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Leading organisational culture: issues of power and equity
Grappling with culture
Educational leadership has engaged with the nature and significance of organisational
culture since at least the 1970s (Sarason, 1971; Brookover et al., 1978). Since that time,
the concept has retained a tenacious hold in the literature, despite frequent attacks on its
inadequate conceptualisation and doubtful practical application (Lumby & Foskett, 2011;
Schoen & Teddlie, 2008). Though culture may be castigated by some as an outmoded
concept, its enduring appeal is evident in the persistence of its use and in the frequent
reference to culture in texts concerned with leading education.
In the face of the existing extensive literature it is certainly challenging to review the
concept’s use over forty years and to take thinking forward. An initial question, then, is
why we should consider culture and what might be said about it that develops our
understanding? The standpoint in this article is that the concept demands attention, if only
because its persistence, suggests a prima facie case that it performs some necessary
function. Schein (2011: xi) asserts: ‘I doubt that there is a manager or scholar alive that
does not take the concepts of climate and culture seriously’. A further imperative to
consider culture is the premise that it is deeply implicated in the different and unequal
experience of learners and consequently strongly related to a goal of educational
leadership, contributing to social justice (Bates, 2006).
The article briefly reviews the lenses through which culture has been studied and its
history in educational leadership. It considers how it has been conceptualised and its
place in practice. It discusses a number of arenas in which culture operates in educational
organisations. It places the study of culture in a larger field which includes multi- and
inter-culture issues as well as organisational culture, and considers the implications of the
different perspectives. Finally, the article considers the relationship of culture to social
justice and presents an argument for why leaders need to engage deeply with culture.
The intention here is not to offer prescriptions for managing culture but to begin to
dismantle what appears unproblematic in much educational leadership literature; in
Foucault’s (2000a: 235) terms, to leave people so that they do not know what to do,
rather than knowing what to do, ‘so that the acts, gestures, discourses that up until then
had seemed to go without saying become problematic, difficult, dangerous’. The critique
in this article is intended to disturb the current relationship between leaders and culture
and to leave them not with a recipe for action, but with a deeper understanding and
remodelled agenda of what they need to consider in reflecting on their own way forward
with social justice at the heart.
Placing the study of culture in context
It is possible to explore culture’s academic evolution and practical application through a
number of frameworks: disciplinary, chronological, ideological and methodological.
There is not space here to do more than indicate the complex mosaic of culture’s
scholastic history. A number of disciplines offer distinct approaches. For example,
anthropology has attempted to identify and scientifically depict the culture of individual
societies. Cultural studies position the power tussles of socio-economic class, gender and
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ethnicity in changing everyday culture. Psychology engages with the neuroepistemological bases of perception and the embeddedness of culturally determined
patterns of thought and behaviour. Such a brief description can do no more than hint at
the richness of these and other disciplines. The relevance here is that the fields of
management and educational leadership have borrowed from a range of disciplines,
though often in ways which have mirrored in faint form the conceptual and
methodological rigour of the parent discipline.
Some have attempted an analysis of the use of the term to map how understanding has
evolved. Schoen and Teddlie (2008) chart scholars’ engagement from the eighteenth
century onwards. Martin et al. (2004) attempt to trace the more recent configurations of
culture from the latter half of the twentieth century, while simultaneously arguing that the
history of the concept is so contentious and confused that unravelling clear chronological
paths and transition points is almost impossible. They present an account of intellectual
divergence from the 1970s, distinguishing the tangled history of three perspectives; first
an integrationist perspective, where organisational culture is viewed as a management
tool created by leaders to support the achievement of organisational goals. They contrast
this with the emergence of a differentiation perspective, the stance of those who view
organisations as replete with multiple cultures that change largely because of
environmental pressures rather than management intention. Finally, they perceive the
advent of a fragmentation perspective, where the many cultures in an organisation are
perceived as constantly shifting, contested, transitory and confusing.
An ideological debate has unfolded over time. Bates (2006: 160) suggests an ideological
history from a critical perspective, seeing the advent of corporate culture ushering in
mechanisms intended to give managers dominance. He suggests that culture is not the
shared meanings stressed in many definitions, but ‘a complex mosaic of negotiation (and
sometimes rebellion), constantly shaped by the exercise of various forms of power’.
