From social capital to collaborative culture in schools

Περίληψη

The way any school functions depends heavily on the bonds that form among its members. This study examines how two concepts that capture this side of school life, social capital and collaborative culture, are connected. Social capital refers to the resources generated by interpersonal relationships and social networks when these are grounded in trust and a readiness to reciprocate, whereas collaborative culture is the shared framework of values and practices within which acting together becomes a community’s norm. Within the school, the networks and partnerships that connect students, teachers and parents sustain both the learning process and the emergence of a positive climate. This study's aim, pursued through a narrative, theoretical review, is to show how this web of relationships, the school’s social capital, gives rises to an authentic collaborative culture, which it strengthens and which, in turn, replenishes it. The analysis concludes that collaboration of this kind differs from its contrived, imposed counterpart precisely because it draws on such a foundation. Fostering a collaborative culture calls for steady, long-term investment in trusting relationships across the school, making the cultivation of those relationships central to the work of school leadership.