Culture Typology

The School Culture Typology is a self-reflective tool and related activity designed to identify a school-wide perspective of the “type” of culture that exists in a school. The typology tool was first developed in 1997 as a hands-on, practical method of defining for discussion purposes a school’s stage or type of culture. To complete the activity, teachers assign point values to statements that are “most descriptive” of their school from a series of statements representing twelve elements of school culture.

Those elements are:

1. Student Achievement
2. Collegial Awareness
3. Shared Values
4. Decision Making
5. Risk-taking
6. Trust
7. Openness
8. Parent Relations
9. Leadership
10. Communication
11. Socialization
12. Organization History.

Once the members of a leadership or school improvement team, or the whole faculty have completed individual worksheets, the facilitators of the activity lead the group in a consensus discussion.

This process creates a composite picture of the school’s “predominant” type of culture:

1. Toxic
2. Fragmented
3. Balkanized
4. Contrived Collegiality
5. Comfortable Collaboration
6. Collaborative.

As a school strives to develop a truly collaborative culture, the school’s leadership and/or improvement teams can monitor the cultural change with this typology tool and/or the School Culture Survey.

Culture Research Summary (PDF)