Institutionalization at public and private secondary schools

The purpose of the current study was to determine the institutionalization level of public and private secondary schools and to reveal the activities carried out regarding institutionalization at these schools, the problems encountered and solution proposals offered based on teachers' views. Explanatory mixed research design which encompassed qualitative and quantitative strands was used in the present study. The population of the study consisted of teachers working at public and private secondary schools located in Nizip, Şahinbey and Şehitkâmil districts of Gaziantep province. The sample for the quantitative strand of the research was composed of 758 teachers chosen from among 50 secondary schools via stratified sampling technique in the academic year of 2015-2016. The quantitative data were collected by means of "School Institutionalization Scale" developed by Özgan (2011). School Institutionalization Scale is composed of six dimensions which are cultural power, specialization, social responsibility, adaptability, formalization, and consistency. Extreme (or deviant) sampling technique was used to determine the study group for the qualitative strand of the research. The study group of the qualitative study consisted of 32 teachers working at schools from which quantitative data were collected. Of thirty-two teachers, sixteen were working at the schools with the lowest level of institutionalization, and sixteen were working at the schools with the highest level of institutionalization. Qualitative data were collected from teachers via semi-structured interviews. Parametric analysis techniques were used in the analysis of quantitative data, and the content analysis technique was used in qualitative data analysis. The result of the research revealed that public secondary schools were institutionalized at a moderate level in specialization and adaptability dimensions; however, they were institutionalized at high levels in cultural power, social responsibility, formalization and consistency dimensions. On the other hand, private secondary schools were found to be institutionalized at a high level in the specialization, social responsibility and adaptability dimensions, while they were institutionalized at a very high level in the cultural power, formalization and consistency dimensions. Consistently, there was a significant difference in favor of private secondary schools in terms of the level of institutionalization. At public and private secondary schools, it was revealed that some activities and practices such as establishing organizational principles and values, developing a shared vision, teamwork, participative decision-making, carrying out introducing and advertising activities, caring for legal regulations in the activities, launching social responsibility projects, collaborating with parents, ensuring school security, enhancing professional development, setting up organizational communication channels, forming school rules, reporting the studies and conducting organizational supervision were carried out. The most encountered problems were parents' being indifferent, constant change of administrators, intra-organization conflicts, students' misbehavior, teachers' lack of knowledge about regulations, not providing rewards, heavy work load, extreme bureaucracy, tasks' being unclear and indefinite and not ensuring participation in decision-making. Some suggestions are made based on the findings and the participants' solution proposals.