This study explores how organizational culture and school dynamics influence the implementation of interventions aimed at addressing pedagogical and systemic challenges in rural schools. Rural schools have traditionally been analyzed from a perspective of deficit (Roberts et al., 2022), considering these schools as disadvantaged against the urban norm. 

To challenge the deficit discourse surrounding rural education, current trends in research about rural schools from a social justice perspective have primarily focused on inclusion processes (Cuervo, 2016). However, there has also been a minor focus on change and transformation needed to strengthen pertinent and inclusive education in all educational contexts (Ainscow, 2020). A transformative approach, then, would imply the analysis of organizational cultures to modify practices that might (re)produce inequalities in each setting.

In this context, there is a need for intervention initiatives that are adequate for the organizational culture of educational communities, under the assumption that intentional change and transformation can be sustained through the consideration of context (A. Hargreaves, 2005) in its broad sense, and through collaboration (Miller, 2005). To contribute to this debate, this research aimed to strengthen a situated transformative strategy of educational practices in two rural schools in Chile.

In order to achieve this aim, the study intended to address the following research questions: How do organizational culture and leadership dynamics shape reflection and action in relation to inclusion in rural schools? What organizational factors facilitate or hinder inclusive practices in these schools? What challenges are faced when implementing interventions designed to promote community collaboration in these schools?

Through Clinical sociology as a theoretical framework, the research adopts a collaborative intervention approach, engaging schools in context-sensitive organizational learning. Clinical sociology intends to understand social phenomena through subjective experiences, for which it dialogues with and articulates concepts from multiple disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and philosophy (Guerrero & De Gaulejac, 2016).

In this sense, the particularity of this approach is that it aims to understand social relationships and social change and transformation through the use of clinical procedures, drawing from participatory methods such as life history interviews, action research, family trees, drawings, photographs, among others (Yzaguirre & Castillo Mendoza, 2013). Because of this provision of tools to address conflicts in organizations through a combination of analysis and intervention (Fritz & Rhéaume, 2022), fostering sustainable change by addressing systemic issues and enhancing collaborative processes, this approach was the basis of this project.

This work contributes to international discussions on organizational education by highlighting the importance of context-sensitive approaches to school improvement. It aligns with global efforts to promote inclusive education and professional development in contexts that are at the margins of educational research (L. Hargreaves et al., 2009), offering insights into how organizational learning, reflective practices and collaborative processes can address systemic barriers such as inflexible curricula, over-accountability, over-standardization, and top-down reforms. These systemic barriers are characteristic of neoliberal reforms in education (Slater & Seawright, 2018; Verger & Curran, 2014), which have been carried out worldwide in the last 30 years. Rural schools have not been exempt from the consequences of these reforms, impacting diverse areas of rural life and schooling mainly through economic factors (Corbett, 2016; Knutas, 2017).

This research is conceived as a qualitative research-intervention circuit (Matus et al., 2019) to foster research from a social justice perspective in rural schools, combining organizational analysis with targeted interventions. The circuit considers two distinct stages: a research stage, carried out from an ethnographic perspective, and an intervention stage, which is carried out following principles of Clinical sociology (Dubost & Lévy, 2002). During the research stage, qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and informal conversations with different stakeholders from each school were used to identify each school’s specific challenges and organizational dynamics. The information produced during this stage was presented to each school in meetings with the leadership teams, who, in collaboration with the researchers, made decisions on how to proceed with the intervention stage. The intervention stage involved designing context-specific workshops based on each school’s context and identified needs. In School A, characterized by passive resistance to the research-intervention circuit, a single workshop was carried out in July 2024 to foster critical reflection on inclusion and systemic barriers experienced in their school, connecting these discussions to international frameworks. In contrast, School B, which embraced the research-intervention process, participated in monthly workshops from April to August 2024. These workshops emphasized collaborative work among teachers and the management team, aiming to enhance organizational cohesion and teamwork. For the entire intervention stage, Clinical sociology provided the methodological foundation, focusing on addressing the organizational culture of each school. These interventions require the exchange of experiences among all those involved to understand better the meaning of the situations they experience, their role in them, and, if possible, to find solutions to their problems through collective knowledge generation (Dubost & Lévy, 2002). As such, these interventions entailed change in the organization by understanding the nature of the circuit, its consequences, and the possibilities of transformation within(Jordan, 2009). Information produced during workshops (such as artifacts, discussion and arguments among participants, and lesson plans, among others) and group interviews at the end of each intervention were inductively analyzed to understand the interventions’ effect on organizational dynamics and professional practices within each school. Using procedures from Reflexive Thematic Analysis, we could identify the perceived benefits of such interventions for transformation in educational settings and the difficulties of their implementation.

The findings of this study showed that the two participant schools, despite being located in the same district, displayed markedly different organizational cultures in correspondence with their different rural contexts. These differences shaped both the design and outcomes of the interventions, highlighting the centrality of organizational culture in shaping the success of interventions in rural schools. In School A, the single workshop facilitated reflections on inclusion but revealed how systemic and cultural resistance can limit organizational change. Systemic resistance took shape through the limited time available for the educational community to manage, as many other activities were planned for teachers and school leadership that responded to centralized decisions of the Ministry of Education with which they needed to comply. Cultural resistance also played a role, as key issues observed in the school could not be addressed openly, and were even denied by some teachers who participated in the workshop. As a consequence, little change was observed in the months after the intervention. In contrast, the sustained workshops in School B helped the community to openly discuss their problems about collaborative practices, fostering a sense of shared purpose among staff and contributing to a more cohesive organizational culture. As a result, the school was able to carry out more shared activities, and more people became involved in their planning, which was one of the original problems identified by the community. These results suggest that context-sensitive, reflective interventions can support sustainable organizational development in schools, particularly when aligned with the unique dynamics of each institution. Core to them was also the collaborative relationship developed between the school communities and the research team, which allowed for the interventions to actually take place and to recognize the importance of the work carried out by school communities in a context of little recognition of others.

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