Session Information
WERA SES 02 A, Teacher Accountability and Cultural Values: A Cross-Country Perspective
Symposium
Contribution
The purpose of the symposium is to present results of a comparative exploration of teacher accountability in seven countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Israel, Spain, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The study seeks to address two questions: One, what are the country similarities and differences in teacher accountability? Two, what are the relations between accountability and cultural values?
Accountability means holding people answerable for their decisions and actions. Authors often refer to two dimensions of personal accountability: external and internal. External accountability represents a response to expectations and demands of different audiences (e.g., principals, parents), while internal accountability typically represents a response to educators' professional wisdom and personal ethics (Firestone & Shipps, 2005).
Empirical studies (e.g. Rosenblatt & Shimoni, 2002) have established the importance of studying educators' personal accountability as a situational work attitude. However, knowledge is still sparse on factors that predict personal accountability. The present study will focus on cultural values as explicators of accountability at work, using a cross-cultural perspective. This focus is based on the notion that accountability, particularly its external dimension, consists of a two-party interaction, hence is subject to interpretation of social cues and behavioral norms and practices (Gelfand, Beng-Chong & Raver, 2004).
Researchers (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2004) have argued that the nature of accountability is highly culture-specific, therefore is explicable through cultural characteristics. We examine this assertion using three widely studied cultural values: individualism, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance, which characterize societies (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004) as well as individuals' cultural perceptions (Erez & Earley, 1993). Based on this literature, we expect all three values to be related to teacher accountability. While individualism and collectivism are expected to be related to both external and internal accountability, uncertainty avoidance is expected to be more closely related to external than internal accountability, because this cultural value is associated with clear standards and predictable work outcomes that are typical of external accountability.
The study sample was 2,023 school teachers (an average of 289 teachers per country). The following scales were employed: External and internal accountability (Rosenblatt, 2013); Individualism and Collectivism (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998); Uncertainty avoidance (House et al., 2004). Scales' reliability coefficients ranged from α=.74 to α=.86. Due to the nested nature of the data (teachers nested in schools), a Mixed-model procedure was employed. Country was treated as a control variable.
Analysis of variance showed that China differed the most from other countries in total accountability as well as both accountability dimensions, while Zimbabwe and Canada were the most similar to other countries in total accountability and internal accountability dimension, respectively. An across-country comparison showed that teachers reported higher internal than external accountability: mean 4.52 (.58) and mean 3.94 (.46), respectively.
Mixed model analysis showed that all three cultural values were related to the total accountability score. Unexpectedly, individualism was related only to internal accountability (B=.034, p<.01). However, as expected, collectivism was related to both external and internal accountability (B=.27, B=.26, respectively, p<.001), and uncertainty avoidance was related to external accountability alone (B=.038, p<.01).
Regarding the first study question, countries proved generally different in teacher accountability, but some similarities emerged. Interpretations of these results will be discussed in individual countries’ symposium presentations, based on country local educational policy and social context. Regarding the second study question, cultural values generally predicted teacher accountability. These results imply that accountability is contingent on local culture, which may explain national and ethnic differences in global educational. This calls for diverse policies in international educational endeavors.
References
Erez, M. & Earley, C. (1993). Culture, self-identity, and work. New York: Oxford University Press. Firestone, W. A. & Shipps, D. (2005). How do leaders interpret conflicting accountabilities to improve student learning? In C. Riehl & W. Firestone (Eds.), A new agenda: Directions for research on educational leadership. New York: Teachers College Press. Gelfand, M.J., Beng-Chong, L. & Raver, J.L. (2004). Culture and accountability in organizations: Variations in forms of social control across cultures. Human Resource Management Review, 14, 135-160. House, R. J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, leadership and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Rosenblatt, Z., & Shimoni, O. (2002). Teacher accountability: An experimental field study. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 15, 309-328. Rosenblatt, Z. (2013). Personal-Level Accountability in Education: Conceptualization, Measurement and Validation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Florida, US. Triandis, H. & Gelfand M. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 118-128.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.