Study of culture also reflects methodological divergence (Martin et al. 2004). Divides
exist between quantitative researchers who use statistical analysis of questionnaire
responses to register and influence culture or climate (Bustamante, 2006; Phillips &
Wagner, 2003) and qualitative researchers, who see the necessity for substantial, rich data
to make headroad in understanding (Hagelund, 2007). Within each division are further
subgroups; for example, within the qualitative camp ethnographers believe that
participant observation over time is axiomatic to understanding culture (Vogt, 2002).
Whatever methods are adopted, there is persistent dissatisfaction with results and a sense
that the culture(s) of an organisation continue to elude capture by research (Prosser,
1999). Archer (2005: 17) identifies the problem as the absence of a ‘ready fund of
analytical units for differentiating components of the cultural realm that corresponds to
those delineating parts of the structural domain (roles, organizations, institutions,
systems). Instead… cultures are still “grasped” as a whole’. The way forward, she
suggests, is to achieve better analytical tools.
Some have attempted to offer analytical frameworks. Hofstede (1984) distinguishes deep
culture, the usually tacit and unconscious shared values of many organisation members,
and shallow culture, the visible signals of culture or the practice of members. Bates
(1987) contrasts the dominant culture, viewed across the organisation from a horizontal
perspective, with sub-cultures and counter-cultures perceived as going down vertically
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deep into the organisation. In relation to schools, Prosser (1999: 7) offers a typology of
‘wider culture’ (the national and international context), ‘generic culture’ (of educators as
a profession) ‘unique culture’ (the distinctive culture of a school) and ‘perceived culture’
(the culture as viewed internally and by those judging the school from outside). None of
these frameworks have been widely used in relation to education.
A final characteristic of the study of culture is its propensity to attract metaphors both to
communicate the nature of culture as a concept and to characterise individual instances;
for example, culture is computer bits (Erickson, 1987), ‘compass’, ‘social glue’, (Clayton
et al., 2008: 35), or ‘pixels in the picture’ (Lumby & Foskett, 2011: 452). An individual
school culture is described as ‘the shopping mall school’ (Powell et al., 1985) or, as in
Stoll and Fink’s (1996) typology of five types of school culture: moving, cruising,
strolling, struggling or sinking. Lumby and Foskett (2011) note that the metaphoric
language used may both reflect and encourage imprecision in thinking, where the illusion
is given that the complex nature of an educational organisation can be adequately
captured by a word or phrase.
What are we talking about?
Despite its widespread usage, part of the difficulty in the study of culture is that we
cannot agree what we are talking about. Even the language shifts, with culture, climate,
and ethos argued to be different by some and used interchangeably by others (Schoen &
Teddlie, 2008; Van Houtte, 2005). Definition of culture is notoriously difficult. Some
have adopted the strategy of listing elements:
an organized set of thoughts, beliefs, and norms for interaction and
communication; it is about how people treat each other, how they value one
another, how school staff work together and get along together in a professional
and personal sense, it is the consensus about what is important. (Sailes, 2008: 74–
75)
Others adopt an all-inclusive generality, ‘the peculiar and distinctive way of life’
(Sparkes, 1991: 5) and, most famously, Bolman and Deal’s (1991: 252) ‘the way we do
things around here’. What most definitions hold in common is reference to a discernible
pattern in human behaviour and its physical setting.
Few of the attempts at definition or establishing analytic units have attracted widespread
adherence. Consequently, it is tempting to turn away from the exhausting profusion of
literature in the ‘culture wars’ (Martin, 2002: 6). Some have suggested abandoning the
concept’s use entirely, in favour of other theoretical frameworks for studying the
differences in belief and action which characterise groups and organisations (Van Oord,
2008). However, if culture can be conceived as the net effect of visible and invisible rules
that shape the choice options for thought and action, it remains a powerful sculptor of
educational organisations, of what is easy, difficult or virtually impossible to achieve.
