The relationship between school administrators' favoritism behaviours and organizational happiness

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between favoritism behaviors of school administrators and organizational happiness according to the perceptions of teachers working in public secondary schools. The research was conducted using descriptive and correlational surveys, which are quantitative research models. The universe of the research consists of 111 public secondary schools in the central districts of Diyarbakır Province (Sur, Yenişehir, Kayapınar, Bağlar) and 3678 teachers working in these schools in the 2023-2024 academic year, and the sample consists of 37 public secondary schools selected randomly from the universe and 418 teachers working in these schools. The "Favoritism Scale in School Administration" developed by Erdem and Meriç (2012) and the "School Organizational Happiness Scale" developed by Bulut (2015) were used as data collection tools in the research. Some important findings obtained as a result of the research can be listed as follows: (1) The general average of teachers' perceptions of favoritism behaviors of their school administrators was determined as "rarely". According to teachers' perceptions, the dimensions related to favoritism were determined as "sometimes" in planning, organizing and coordination, and "rarely" in evaluation. (2) A significant difference was determined between the perceptions of teachers in all dimensions and in the scale in general, except for the coordination dimension, according to their gender, and in planning, organizing dimensions and in the total scale according to the union membership variable. On the other hand, no significant difference was determined between the perceptions of teachers according to the variables of educational status, marital status, professional seniority and size of the school. (3) The general average of teachers' organizational happiness perceptions was determined as "agree" (high). However, according to teachers' perceptions, the dimension averages related to organizational happiness were determined as "strongly agree" in professional attitude and communication with stakeholders, and "agree" in economic conditions, administrative processes and professional commitment. (4) A significant difference was found in the professional attitude dimension among teachers' perceptions of organizational happiness according to the gender variable and in the professional commitment dimension according to the school size variable. No significant difference was found between teachers' perceptions according to the variables of education status, marital status, professional seniority and union membership. (5) According to teachers' perceptions, a negative and low-level significant relationship was found between school administrators' favoritism behaviors and organizational happiness. It was found that favoritism in school administration was a significant predictor of organizational happiness. School administrators' favoritism behaviors explained 5% of organizational happiness. In the light of these findings, it can be said that school administrators' favoritism behaviors have a significant negative effect on organizational happiness. Keywords: Favoritism, Happiness, Organizational Happiness.