged and minority students were controlled, school organizational features had a major influence on all three teacher-climate variables. The most powerful organizational effects were students' orderly behavior, the encouragement of innovation, teachers' knowledge of one another's courses, the responsiveness of administrators, and teachers' helping one another. Direct causality cannot be inferred, but the results suggest the potential of changing organizationalfeatures in high schools for reducing the alienation of teachers.