Consequently leaders, whether they will or not, work with culture; even ignoring culture
is a cultural choice. Schein (2011) advocates that leaders set aside attempts at definition
and instead focus on working with culture, understanding it and influencing it, adopting
Archer’s (2005) position that culture shapes the organisation’s performance and that each
leader can influence culture to some degree.
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Culture and educational leadership
Links have been made between education and organisational culture from as early as the
1930s (Waller, 1932). By 1987 Erickson could already offer an overview of thinking on
school culture. Prosser (1999) suggests that research in the 1960s and 1970s was
dominated by quantitative studies of climate related to school effectiveness, but that this
metamorphosed from the 1980s onwards into school culture research that employed a
wider range of methods. The British Educational Index evidences a very wide use of the
concept from the 1970s, with exponential rise in its use since then, from 42 articles in the
70s to 829 in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The flow shows no sign of
abating. Culture is indicated as a distinct phenomenon invested in a range of units; in
socioeconomic classes such as the white working class, in education sectors, the culture
of higher or further education, in an organisation, the school culture, in a location within
the organisation, a classroom culture, in professional groups – for example, particular
subject teachers – or even in approaches to teaching and learning, the culture of a
subject’s curriculum A range of adjectives is used to describe culture, some with positive
or pejorative connotations: a learning culture, a professional development culture, an
entrepreneurial culture, an audit culture, or an examination culture.
It was not until the 1980s that organisational culture appeared as a central focus in
Educational Management, Leadership and Administration (EMAL) articles, rather than
as a rather general concept referred to in passing. Even then, it was in relation to ‘Asian
culture’ (Dimmock, 1998: 363), that is, within the ‘multi-cultural’ area rather than as
organisational culture itself. A handful of articles followed in the new millennium
concerned with the culture of professionalism (Quicke, 2000; Timperley & Robinson,
2000), of teaching and learning (Busher & Barker, 2003), of phase of education (Lumby,
2003; Bell & Kent, 2010) or mode of leadership (Woods, 2007). This small number of
articles focused on culture contrasts sharply with the hundreds during the same period
that referred to culture in passing, as synonymous with context, as in the school culture;
or sometimes as a goal, changing the culture.Within EMAL from the journal’s inception
in 1972 to this fortieth anniversary issue in 2012, the word culture appears at least once in
over 500 articles, 39 per cent of all the journal’s articles. Its ubiquity does not necessarily
indicate depth of engagement; rather, the opposite.
The conviction that culture and the performance of an organisation are linked is strong.
The origins of this may lie in part with 1980s and 90s corporate evangelists such as Peters
and Waterman (1982) or Kotter & Heskett (1992), whose espousal of culture as a
performance enhancing tool has been taken up enthusiastically in education. Spillane
(2005) notes the widespread adherence to the notion of a charismatic leader who can
transform culture and thereby a school’s fortunes. Recent commentators have suggested
that the evidence linking culture and performance is tenuous (Clayton et al., 2008; Martin
et al., 2004). Such assertions have not dented the attachment of many educators and
researchers to culture as key to an organisation’s performance (Harris, 2003; Woods et al.
2004).
Culture, praxis and power
The nature of literature on culture in EMAL and elsewhere may reflect in some sense the
practice of many educational leaders. The articles in EMAL with ‘culture’ in the text fall
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into two categories; the minority that focus on defining and discerning organisational
culture in some depth, and the large majority that refer to culture in indistinct terms,
synonymous with organisational context or with a general approach to a particular area of
activity. The most prevalent orientation to culture is reference to a single organisational
culture, presenting it as a loose, undefined context, referred to rather as cultural wallpaper
or background culture ‘muzak’. There are many references to changing culture (Busher,
2005; Lance, 2010), but infrequent deep engagement with how this might be understood
and the ethical implications of doing so.
