Analysis of the desired and extant culture of three Marist secondary schools: Basis for revitalizing their institutional culture

• Main Author: Corpus, Paterno S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2003
• Subjects: Education, Secondary > Philippines; Marist Schools > Philippines; Corporate culture; Educational Administration and Supervision
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/6; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1005/viewcontent/CDTG003567_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This research is a multi-site case study of three Marist secondary schools in the Philippines on the research problem of analyses of the desired and extant cultures as basis for revitalizing their institutional school culture. Deal and Peterson's element of culture and Schein's level of culture provided the bases of the conceptual framework of the study. The framework contains the following elements: history and story ritual and ceremony, artifacts and architecture, values and basic underlying assumptions. The study used the naturalistic research paradigm where ethnography is involved in the gathering and analysis of data. As an ethnographic study, the methods used to gather data were the researcher's observation as a participant, interviews and documentary analysis. The historical backgrounds of the respondent schools were studied to reveal their original purposes, values and basic underlying assumptions. Through document analysis of Marist documents, the desired culture of Marist schools were determined. The extant culture of the participant Marist schools was determined through interviews and site observations. The findings of the extant and desired were compared to establish the similarities and discrepancies between the desired and extant cultures, and a proposal was made on the strategies of revitalizing Marist school culture. The findings of the study revealed that, though there are discrepancies or shortfalls between the desired and extant cultures, there are many similarities between these two cultures. Similarities were found in the myth stories that Marist schools started as schools for the poor; values of doing things in the way of Mary, simplicity found in the ways of doing activities and in architecture, faith in God, love of work, family spirit, presence, belief in discipline, presence and quality education. Similarities in the basic underlying assumptions were found as: the effective way of dealing with nature is through harmony and adaptation and influencing the environment with the school's values; decisions are made through the process of consultation and the principle of empowerment; man is basically good and that everyone has the capacity to develop his potentials to the full if given a chance; work hard and leave the rest to God; and relationship with one another is familial in nature. The discrepancies were found as differences and shortfalls between the understanding and practice of discipline. Lack of discipline was found as: inefficient classroom management practices and the presence of unnecessary noise in the classroom during class time. Other manifestations of breach of discipline were: vandalism; lack of reverence of religious rituals, truancy; cutting of classes; disobedience; bad example of some teachers such as: late in reporting to class and lax execution of tasks. Quality of education in practice was equated to academic excellence rather than total human development. Though the respondent Marist schools have programs for the poor, they are still reputed as schools for the higher income families. Discrepancies in the basic underlying assumptions were found in the use of time, and the assumptions on the nature of human nature--that man can be trusted.