Organizational dissent in secondary schools: Triggering events, casuses and consequences

The explanatory sequential design of the mixed method was preferred in this research, which was carried out in order to reveal the reasons that trigger the organizational dissent behaviours of teachers working in state secondary schools, their disential behaviour patterns and the results of their dissent, and quantitative methods were used at the first stage of the research. Qualitative methods were used in the second stage in order to explain and detail how the data obtained as a result of emerging quantitative methods. In the quantitative aspect of the research, the sample of the study consists of 425 teachers working in state secondary schools in Söke district of Aydın province in the 2022-2023 academic year. The "Organizational Dissent Scale" developed by Özdemir (2010) was used as a data collection tool in this dimension, in which the descriptive survey model of the quantitative method was used. 220 feedbacks were received from the scales distributed to the teachers, and 4 of them were deemed invalid. Quantitative analyses were made on 216 questionnaires in total. SPPS 22.0 program was used in the analysis of the quantitative data obtained in the study and parametric tests were used. In the qualitative aspect of the research, a semi-structured interview form consisting of 10 questions about the causes of organizational dissent, types of dissenting behaviour and its results was used. The study group consisted of 10 teachers working in secondary schools, and maximum diversity and snowball sampling methods were used to determine these teachers. Deductive data analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. As a result of the analyses made, it was determined that the perception level of the teachers regarding the causes of organizational dissent was the highest compared to the other aspects. Then, the results of the dissent and the types of dissenting behaviour come respectively. In the analysis of the reasons for the dissent, it was concluded that the teachers were the most frequently dissenting due to administrative reasons and the strongest trigger that created this situation was the lack of participation of the teachers in the decisions. It has been observed that the most frequently preferred behaviour of the teachers among the dissent behaviour types is articulated dissent, and the least preferred behaviour is whistleblowing. Teachers mostly prefer to share their opinions directly with school administrators. As a result of the teachers' dissent behaviours, it was concluded that they responded with the retaliation of the administrator, and that the school administrators preferred to ignore or seek support in the face of oppositional behaviours. According to the teachers, it has been determined that organizational dissent has both positive and negative consequences for the school, unethical behaviours will end as a result of dissent, the effectiveness of the school will increase, but the dissent can harm the cooperation and peace environment. In line with the demographic variables, it was concluded that single teachers dissenting more than married teachers for administrative reasons, and unionized teachers preferred more articulated dissent and reporting behaviour than non-unionized teachers. When we look at the results of the dissent in terms of teachers age, there is also a significant difference between the teachers in the 32-36 age group and the 37-41 and 42-46 age group, and between the teachers working in schools where 40 or more teachers work and 28 or fewer teachers work in schools, difference was detected. Under the light of the findings, suggestions were made about the necessity of managing schools by effective administrators in line with impartial and democratic principles. For the teacher dimension, suggestions were made in order to create participatory climate perception, strengthen organizational identification, and develop argumentative skills.