School Organization: Components and Traits
Components of the School as an Organization
A school, as an organization, comprises several key components:
- Objectives/Institutional Purposes:
- Explicit or implicit guidelines that direct the organization’s activities.
- Provide the rationale for the center.
- Continuously reviewed and updated through democratic and participatory processes.
- Resources:
- Assets available to the school to achieve its objectives.
- Personal: Teachers, students, parents (protagonists of the educational process).
- Materials: Building, furniture, and teaching materials (determine the school environment).
- Functional: Time, money, and training.
- Structure:
- Defined by Gonzalez (2003) as the “scaffolding” or “skeleton” of the organization.
- The set of interconnected elements from which institutional action is executed.
- Includes roles played by individuals with corresponding duties and responsibilities.
- Organizational units grouped with their respective functional responsibilities.
- Technology:
- Encompasses more than just equipment.
- Constitutes the set of actions, executed using specific methods and tools.
- Culture:
- Shared meanings, principles, values, and beliefs among members.
- Provides identity and explains the behavior of individuals and the institution.
- Environment:
- External elements affecting the organization.
- Includes location, population, and laws.
Characteristics of the School as an Organization
Based on Santos Guerra’s work, the school possesses unique characteristics:
- A Universe of Meanings: The school’s identity is a way of understanding reality, shaped by its internal culture.
- An Institution of Conscription: Compulsory schooling is a right and duty in democratic societies, ensuring comprehensive training for future generations.
- A Heteronomous, Bureaucratic Institution: Education professionals often face numerous tasks related to documentation and legal requirements.
- An Institution Under Social Pressure: Schools face demands from families for increasingly comprehensive education, often delegating traditionally assumed functions.
- An Institution with Complex, Diffuse, and Paradoxical Purposes: Schools educate in values and prepare individuals for life in a neoliberal society.
- A Hierarchical and Weakly Coordinated Institution: Relationships in educational organizations follow a hierarchical structure, with differences among students, faculty, and staff.
- An Institution with Complex Internal Micropolitics: Schools are shaped by a network of relationships conditioned by different political and moral viewpoints.
- An Institution of Discontinuous Operation: Schools have a unique temporal rhythm, generating “biorhythms” (Santos Guerra) that influence educational practice.
- An Institution with Problematic Technology: Unlike businesses with rigid and stable technology, school operations are not governed by fixed laws due to the institution’s nature.