Organizational culture in public and private kindergartens: A study in the context of artifacts

The aim of this study is to examine and compare public and private kindergartens in terms of observable cultural elements (traditions, common language, physical symbols, stories) in the artifacts layer of Schein's (1984) three-layered culture model, in line with school observations, documents and administrator opinions. The research covers the opinions of 2 participating kindergarten principals working in one public and one private kindergarten affiliated with the Central District Directorate of National Education of Antalya Province in the 2023-2024 academic year, observation data of public and private kindergartens, and documents belonging to these schools. A case study, which is a qualitative research method design, was used as the research design in the study. Descriptive analysis and content analysis methods were applied while analyzing the research data. According to the results of this research, it has been seen that the cultural elements observed in both public and private kindergartens directly contribute to the formation and development of school culture in both types of schools. It has been determined that there are elements of school culture, including tradition, common language, physical symbols and stories, in both private and public kindergartens, and it has been concluded that these elements make significant contributions to the formation of school culture and the realization of institutional strategies. It has been concluded that in private schools, unlike public schools, a school culture prevails in which teacher achievements are not highlighted in order to avoid competition among teachers. Due to the centralized structure of private schools, it has been determined that school stakeholders are less involved in the formation of school culture and school-related decision-making processes than in public schools. It has been determined that private kindergartens, which have a certain financial strength, are more advantageous than public kindergartens in terms of enriching and developing the school culture in terms of physical conditions. It was concluded that the current school culture in public kindergartens has a dynamic structure that reflects the school environment, stakeholders, social participation and cooperation, while the school culture in private kindergartens has a more static structure where measures are taken to ensure that the stakeholders participating in the system adapt to the existing culture due to the central structure of the institution. Keywords: Organizational Culture, School Culture, Elements of Culture, Artifacts.