In recent years there has been an increase of interest in educational research in school culture and climate. Raywid (2001) noted that endeavors for educational reformation to achieve excellence are prone to failure unless they are significantly connected to the distinctive culture of the school. Therefore, to understand the success of any school, it is critical to study its culture — the everyday realities and profound configuration of school life. School improvement and change research has revealed that school culture is fundamental in enhancing curriculum, instruction, professional development, and learning (Peterson & Deal, 2009). School culture, more than any other single factor, determines the ultimate success or failure of any school. Undoubtedly, it is one of the indicators of school quality, as well as a multifaceted concept composed of many factors. School with positive, non-toxic culture is a place where people are aware of the common goal, which is dominated by the values such as common support, common-decision making, collegiality, innovations and professional development. To change school culture it is very important to determine at what level it is, what elements representing it are satisfactory, and which elements are essential to be changed with the goal of improving them.

Polish studies referring to thinking about school culture are conducted mainly according to qualitative research strategy oriented anthropologically (Adrjan, 2011; Polak, 2007). In this way, researchers are trying to identify the specificity of the particular school. It provides a very interesting descriptions of everyday life in schools and their interpretation, but it makes very difficult to search for repeatability or to examine the relationship between functioning of school and its effects. The presented study takes into account the quantitative approach to examine school culture. This study implies different way of examining school culture than the commonly accepted on the basis of Polish educational research.

Our pilot study was aimed to determine the middle school teachers’ perception of school culture. To better understand the stated problems of the study, we have endeavored to investigate the following two questions: (1) What are the middle school teachers’ perceptions of school culture? (2) Do the teachers’ perceptions of school culture differ significantly across the school setting?

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