ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRITY AND SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: A STUDY OF TEACHERS\u27 AUTHORITY AND SOCIAL POWER

The current public concern about the public school discipline problem suggests that teachers\u27 authority may be inadequate or illused. Because of the lack of a theory adequate to guide the investigation of teachers\u27 authority and its relationship to their power to create good discipline, the grounded theory approach was used to generate concepts, propositions, and hypotheses relevant to public school teachers\u27 role as an authority figure and power-wielder, and the way social norms and institutional arrangements affect that role. Over 100 hours of classroom observations, 38 interviews with teachers, and 12 interviews with principals were conducted in the public schools of Lincoln, Nebraska during the fall and winter of the 1981-1982 school year. Role theory, a means of linking the individual and organizational levels of research and theory, guided the analysis of the sources of the variations in teachers\u27 authority and social power. Forces within the teacher and forces within the organizational matrix affecting teachers\u27 behavior in their roles as authority figures were examined, as were teachers\u27 own perceptions of the effectiveness of their social power vis-a-vis students. The most important hypothesis generated from the field data concerns the school as an organization and the principal\u27s leadership role. It is hypothesized that though students do not always accept the traditional social values which confer respect on those who hold the role of teacher, unambiguous and consistently applied norms and sanctions for behavior within the school can help to legitimate teachers\u27 authority. A second major hypothesis is that in the absence of those organizational conditions, teachers face the task of creating their own authority through the development of personal influence over their students. The data suggest that this task can be psychologically and emotionally debilitating, and can lead to high rates of teacher burnout. The need for further research on the organizational conditions conducive to teachers\u27 collegiality and collaboration, and to organizational integrity is discussed