The integrationist ideological perspective is strongly evident and deeply embedded in
normative prescriptions for educational leadership. For example, the UK National
College for School Leadership (NCSL) has offered a range of publications where a
recommended process is the production of a clear vision as precursor to a strong culture,
as in a case study ‘A strong leadership culture emanating from a clear vision’ (NCSL,
n.d.). Strong culture is taken to be desirable.The integrationist perspective assumes that
organisations can unite behind a single culture that is benign and supports the interests of
learners (Gold et al., 2003). It is doubtful if this is a credible position in the light of much
evidence that schools and colleges do not work equally well for all learners (Carter &
Osler, 2000; Martina, 2006). The dominant culture is likely to be working in each school
or college in favour of some and disadvantaging others. In other words, culture is
implicated in the modulation of power.
The dimensions of power are multiple and contested (Haugaard, 2002). Nevertheless,
there is some agreement that power is enacted not just by overt coercion or the exercise
of mandated authority. Power is also exerted covertly through the structures, processes
and agency that shape what can be thought, what can be discussed and what can be
disputed or resisted. Lukes (2002: 43) suggests that covert power channels people’s
thought so that ‘they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they
can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and
unchangeable’.
The effect of organisational culture matches Lukes’ (2002) description of covert power. It
makes ways of thinking and acting seem natural and unchangeable (Lakomski, 2001).
Without obvious coercion, nevertheless it shapes possibilities. It is not possible to
transgress cultural boundaries without risking serious penalties (Freidenberg, 2009;
Gilligan, 1988). Viewed as an embedded shaping of human activity, culture matches
exactly what Bachrach and Baratz (2002) call the ‘mobilization of bias in the
community’, privileging the values and interests of one group over others by means that
may not be overtly or consciously intended to dominate. Culture is one structure for the
negotiation of power exercised through mundane everyday activity (Willis, 2008). It is
one of the ‘dividing practices’ sought by Foucault (2000b: 326) that cannot be escaped.
An individual or organisation may determine to step outside an existing culture or to
change it, but it remains the defining point of reference (Bishop et al., 2006; Spicer &
Böhm, 2007). Culture is a fundamental shaping and disciplinary force on which
organisations depend. Culture and the divisions it embodies are therefore a necessary
focus of leaders and a particularly potent medium for those who aim to support social
justice.
Cultural arenas
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Such underlying issues of power are more frequently implicit than explicit in plans to
influence culture. Rather, educational leaders generally focus on action in the arenas
where culture exerts pressure and is subject to pressure:

The cultural context created by global phenomena external to the organisation,
but which may nevertheless exert powerful internal pressures;

The cultures of local communities impacting on how learners and their
families engage with the organisation and with learning;

The organisational culture, comprising the ways in which one school or
college differs from another down the road;

The sub- and counter-cultures of staff and learner groups within the
organisation that may be aligned to or in opposition to the organisational
culture.
Each level offers choices for leaders to position themselves and to engage more
consciously in the negotiation of culture and power.
The global context: pressure on culture
The good and ill resulting from globalisation, or even whether such a thing exists, is
deeply contested. Nevertheless, there are widespread expressions of concern that
transformed technologies and communication have in turn transformed economic and
political relations and, of particular relevance, shifted the contract between the state and
education (Apple, 2000). The new relationship cascades down through schools and
colleges, reflected in cultures that strongly influence what is perceived as possible.
Leadership practice is arguably formed by such cultural shifts. For example, there is
evidence of strong forces shaping leaders’ choices and actions in relation to a competitive
orientation (Ball, 2009; Davies et al., 2009; Gibson & Asthana, 2000; Yates, 1999), and
relationships with staff (Blackmore, 2004; Jeffrey, 2002) and learners (Johnson et al.,
2008; Locker & Cropley, 2004). The degree of acceptance and or resistance is the focus
of numerous studies (Hill, 1998). Educational leaders act as buffers between cultural
pressures reflecting global pressures and the organisational culture. Many would claim
that in developing their organisation’s culture they are not reflecting global trends but a
personal and deeply held vocation. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that leaders in education
are immune (Wallace et al., 2011). The evidence suggests wide-scale and similar cultural
change across schools, colleges and universities in many parts of the world. In order to
assess the degree to which they and their organisation's culture have been pervious to
global cultural pressures, education leaders might search for evidence within their
organisation that reflects the prevalent global valorisation of competition, efficiency and
standardisation (Luke & Luke, 2000).
Local communities and culture
The second arena of culture relevant to educational leaders is that of local communities.
There is some agreement that the external cultures of local communities influence, in
many cases decisively, the progress of learners (Lee, 2008). Educators’ judgements about
the nature and worth of external cultures are habitually filtered through a viewpoint
shaped by the professional acculturation of teaching. Erickson (1987) outlines a range of
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professional assumptions about, for example, whether ability is innate and relatively
fixed, and the necessity for schools to intervene strongly to compensate for family
deficits in developing language and reading. Educational leaders may feel intuitively that
these are correct assumptions, though Erickson points out that they are both contested and
culturally specific. Assumptions about goals may also be culturally influenced. Quiroz et
al. (1999) highlight a Latino parent's negative response to a teacher's report of
'outstanding' work. Standing out is viewed negatively within collectivist cultures.
External cultures therefore impact directly on students’ attitudes and practice and are also
refracted and impact through the assumptions and value judgements embedded in how
educators view external cultures.
To change outcomes for many learners, not only internal but external cultures or the
relationship between the two may need to change. The debate then moves to how
educational leaders can exert influence on community cultures or shape their internal
culture to reduce friction between the two. Pérez Carreón et al. (2005) document the
cultural tensions between immigrant parents and their children’s school in the US. The
authors conclude that a meaningful relationship based on trust is needed, with at least one
social actor in the school in order for there to be genuine communication and interaction
between cultures. Writing on Native American learners in the US, Kincheloe and Staley
(1985) find students where the experience of school is so alien there is no conflict of
culture, because there is no perceived connection between school and home.
Disconnection relates to educational failure (Bates, 1987; Willis, 1977). Other students
hold the two as distinct options, moving between them, adapting to each. A third category
of student is those who experience home and school as culturally aligned and find no
disjunction. The values embedded in the dominant organisational culture and in the
curriculum are arguably aligned more strongly with the culture of the middle or upper
socioeconomic class of the majority of policy makers and teachers (Araújo, 2005;
Lumby, 2012).
Whyte (1960: 362) fifty years ago asserted that the majority of parents ‘do not wish the
great cycle of which they are part reversed, but intensified’. They do not wish to change
or step beyond their own culture, but for themselves and their children to be as successful
as possible within its boundaries. Attempts to enroll learners in a culture that is alien to
them therefore presents deep moral issues; making success dependent on conforming to
the dominant culture even more so (Whyte, op. cit.). Is the aim of leaders then to
assimilate learners into the dominant culture of the school so there is no mismatch, or to
import the values of external cultures into the school, or to find some accommodating
middle way? Explicit choices amongst these strategies are rare. Leaders’ engagement
with the culture of local families and communities remains arguably, in most cases,
superficial. Community representatives are invited to participate as governors, join the
parent teacher association, or to give presentations at school/college meetings or events.
Parents are rhetorically feted as important partners although research evidence suggests
that they are generally held at arm’s length (Walker & MacLure, 2005) and some are seen
more as ‘intractable problems’ (Moles, 1993: 21). There are no easy prescriptions for
how to relate internal and external cultures, but developing staff’s cultural competency to
question the socialised assumptions of the teaching profession and to develop trustful
dialogue with external community members may be productive.
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The organisational culture
Statements of vision or mission are cultural markers, public testimony to the educational
equivalent of a corporate culture. Their typical content commits to develop the potential
of all students and may be part of a general culture of hyperactive promotion of positive
and optimistic attitudes presented to the public gaze in a performative environment. The
normative position for managing the publicly projected organisational culture is set out
by Sailes (2008: 75):
A culturally competent school effectively responds to the needs of its students
representing various cultures by honoring, respecting, valuing and preserving the
dignity of cultural differences and similarities between individual differences in
theory and in practice where teaching and learning are made relevant and
meaningful for all students.
She goes on to point out that evidence suggests this ideal is not achieved and that students
in cultural out-groups ‘are often plagued by problems such as the achievement gap,
overrepresentation in special education, suspension and expulsion rates and high dropouts’ (op. cit.: 76). Culture may be at least a part of the explanation for the gulf between
intention and outcome. Assertions of inclusiveness in the publicly presented culture
misrepresent the culturally divisive nature of educational organisations.
