Organizational climate and school-family relations in primary schools

The aim of this research is to analyze the relationship between the organizational climate and school-family relations in primary schools. For this purpose, the relationships between the dimensions of organizational climate -supportiveness, intimacy, restrictiveness and directiveness- and the dimensions of school-family relations -parents? undertaking responsibility, teacher-parent communication and school-based participation- have been examined by regarding the views of the teachers in charge at primary schools.The research is a descriptive study based on the relational search model. In the study, ?Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire-RE ? has been used to determine the organizational climate in primary schools. After the translation of the questionnaire into Turkish by the researcher, a pilot study has been performed on 120 primary school teachers. In the end of the pilot study , a 4-Likert ?School Climate Questionnaire? which has 25 items and 4 dimensions has found out. In order to determine the school-family relations, ?School-Family Relations Questionnaire? has been developed by the researcher. In the process of development of the questionnaire, firstly, opinion of the field experts? has been taken. Then, a pilot study has been performed on 120 primary school teachers. After the pilot study, it has been seen that 5-Likert questionnaire has 28 items and 3 dimensions.The population was consisted of 450 teachers working in public primary schools in Çubuk in Ankara. The sample set of the research was consisted of 300 teachers who had been chosen randomly from the population.In the statistical analysis of the data frequency, percentage, arithmetical mean, t-test, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Tukey-HSD tests have been used. The level of significance was accepted as ?=.05.The findings of the research have showed that there is a significant and positive relationship between parents? undertaking responsibility dimension of school-family relations and supportiveness and intimacy dimensions of school climate, and a significant and negative relationship between parents? undertaking responsibility dimension of school-family relations and restrictiveness dimension of school climate. Moreover, there is a significant and positive relationship between teacher-parent communication dimension of school-family relations and intimacy dimension of school climate. Finally, it has been seen that there is a significant and positive relationship between school-based participation dimension of school-family relations and supportiveness and intimacy dimensions of school climate. When the school climate were examined according to some demographic variables, it was found out that teachers? gender caused a significant difference on their views regarding supportiveness and their branches caused a significant difference on their views regarding restrictiveness. When school-family relations were examined according to the same demographic variables, it was seen that teachers? views regarding parents? undertaking responsibility dimension differ significantly according to their gender. It was also seen that teachers? year of teaching experience, year of teaching in the current school and branches caused significant differences on their views regarding all the dimensions. At the end of the research, in the light of these findings, some suggestions have been made on the things that can be done regarding the school climate and school-family relations in primary schools.Key Words: Organizational climate, school climate, school-family relations, parent involvement, teacher