The reasons for conflicts arising between school managers and teachers in secondary education institutions (Field study in Bakırköy town)

In this research, existence of variables among the perceptions of school managers and teachers about the reasons for conflicts has been investigated with respect to several variables including gender, marital status, position, age, seniority and educational status, within the framework of the question ?What are the perceptions of secondary school managers and teachers on the reasons that cause emergence of conflicts within their institution?? It is hoped that the findings of the study will contribute to maintaining a peaceful and cooperative education environment and improvement of quality.Screening model has been employed in this descriptive study. The research is comprised of three sections: School manager, teacher and high school concepts and contemporary role of high schools in Turkish Education System have been elaborated in the first section, while the conflict phenomenon and reasons are defined in the second section. Third section is the application part of the research. The scale employed in this section has been devised by the researcher and is comprised of two parts. The first part consists of six articles about personal information and second part includes twenty one articles on reasons of conflicts in three areas which are identified with the pilot study. The scale has been applied in 2007 / 2008 academic period on 30 school managers and 303 teachers working in seven secondary schools in Bakırköy Town. Of the 333 scales applied, 302 were returned and 284 of those scales were assessed to be valid.Results of the analysis show that the school managers and teachers share the perception that conflicts are experienced mostly in the field of Training & Education services. According to school managers conflicts mostly occur due to ?substitutions for unattended classes? while in teachers? opinion the most important reason is ?rewarding of teacher?. While there is a significant difference between the perceptions of school managers and teachers with respect to gender and, marital status; no significant divergence was found with respect to the variables of position, age, seniority and educational status.Keywords: Secondary Education, Conflict, School Managers, Teacher, General High School