Teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing the school climate: A constructivist grounded theory case study

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this study was to explore and analyse teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing the school climate, to better understand teachers’ everyday efforts in influencing the school climate, including obstacles they might experience. Bronfenbrenner’s social-ecological theory was utilized as the overarching theoretical perspective. Data were collected by means of 14 semi-structured focus group interviews with 73 teachers from two compulsory schools in southeast Sweden. Findings revealed that teachers experienced the school climate as both positively and negatively influenced by a number of internal and external factors, perceived as influenceable or uninfluenceable. According to the teachers, four types of factors affected the quality of the school climate: social processes and values in school (i.e. influenceable internal factors), school premises and support structures (i.e. uninfluenceable internal factors, external relations (i.e. influenceable external factors) and external means of control (i.e. uninfluenceable external factors). A grounded theory of teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing school were developed. Our conclusion is that the teachers talked about a multidimensional and malleable phenomenon, emanated by a complex interplay across multiple agents and contexts both within and outside the school, aligning with all domains and features and acting as preconditions for the school climate.

Keywords

• school climate
• teachers’ perspective
• social-ecological perspective
• focus group interviews
• internal and external factors
• grounded theory