Theoretical Foundations of Adolescent Development through Tagiuri’s Taxonomy: Analysis of Educational Setting as an Organizational Climate

1. INTRODUCTION

Adolescence, as a transitional and developmental period that occurs between childhood and adulthood, coexists together with diverse challenges of development resulting in either adaptive or delinquent behavior dependent on the type, degree, and circumferences of the challenge. Puberty, with its concrete, visible and biological changes, is considered as the initiation of adolescence. Nevertheless, other changes occur through less concrete processes like social, emotional, and psychological modifications. Academic achievement or school performance is very much related to students` relations with school. If adolescents have good relations with their schools, they would stay longer for their extracurricular activities and attend classes with contentment. The focus of research and psychologists that are working together with schools and educational institutions has traditionally been on assessment, avoidance, and measurement with numerous key factors that have an impact on academic performance. On the other hand, performance enhancement variables require some solid information about developmental designs that can be perceived both with adaptive and delinquent aspects. In this regard, the current study suggests that to reach an efficient practice of school psychology, Tagiuri`s four scaled taxonomy can be used to assess adaptive and delinquent behaviours as enhancement variables of schools as organizational settings.

School Attachment (hereafter SA) as a recently developed concept is similarly used as School Connectedness, School Engagement, School Climate, School Involvement, Students` Satisfaction, School Bonding, etc [1]. In particular, attachment, bonding, and connectedness have been used to define students` attachment to schools by researchers [2]. Thus, attachment is one of the basic needs of students attending schools, which should be met by fully prepared schools in order to make deviant behaviour a reason for failing the school or classes. The fact that attachment should be seen as a student’s basic need is one of the significant points of SA and school psychology studies that should be empirically tested. By such studies, it can be explained if students` individual negative senses of belonging to school are also the sources of their delinquencies and if these feelings have an impact on avoiding positive feelings for school or whether the low levels of SA are due to students` school life as a common environment. In this regard, the present study also aims to investigate the role of Tagiuri`s four scaled taxonomy in the analysis of organizational climate by creating a comprehensive table together with attachment and organizational studies.

Since schools are organizations, SA has been widely studied under organizational attachment studies, which helped with comprehending the school environment and its particular characteristics. As a result, theories on organizations with a focus on the human aspect are crucial in the comprehension of SA.

Tagiuri, Litwin, and Barnes [3] studied the theories of environment and organizations, and proposed organizational environment with a three-level model and defined interior environment of the organization as: (a) experiences of members, (b) organization`s influences on their behaviour, and (c) values of a specific set of traits [3]. Later on, he developed his three levelled model to a four-level model, same as a specific composition of individual traits build the personality, he presented his model as follows; 1) ecology, the physical side of the environment; 2) milieu, people within the environment; 3) social system - the interrelations between people within the environment; and 4) culture as the beliefs, norms, and values shared within the environment [3].

There have been several theoretical approaches to SA. Three developmental theories were suggested by Catalano, Haggerty, Oesterle, Fleming, and Hawkins [2], including Attachment Theory [4, 5], Social Control Theory [6], and the Social Development Model [7]. However, diversity in terminology and analysis of variables together with other structures has been an obstacle to studies due to inconsistency of which inconvenient analysis and results caused confusion on previous and present studies [8]. In this regard, the current study focused on the organizational model of Tagiuri’s four scaled taxonomy as it seemed to be neglected by research. Thus, the main purpose of the present study was to analyze Tagiuri’s four scaled taxonomy: Ecology, Milieu, Social System and Culture that provide a structural approach to school climate in the enhancement of SA among students by not only buffering the delinquent behaviors but also helping researchers define attachment as part of organizational climate for educational settings.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Research on attachment indicates that only 50% of students experience some kind of attachment to schools [9], considering attachment is opposite to isolation, the other 50% might be feeling alienated from communal activities or school life [10]. School attachment is also related to well-being, sociological, pedagogical, and psychological development of youth, as it is one of the essential elements that help students gain skills for facing challenges and achieving success [9, 11-13]. Studies conducted on youth resiliency described developmental elements like attachment as positive predictors on resiliency enhancement for the future of youth [9, 11-14]. School attachment was also considered as a negative predictor for misconduct and risk factors like truancy, dropout, failure, delinquency, etc [1, 11, 14, 15]. as the attachment was mentioned to be a strong and significant motivational factor for both adolescents and adults, in particular impacting academic achievement outcomes.

Apart from the above-mentioned attachment studies that were focused on students feelings for school, there were many other studies conducted on the school environment other than Tagiuri`s four levelled model in an attempt to systemize, conceptualize, classify and determine the variables that make environmental factors, as well as their impacts on SA. Murphy, Weil, Hallinger, and Mitman [16] proposed a structure for the academic climate that urges students for achievement with an emphasis on a standardized climate which would stimulate people within the organization to act with expected behaviours and explain academic pressure as the key for achievement that can be reached through both students and staff: “Degree to which school forces press for student achievement on a school-wide basis” [16]. They also emphasized the significance of school regulations and class activities that foster academic press.

McDill, Rigsby, and Meyers Jr [17]. studied some high schools` instructional and social climates and reached six elements of the school environment: 1) student perception of intellectualism-aestheticism - the relations between school staff and students through SPS (students` perceptions of school), particularly, the stressors for academic achievement; 2) academic emulation - a medium for academic success; 3) scientism with a focus on science; 4) cohesive and egalitarian aestheticism, highlighting intellect as the criteria for status and students` social unification within school`s communal system; 5) academically oriented student status system, a medium of academic success between peer associations; and 6) humanistic excellence - a factor of drive in increasing students` attraction and maintenance for social sciences.

Moos [18] suggested another six-level theoretical standpoint to determine variables of the environment and to study their relations with behaviour in an analytical way: 1) behaviour settings; behavioural and environmental features with a purpose of defining student`s experiences and behaviours; 2) organizational structure - systematic relations between an organization`s divisions and their standpoints; 3) ecological dimensions - factual ergonomics of an organization as in architecture, location, internal design, etc.; 4) psycho-social characteristics and organizational climate; development of the individual, relationships, maintenance of the infrastructural and divisional aspects of the organization; 5) functional or reinforcement properties of environments; mechanisms of control on motivational aspects of specific behaviours, and 6) personal and behavioural characteristics of the inhabitants; personal traits of people living in the organization. He asserted that “categories of dimensions are nonexclusive, overlapping, and mutually interrelated” [18]. Moos, Clayton, and Max [19] further suggested a four divisional system including 1) physical setting, 2) organizational factors 3) human aggregate, and 4) social climate. After a considerable revision, they suggested a further-developed nine social environment ratio [20].

To enhance and formulate a healthy school concept, Hoy and Fedman [21] suggested a seven-dimensional and three levelled structure in order to reach, maintain, and test the well-being of communal relationships in a school. They stressed the concept of health in the following way: “healthy school is one in which the teachers, administrators, and the board are in harmony, and the school meets both its organizational and people needs as it pursues its missions” [22]. The three levelled structure is: (1) school board level; institutional integrity was mentioned as a school`s ability of preserving its scholar dignity from outer factors. (2) administrational level; initiating structure, was the leader`s rules of behaviour aiming at success; consideration, targeting equilibrium of communal relations with expected leader behaviour; resource support, indicated administrative behaviour in provision of needed materials for school; and principal influence was redirecting the principle`s skills to having influence over superiors. (3) teacher level; morale, stated the communal feelings between teachers, and academic emphasis, referred to the extension of pressure over students for achievement. Later, together with Kottkamp in 1991, Hoy and Tarter advanced Organizational Health Inventory (OHI) by making it specific for teachers basing on the above-mentioned theoretical approach.

Bryk and Driscoll [23] proposed three essential elements that constitute organizational settings of a school aiming to examine the structural and interpersonal characteristics of the school as an organization, consisting of 1) a common agenda of activities and schedules that were shared by students and teachers that connect them to each other as well as to the customs and norms of the school; 2) formal organizational characteristics, organizational characteristics among adults in regard to their formal responsibilities and collegiate interactions; and 3) shared value system, as in norms, values, and beliefs among people that construct the culture of the school system as a community.

Gottfredson [15] proposed the Effective School Battery (ESB) for the subordinate school environment assessment. The earliest ESB on student outcome related elements was covering 12 bodies: 1) Positive Peer Formations, 2) Education of Parents, 3) Anticipated Educational Outcomes, 4) Communal Competency, 5) Societal Unification, 6) SA, 7) Avoiding Punishment, 8) Obtaining Reward, 9) Integration, 10) Self-Knowledge, 11) School Performance, and 12) Reliance on Regulations. The ESB on teacher outcome elements involved seven bodies: 1) Occupational Fulfilment, 2) Interaction with Pupils, 3) Class Management, 4) Professional Competency, 5) Security, 6) Friendly Attitude, and 7) Perspective of Integration.

