Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Dr.Ali S Ibrahim

Second Advisor

Dr. Ali Al Kaabi

Third Advisor

Dr.Sultan Al Suwaidi

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent of collaborative school culture in two of Al Ain Cycle Three schools. The first school was a female school and the second one was a male school. These two schools are under the supervision of Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC) in United Arab Emirates. They were part of 11 secondary schools studied by Falouqa (2013). She studied the collaborative school culture in these 11 schools using a questionnaire for data collection. The questionnaire was used to measure the six components of collaborative school culture (CSC) as conceptualized by Gruenert (2005). The results of the previous study showed that the collaborative school culture components were available in Al Ain secondary schools to a good extent. Moreover, the study also showed that one school called School M which is a male school scored the highest on the CSC factors, while another school called School F, which is a female school, scored the lowest. The problem of the current study is to investigate the wide gap in collaborative school culture between these two schools by collecting qualitative data. Interviews and observations were used to collect data for this study. The interview questions were divided into three sections. The first section included demographic information. The second part included 29 questions, which measured the six CSC components. The third part was a question eliciting teachers’ suggestions for improving the collaborative culture in their school. The interview was conducted on 10 teachers from each school. The results of the study showed that the collaborative school culture components were available in both schools to a good extent; however, the female school had more collaborative school culture than the male school. The findings of this study contradict the results of the previous study.

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