Organizational building versus teachers’ personal and relational needs for school improvement.

The study explores critical aspects of combining organisational development with requirements to satisfy the personal and relational needs of (kindergarten) teachers, in the effort to strengthen improvement capacity. The research question is: What are the crucial factors when combining local organisational development and requirements to satisfy the personal and relational needs of teachers, in order to strengthen the improvement capacity of the organisations?

The results highlight the importance of combining organisational development with an effort to improve teachers’ understanding of, and motivation for, promoting and adapting to the school/kindergarten’s organisational goals. Constantly highlighting the school/kindergarten ‘narrative’ and thus enabling teachers to personally connect with the ‘narrative of improvement’, has been proposed as an innovative school/kindergarten coordinator strategy.

The data material consists of interviews with audio recordings of school/kindergarten coordinators and teachers/kindergarten teachers from 28 schools and kindergartens in a Swedish municipality. A total of 169 audio recordings were made involving 535 respondents (40 school/kindergarten coordinators and 495 teachers). The teachers were interviewed in groups of three to five people.

Liljenberg, M., & Blossing, U. (2021). Organizational building versus teachers’ personal and relational needs for school improvement. Improving Schools, 24(1):5-18.