Teaching culture and school organization in state secondary schools

Abstract

In the field of school organization the existing differences between primary and secondary schools are not emphasized sufficiently, however both sorts of schools offer structural, cultural and relational features rather different. From the empirical facts taken form a research undertaken by the author in Zaragoza, we can draw the conclusion that a particular interaction takes place among these three dimensions in the subject department of the state secondary schools: hyperregulation, enforced collaboration, the internal complexities of department cultures and specific micropolitical conflicts. However, the departmental structure, culture and micropolitcs do not take place in a neutral organizational model, but in an organizational context constructed historically since the 50s for the Spanish state secondary schools. As a consequence of the consecutive education reforms, another cycle has begun in which at least a part the teaching staff faces us an organization and coordination that is less departmental, less related to the academic subjects and more horizontal, specially in the Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO).