The effective functioning of a modern school in an Age of Uncertainty requires conscious creation of its culture, which, when shaped, ensures the school's implementation of its mission in a dynamically changing social, economic and cultural reality. Recognizing the possibility of influencing culture and shaping it in accordance with a given direction means focusing on identifying its elements subject to modification, learning about the factors conducive to cultural change and the possibilities and ways of carrying it out. School culture highlights specific aspects of school life and brings out the importance of "who we are" and " the way we do things around here" (Deal & Peterson, 2010). Research on school culture is one of the most interesting directions in the search for factors in the development and improvement of school organization (Hoy, 1990).
Many researchers agree that school culture is a crucial variable in school improvement (Deal & Peterson, 1999; Stoll & Fink, 1996).
Scientific analyzes regarding intra-school processes, referred to as "school culture", come from various disciplines and were initially associated with the concept of school life by Waller (1932), who noted that schools have an identity of their own, with complex rituals of personal relationships, a set of folkways, mores, irrational sanctions, and moral codes (see also: Maslowski, 2006; Schoen & Teddlie, 2008). The concept of organizational culture began to receive attention in the research communities (e.g., Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Ouchi, 1981) as a factor associated with organizational performance in the 1980s. Lack of early attention by researchers may be because culture is associated with taken-for-granted values, underlying assumptions, expectations, collective memories, and definitions in an organization (Cameron & Quinn, 1999, p. 14). Over the last few decades, the discussion on the concept of school culture has become an integral part of both the educational discourse ongoing in various circles and empirical studies devoted to school. Despite different interpretations of the category of school culture itself (see e.g. Deal & Peterson, 1999; Schoen & Teddlie, 2008; ), there is consensus among researchers that its cognitive value results from a comprehensive understanding of various aspects of everyday school life and is therefore helpful in learning and understanding the nature of school life and institutionalized education.
The aim of the poster presentation will be to present a research project on the cultures of alternative education schools, to discuss its conceptual assumptions and planned methodological solutions. The project is a team effort, prepared with the intention of identifying the cultures of selected institutions, defining their specificity and analyzing the interactions between individual dimensions and cultural elements. An equally important goal of research activities will be to compare the cultures of the studied institutions - to determine whether the teaching-learning environments, which are unique examples of innovative educational ventures, are clearly different and how this is expressed.
Learning about different educational proposals is cognitively fascinating, but also in the social interest. Typical human characteristics are activity, searching for new solutions, improving the existing reality, and this, in relation to the school reality, becomes particularly important due to the need to provide high-quality modern educational services. The planned research will primarily provide new knowledge and is therefore significant for building and developing school culture theory.