Organizational Influences on the Work Orientations of Elementary Teachers

Abstract

Existing literature on the work of the elementary school teacher tends to be based on the assumption that the organizational work context is the self-contained class room and that this situation leads to certain types of orientations with respect to the occupational task. Underlying this literature is the implicit hypothesis that other work contexts would produce different work orientations. This paper presents a means of testing this implicit hypothesis and applies it to a sample of 24 elementary schools and their teaching staffs The results do not bear out the implied assumptions and hypotheses of existing literature, suggesting that further inquiry should be carried out on more adequate samples. Toward the latter end, some of the possible sources of variation in the present data are explored as a guide to future research.