Assumptions about thinking and learning, curricula, teaching and assessment are
culturally shaped (Merriam, 2008; Hilberg & Tharp, 2002). Periodic reviews of curricula
rarely result in radical change as the latter is confined to what is culturally valued by the
dominant group. For example, vocational education, however defined, is more culturally
valued in some countries and by those from some cultural backgrounds than others. Its
place in the curriculum reflects its local cultural value. Sailes (2008: 76) suggests that the
platform for much teaching is ethnocentric and middle-class, but that this is concealed
behind a belief that ‘good teaching is transcendent’, rather than shaped by the culture of
the dominant group. Even though demonstrably ineffective for many out-groups, the
accepted technical processes of ‘good’ teaching and assessment remain the gold standard
(Sparkes, 1991). By a cultural sleight of hand this mechanism of cultural dominance may
be supported by out-groups as much as the in-group. The response to children’s
resistance to curricula and learning that they experience as in tension with their cultural
background is often reactive disciplinary measures (Slee, 1994; Thompson & Bell, 2005)
that take little account of the perspective of learners but instead bolster the culturally
shaped experience of schooling. Students themselves often accept this analysis and
believe that the problem is primarily their behaviour rather than also the school’s practice
(Lumby, 2012).
Sub- and counter-cultures
People create cultures that underlie the quasi-corporate culture by forming groups around
the multiple identities of staff and learners; for example, relating to subject specialism,
length of tenure of role or geographic location of one’s home. As West (1999) points out,
such groups are usually led by an individual who establishes cultural norms of attitude or
behaviour or even territory. Resistance to whatever action a head teacher or teacher
requests may be an auto reflex embedded in the group cultural norms.
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Becher’s (1988) metaphor of a theatre stage may capture how sub-cultures function.
There is the public performance of culture projected from the stage to all in the
auditorium. Backstage, there may be less open manipulations, hidden from the wider
public view; finally, there is under-stage activity buried deep, even from the view of the
main actors. On the open stage are the symbols and rituals of the corporate culture; the
physical signs of uniform, how space is used, to whom it is allocated, the tenor of
meetings of staff and students, the way community members are expected to address one
another, and the vision/mission statement. Backstage are other less openly communicated
cultural strategies, for example controlling entry. Which students and staff are recruited is
a powerful shaper of culture (Van Houtte: 2005). Under-stage is a melee of countercultures, where students and staff resist and subvert the cultural boundaries of the
organisation by tactics such as aberrant dress and hairstyles, acts of disruption, or humour
directed against management or teachers (Prasad & Prasad, 2000). Myriad intentional and
post hoc constructed acts of resistance reflect the power interplay of students and staff as
they attempt to strengthen or dismantle cultural restrictions.
Each group serves the psychological needs of its members by providing protection and
self-affirmation (Schein, 1965). A primary concern is status within the group and in
relation to other groups, achieved by demonstrated conformance to whatever the norms
of their own group may be. Adolescent gangs in school are cultural groups that, denied
the status of academic attainment, construct other criteria such as toughness or risk
taking. It is beyond the scope of the article to explore further the culture of learners’
gangs or those of professionals. It is, however, evident that whatever the purported
rationale for such groups, at the heart is a desire to be safe from psychological or physical
attack and to be valued and rewarded. Leaders who wish to encourage sub-culture groups
to move in a particular direction will need to consider how far the direction suggested
actually respects the group's cultural choices or the contrary. Communicating ‘care’ in a
way that implies disrespect or disagreement with the cultural choices of a learner is a
weak counter to the power of his or her group culture.