S. Brand, Felner, Shim, Seitsinger, and Dumas [24] presented the Inventory of School Climate-Student (ISC-S) with an emphasis on Students` perception of School (SPS) and its environment. ISC-S was proposed after a couple of factors and the item analysis, and it consisted of 11 sub-measures, including 1) Supporting Teacher, 2) Consistent and Clear Expectations and Regulations, 3) Pupil Achievement \Commitment Guidance, 4) Positive Peer Relations, 5) Negative Peer Relations, 6) Rigidity of Disciplines, 7) Decision-Making Process and 8) Student Involvement as well as 9) Educational Compatibility\Innovation, 10) Assistance of Cultural Diversity, and 11) Issues of Safety.

3. METHODOLOGY

The research sample was obtained from 42 research and review papers written in the English language only, using A-Z Publications Finder (EBSCO) and Eric for education research content reaching from AUM Library; at the beginning, the papers were randomly selected using inclusion criteria of decade period time from 1908 to 2015.

The methodology used in the present study was of a qualitative research type to describe, decode, and to discover meaning or to translate phenomenon in theories [25]. Based on the presented literature review, content analysis was used to present different theoretical foundations of adolescence based on Taqiuri’s four scaled taxonomy on school attachment. Content analysis helped us to analyze the presence, meaning, and relationship of certain themes or concepts [26]. The main goal in the content analysis [27] was to choose a concept that was based on Tagiuri’s four scaled taxonomy: ecology, milieu, social system, and culture, which were the codes of four thematic concepts. The Code of existence of a concept [28] was used in the analysis of the literature where a particular concept appeared al least once in a text. Based on coding, different theoretical foundations of school attachment were analyzed and presented in the “results” part in Table 1.

Authors and an associate implemented categorization of 164 research and review papers based on content analysis that were conducted on the SA and Tagiuri`s taxonomy, categorization was done independently first, and then inconsistencies were diagnosed thoroughly using the codes of four thematic concepts by authors to achieve a final categorization of research papers conducted only on Tagiuri`s taxonomy in relation with organizational climate.

Moreover, an in-depth analysis of Tagiuri’s taxonomy and attachment theory was used in relation to comprehension of social networks of schools that were obtained through secondary data as well as the table that was created for this study.

4. RESULTS

Tagiuri et al. [3] developed a four-scaled classification for School Environment: ecology, milieu, social system, and culture. Although Tagiuri’s classification of School Climate intrigued a structural approach to organizations, it was later perceived as taxonomies that were based on aspects of valence: “Studies of social networks in the organizational arena have taken varying approaches over time…” as they “…focused on whether ties between nodes existed or not with a relational content approach” [29].

5. DISCUSSION

Studies conducted on school climate, overall indicate that styles of attachment have an impact on personality traits and the professional life of an individual. Thus, environmental factors are also as important as an individual`s attachment patterns, because both have an influence on development as in: “Developmental Theorists are now looking at much more diverse populations and attachment theorists need to follow their lead” [65, 66].

Together with the rising interest of the researchers and the conceptualized significance of attachment studies implemented on adolescents, psychologists, practitioners, counselors, pedagogues, curriculum designers, governmental, and non-governmental policy-making agents are getting more and more devoted to the full comprehension of attachment variables and establishment of the safe havens that can cultivate adolescents` attachments to their schools [1, 2, 14, 67, 68]. On the other hand, the current paper, together with the literature on the theme as well as Table 1, indicates that although research on SA related performance enhancement with organizational settings, the scales assessing climate enhancement are significantly neglected. As the data on Table 1 shows only 3 studies (7.14%) of the research from 1908 to 2015 focused on all four scales of the taxonomy; 9 studies (21.4%) of the research used three of them; 19 studies (45.2%) used two of the scales and 11 studies (26.1%) of the research used only one of the scales. However, one of the other aspects of schools which should be considered by school psychologists is that they are organizational places where students can socialize with others. According to Barber & Muenz [69], adolescents socialize with others through different aspects, such as having close relations with others, displaying regulated behaviors, and initiating autonomy for psychological development. The approach of seeing schools as social settings indicates that schools provide the first aspect by helping students socialize, especially when they are well-organized to be cultures or environments of caring [40, 70].

CONCLUSION

Although there have been different viewpoints on the approach of schools` functions as social environments, the scholars majorly agreed on the facts that schools help students, experience emotional bonding to each other as they develop attachment feelings [1], they experience senses like being respected, helped and cared by peers and teachers, in such schools students are felt like being at home [1]. One of the benefits provided by such caring schools is that students experience senses such as being part of a bigger group where they have their roles and contributions; such school climates give students a chance to have a word in decision-making processes in the school activities as well. The impact of such schools on the student development is widely appreciated by scholars as such schools bring up systems with value, higher satisfaction, enhanced school performance, lower delinquency behavior, and overall healthy school attachment [40, 70]. The role of school attachment in preventing delinquency and fostering healthy development is one of the majorly and pervasively agreed influences of SA on students.

REFERENCES