Rapid changes in society and new knowledge in the field of education require that teachers learn to support students’ development as a natural part of every school’s daily work. McLure and Aldridge (2022) emphasized that the link between new and ongoing changes in schools should be balanced with the flexibility of the school, taking into account the socio-cultural factors present in the context of each school and ending with the capacity of the school leadership to manage change.

The development needs of schools during the recent COVID-19 pandemic were particularly acute. Research findings highlight the critical importance of leadership, emphasizing, in particular, the central role of school leaders in both problem-solving and fostering collaboration among teachers. Research shows that pre-existing (pre-Covid) practices in schools, such as distributed leadership, peer networks, and collaboration, were beneficial factors that helped successful schools lead the learning process calmly and respond to challenges (e.g. De Voto & Superfine, 2023; Watson & Singh, 2022). Nonetheless, the willingness to learn together and systematically renew one’s own practices is an effortful and time-consuming process, and requires a supportive environment and from leaders to maintain focus, share responsibility, and create a collaborative learning culture among teachers  (Sims & Fletcher-Wood, 2021).

Teacher collaboration constitutes one of the key elements of school improvement, quality, and effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2010). It is also argued that collaboration represents a general characteristic of good schools and encourages teachers to view innovation as a common and continuous process of change rather than as an additional task (Vangrieken et al., 2015). In an effective collaboration process, certain organizational routines provide structure and enable the coordination of various tasks by helping teachers and school leaders interact in a way that is consistent with organizational goals. Organizational routines have been understood in the literature as driving forces for improvement and change in schools (Maag Merki et al., 2023).

The most commonly mentioned strategies that leaders employ to increase the collaborative nature of school culture are implementing distributed leadership (Spillane, 2006), creating a shared vision and setting goals focused on the quality of teaching and learning (Leithwood et al., 2020). 

External support is an important element in the school improvement process, and one form of external support that has received significant attention is joint university-school programs (e.g., Bryk et al., 2010; Timperley et al., 2014), where school and university staff collaborate in the development process. This partnership between researchers and practitioners aims to build the capacity of educational systems to engage in research-informed improvement efforts (Bryk et al., 2010). University-school partnerships often aim to collaboratively develop and test interventions and work out new practices, which is a process that engages researchers and practitioners in designing and testing solutions for improving teaching and learning (Coburn et al., 2016; Sjölund et al., 2022).

 In line with Coburn et al. (2016), this study aimed to identify the factors that foster the development of a collaborative culture in the school improvement process.

The study is guided by the following research questions: 1) How was the arrangement of teamwork perceived in the school improvement process? 2) How was the goal setting perceived in the school improvement process? 3) How was external support perceived in the school improvement process?

Six Estonian schools with lower performance indicators participated in the School Improvement Program in 2021–2022. In each school, leaders and teachers formed a team together with two mentors. Supported by university experts, the school teams began working on a topic they chose to improve their students’ learning while simultaneously increasing the school’s leadership capacity by strengthening a collaborative school culture. We chose to employ a multiple case study format because it is a research strategy that helps clarify complex social phenomena and retain the meaningful characteristics of real-life situations, such as organizational processes. Multiple case studies provide the opportunity for comparative in-depth analysis of several cases in their context (Tight, 2017), thereby providing better understanding of the complexity of changes in school culture. Six school teams consisting of a total of 22 participants and 11 mentors were interviewed in this study. The interview questions consisted of two sub-themes: 1) how well the aims of the program had been met in the areas of leadership, teamwork, and collaboration and 2) what the impact had been of activities in those areas at the personal, school team, and school levels. The role of the mentors and the university experts were reflected upon, and cooperation with the school owner was also addressed. An inductive, multi-phase approach guided by research questions was used to analyze the interviews. In the first phase, we followed a consensual coding approach, which focuses on identifying broader themes and sub-themes related to collaborative school culture. When analyzing each school case, the coders noticed several similarities between cases. Therefore, the authors decided to analyze the cases according to a classification procedure to define the dominant similarities within the three main themes: (1) arrangement of teamwork, (2) goal setting in the team, and (3) external support. Based on the similarities in coded themes, the cases were grouped into three polythetic types. One school appeared to differ considerably from the others; therefore, this school was considered a single case. The three constructed types of schools were (1) schools with challenges in goal setting and teamwork, (2) schools with inspiring goals and successful teamwork, and (3) schools resistant to change.

The first group, schools with inspiring goals and successful teamwork, was characterized by a stable team that had established routines for collaboration. There was open communication within the team—although communication outside the team required improvement—and they succeeded in enhancing team leadership and task sharing. Furthermore, the school teams were focused on their goal, and trust existed among team members. Here, external support focused on encouraging the team and supporting the planning of activities and communication. The second group, schools with challenges in goal setting and teamwork, was characterized as an unstable team lacking routines for collaboration and exhibiting poor communication and leadership skills. For schools in this group, goal commitment and openness to learning together required improvement. However, the program increased trust within the school team, and they appreciated the flexible external support they received for teamwork, communication, and establishing collaboration routines. The third group, School Resistant to Change, was characterized by teams with a hierarchical leadership. The routines for collaboration were established but inflexible; communication was formal; there was no goal commitment; and there was an overall sense of competitiveness in the school. Moreover, there were challenges with communication and admitting the need for change. Furthermore, there was little confidence in external support and no open discussion of challenges; however, the opportunities to learn from other schools’ practical examples were appreciated. The results of the qualitative research demonstrate that the arrangement of teamwork and the creation of shared values and goals constitute the key factors in creating a collaborative culture. Collaborative culture can be fostered by developing routines for collaboration, ensuring open communication and trust among all parties. External support is important for both successful school teams and those facing challenges in the improvement process.

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