Adopting a differentiation perspective and engaging with sub-cultures and community
cultures is arguably more challenging for education leaders than dealing with a single
organisational culture. Bryson (2008) suggests a methodology to achieve a fuller picture
of the multiple and developing cultures of an organisation. She uses Williams’ (1980)
analysis of dominant, emerging and residual cultures. Emerging cultures are those in
formation, perhaps triggered by new staff or new circumstances; residual cultures are
those that linger from an earlier time, perhaps before the current principal arrived or in
earlier funding regimes. Both emergent and residual cultures may present alternatives to
the dominant culture or be actively in opposition to it. She suggests using a wide range of
data from many people internal and external to the organisation to identify the residual
and emerging cultures from multiple perspectives in order to better understand culture as
a dynamic and contested phenomenon and not a static, unitary reality.
Leaders competence to influence culture
How then can leaders respond to the phenomenon of culture? In reviewing educational
management and leadership literature over forty years, several perspectives are apparent
in relation to managing culture and the competence necessary to do so. The skills to
influence organisational culture do not figure largely. Far more evident are the skills
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necessary to respond to 'multi’ cultural issues, related to the notion of increased diversity
and particularly ethnic diversity in learners and educators (Grobler, 2006; Henze et al.,
2001; Shah, 2006). There is also interest arising from notions of internationalisation,
particularly in higher education, leading to interest in ‘inter’ cultural issues (Trahar,
2011). Implicit in these distinctions are judgements about engaging with ‘culture’. On the
one hand, multi-cultural and inter-cultural perspectives are widely perceived to demand
cultural competence of a particular kind to accommodate the cultures deemed most
distant from the norm, those of visibly different ethnic minority students (Lumby with
Coleman, 2007). On the other hand are integrationist perspectives on organisational
culture, where similar cultural competence is not indicated as a requirement. Rather, what
is demanded is skill in creating a single culture to which all are intended to subscribe as a
means of raising performance in the school, college or university (Bolden et al., 2009;
Sun-Keung Pang, 2006). Consequently cultural competence in educational leadership is
much more often interpreted as related to ethnicity issues and not to the much wider
range of cultural issues in schools, colleges and universities, where the provenance of
cultures may be traced to multiple sources including socioeconomic class, home location,
family occupations and gender.
There are, of course, potentially many ways of interpreting the reasons for this
bifurcation in attitude. One perspective might argue that the cultures of ethnic minorities
are indeed different enough from the majority culture to demand the development of
skills to read the multi-cultures to ensure that minority students and staff are not excluded
by the majority culture (Lopez, 2003; Mackay & Etienne, 2006). Simultaneous
maintenance of a strong organisational culture is also beneficial, because this embeds
values and attitudes supportive of learning and good citizenship and so of advantage to
all. A more critical interpretation would view the motivation and aims quite differently.
On both sides of the bifurcation, cultures of those perceived as other are subject to
control, not by overt aggression but by subtle cultural power plays that attempt to enrol
the other in the core values and life view of the dominant group (Bourdieu, 1993) . The
greater attention paid to understanding minority ethnic cultures perceived as having a
greater degree of difference, and the concessions made in some changed practice, may be
proportionate to the perceived degree of threat (Milliken & Martins, 1996). Cultural
competence is a distinct requirement relative to the degree of perceived difference from
the dominant group. The cultures of those of different socioeconomic class, or affiliation
to a different lifestyle but who are nevertheless not so visibly different, provoke less
anxiety, leading to the deployment of only the strategy of encouragement to join the
culture of the dominant (Gudykunst, 1995; Gurin & Nagda, 2006). Cultural adjustment is
not necessary in the face of a perceived lesser threat. Competence in reading the different
cultures is therefore not seen as necessary. Seen in this light from a critical perspective,
the exhortation to educational leaders to create ‘strong’ culture takes on a quite different
resonance to that intended in many education leadership texts.
From a normative perspective, the manipulation of culture in education has been of
limited success in many countries as it has largely not achieved the aspiration of greater
social movement and equity (OECD, 2010). The UK's record is particularly poor
amongst developed countries. From a critical perspective, the culture strategies of
education have been successful in achieving what was intended (Lumby, 2012). They
have helped to retain or intensify existing power structures through establishing norms
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and deviation, and encouraging the deviant individual or group to see the dominant
culture as superior, even though it may be resisted (Spicer & Böhm, 2007). The
dominance and values of one group are perceived as ‘natural and unchangeable’ (Lukes,
2002: 43) and resistance is unprofitable. The culture of a group that resists may
paradoxically support members psychologically and simultaneously hold them in tension
with the dominant culture, thereby confirming the strength of the latter (Willis, 1977).
