Summary
A changing school culture
This paper discusses the developments in school culture during the last few decades. School culture, as a universalising cultural form, is understood as distinct from the plurality of country specific, regional, and local ‘school cultures’. These school cultures are understood as symbolic, meaning-structuring constellations present in individual schools, which are finally shaped by their actors in interaction with their respective structural environment. Development trajectories will be sketched for four dimensions of school culture: For the dimensions of recognition and participation in the school environment, a substitution of traditional power relations for the ambivalent demands of increased participation is claimed. Concerning the performance dimension, its increasing importance per se and the universalisation of individualised performance is diagnosed. For the pedagogical orientation, a development away from demands of subservience and obedience towards the antonymous demand for an informal negotiation process within the school setting is determined and, regarding school subjects, a development of the curriculum towards a more flexible offer, and the ambivalence of this, is proposed and discussed. Finally, fundamental determinants of the relationship between system, organisation, reflection and profession are constructed for the school. School culture is understood as an inconsistent systemic development, which has not yet reached completion. This results in structural problems, which every school processes and articulates in its own way.