A qualitative analysis of administrator and teacher views on school culture: Baku case

In this research, opinions of teachers and administrators regarding school culture were examined. The research was designed with the phenomenology design of qualitative research method. The data were collected from 20 teachers and four administrators working in two public and two private schools in Baku in the fall semester of 2019-2020 academic year. A semi-structured form prepared by the researcher was used as the data collection tool. The data were obtained as a result of face to face interviews with participants and analyzed by content analysis. The findings are gathered under three themes: school culture definitions, school culture perceptions, obstacles to school culture and school culture development. In the first theme, it was determined that school culture was defined as "relations, behaviors, educational activities, traditions and ethical rules". In the second theme, it was concluded that school culture "motivates people, creates loyalty to school, instills responsibility, develops relationships, gives identity and discovers students' abilities". As the third theme, obstacles to school culture were expressed as "excessive workload, financial problems, parents' intervention in school life, infrastructure problems, frequent changes of teachers and administrators". School culture development was stated as "doing activities inside and outside school, fulfilling responsibilities, motivating teachers and students, and communicating with parents". Based on the findings, it was suggested that administrators should interact more with teachers, know them, do activities inside and outside school, invite graduates to school, organize trainings to parents, and invite parents to school. Keywords: school culture, organizational culture, phenomenology, administrators, teachers, Baku