Attempts to challenge inequality-producing norms risk reinforcing them through
acknowledging them, engaging with them and giving them attention.
So, where to?
Given that there is doubtful agreement on what culture is, limited tools to research it, but
a conviction of its link to inequity, how can the field look to progress? We have known
for decades that the dominant culture of educational organisations excludes many (Willis,
1977). Looking back over forty years of references to culture in EMAL, a persistent
turning away from this uncomfortable knowledge is evident in many articles’ casualness
in referring to culture. Education leaders consciously want to create the most positive
environment they can for the largest number of learners. Those who present prescriptions
for how to achieve this through creating and sustaining a ‘strong’ culture are misleading.
They are encouraging education leaders to join the ranks of those who for forty years
have skated the surface of culture. Others who suggest that culture is not a useful
concept, that it is too vague, too difficult, that it is beyond influence, achieve the same
effect; to discourage leaders from thinking deeply about culture.
The position suggested in this article is different, assuming that, while organisational
cultures cannot be controlled, they can be influenced to some degree and that deciding on
the direction of influence is a key moral challenge for leaders. In doing so leaders may
need to accept both conceptual and methodological limitations as a product of the
problem. Lukes (2002) believes that there are certain concepts that will be inevitably and
continuously disputed. Culture may be such a concept, yet we may need to set aside the
frustrations and engage, because culture has generally sat in our peripheral vision since
the initiation of this journal. Educational leaders are aware of it, but we have neither the
tools to see it completely and straight on, nor the critical perspective that may be
necessary to engage deeply. Nevertheless, the juggernaut that is only partially seen at the
edge of our vision remains a juggernaut with considerable potential constructive or
destructive power. Superficial engagement with culture is, in effect, a decision to
perpetuate the status quo with all its inherent inequalities.
A dilemma confronts educators striving to influence culture for greater equity; the deeper
and more critical the analysis, the more paralysing the results appear to be. Consequently,
devising an agenda for progress is testing. Bryson (2008: 746) points out that
integrationist approaches to culture, though patently flawed by over-simplification, offer
a practical agenda to leaders, and this may be one root of their popularity for proponents
and recipients. By contrast, she argues, differentiation and fragmentation perspectives
may offer a fuller explanation, but little in the way of ‘tools for action’. Being
encouraged to think rather than being offered prescriptions for action may be received as
unsatisfactory. Foucault (2000a: 236) was subject to similar criticism of his complex
critiques that some claimed led only to paralysis. He argued that critique ‘doesn't have to
be a premise of a deduction that concludes, “this, then, is what needs to be done.” It
12
should be an instrument for those who fight, those who resist and refuse what is’. He
argued for the legitimacy of firstly changing one's own thinking, and then using such
thinking to work through the conflicts in daily life.
In line with this stance and with an interactionist understanding of the relentless
persistent negotiation of culture and community (Fernback, 2007), this article does not
offer a formula for creating a strong culture or for reculturing (Dimmock and Walker,
2005; Hargreaves, 1999; Schein, 1997). It has used a review of culture in the field for the
last forty years to suggest that integrationist perspectives embedded in normative
encouragement to action are likely to perpetuate the kind of inequities that currently exist
in much education. Rather than focusing on changing others, the goal is changing oneself,
and understanding more fully one's own culture and its relationship with the alternative
and oppositional cultures that exist in each organisation. If it is not possible to capture in
full the rich, diverse and often conflicting melee of cultures evolving over time in an
organisation, some progress may be achieved in understanding and engaging with the
richness. Currently, knowledge and understanding derived from research are not valued
unless there is impact, suggesting a separation between the two, one distinct from the
other. The contrary belief is that knowledge and understanding are change in themselves.
Greater understanding of culture may be the most sustainable tool to enable leaders to
make persistent adjustments more authentically to relate to the cultures in their
organisation.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Ann Briggs for her incisive and constructive suggestions on an early
version of this article.
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