sense making of educational policy. They determine the development of power relationships within informal networks or those that are formally imposed through hierarchical organisational structures (Kogan 1975; Ball 1990; Champagne et al. 1991; Bowe et al. 1992; Spillane 2000; Spillane et al. 2002; Rogers 2003; Greenhalgh et al. 2004; Coburn 2006; Hodgson and Spours 2006). It has been suggested that ways in which responsibilities and specialisation within schools are mediated can play an important role in the
implementation of competency-focused pedagogic discourse (Bernstein 1999; Rowe 1993; Whitty 2002).
Indeed, if a policy assigns certain responsibilities to people within an organisational hierarchy, they can use their influence to hinder or facilitate implementation (Barrett 2004). A successful implementation of policy becomes more likely if individuals who are in support of a policy are strategically placed and outnumber opponents within the organisation (Spillane et al. 2002). If the required changes are in line with the interests of these individuals their endorsement of the policy can play an important role in facilitating the implementation (Schon 1963; Meyer and Goes 1988; Backer and Rogers 1998; Spillane 2002; Rogers 2003; Greenhalgh et al. 2004; Salvesen et al. 2008). For example, head teachers can have a significant influence over the success of implementation processes by shaping an organisational culture that is in support of the policy (Kasili and Poskiparta 2004; Watkins et al. 2008).
Organisational culture has been defined as a set of prevailing beliefs and values that interact with organizational structures and systems to produce norms for behaviours (Reason 1998; Watkins et al. 2008). This concept draws on earlier views of culture as describing the way in which things get done in any particular organisation (Deal and Kennedy 1982). Schein (1990) has defined organisational culture as something that permeates all areas of an organisation’s life. It can be examined in individual’s responses to a set of external and internal tasks that encompass the mission and function of the organisation in the context of its environments, its goals and the means to achieve these, the criteria for measuring goal achievement and approaches to dealing with the failure of achieving goals. Gomez, Marcoulides and Heck (2012) have defined organisational culture in schools as encompassing beliefs and attitudes about academic and organizational expectations as well as teaching approaches (Opdenakker and Van Damme 2007; Kyriakides et al. 2010). Their study aimed at examining the impact of culture in secondary schools on achievement has highlighted the importance of motivated staff and strong leadership alongside the implementation of organisational
arrangements or changes to curricular programmes (Erb 2006; Yecke 2006; Whitley et al. 2007; Viadero 2008; Weiss 2008). Whilst the guidance for implementing HPS approaches has acknowledged the need for commitment and support from leadership in schools (IUHPE 2009), the importance of their role in shaping organisational culture that is supportive of a whole school approach to health promotion does not appear to have been recognised.
In practice, however, it appears that key individuals such as head teachers are often those opposing health promotion interventions. For instance, an evaluation of a national programme aimed at promoting regular physical activity in Australian primary schools found that its implementation was impeded by a number of barriers, such as curricular pressures that prioritized other subjects, limitations in teachers’ experience, a lack of time and adequate facilities, as well as resistance by stakeholders. Uncertainty and reluctance of head teachers emerged to be the most important barrier to policy implementation (Abbott et al. 2011). This reluctance appears to be due to the pressures of a performance-focused policy context: ‘These trends... leave head teachers to work out their own salvation within the bounds of their own schools, in a continuous quest to find a marriage of convenience between dutiful compliance’ (MacBeath 2008, p.147).
These arguments provide an example of policy influence on intra- organisational determinants of policy implementation processes. Policy priorities are also evident in segmentation within schools. For instance, some schools dissociate their formal structuring such as administration and management from the core activity of what the school is about, such as teaching and supporting pupils (Weick 1976; Meyer and Roan 1977). Such ‘egg-carton’ structures can isolate individuals’ work (Spillane et al. 2002). According to Hayes et al. (2006), such dynamics evolve out of mismatches, the ‘operation of ‘silos’ in schools where goals and priorities vary between different elements of the system. It has been found that such a structure emerged as a key barrier to schools adopting innovative pedagogic approaches as it inhibited intra-organisational networking among teachers to
share expertise and develop practice (Pedder and MacBeath 2008). Indeed, it could pose a barrier to collaboration, social sense-making and implementers’ consideration of alternative viewpoints of policy orders (Lortie 1975; Bryk et al. 1993; Louis and Kruse 1995; Spillane and Zeuli 1999). However, non-beaurocratic structures as created in bottom-up approaches to policy implementation could support such social sense- making (Hjern 1981; Kegler et al. 1998; Rainey and Steinbauer 1999; Wolf et al. 2000; Deschesnes et al. 2003).
Segmentation can also occur at an inter-organisational level, for example between schools, local authorities and other supporting agencies. Implementers are often linked to multiple organisational contexts simultaneously. This is particularly true for schools where teachers and administrators are linked to the local authorities that support the schools, which in turn are embedded within national organisational frameworks that support the authorities (McLaughlin and Talbert 1993). Segmentation among organisations may lead to contradictory understandings and implementation instructions given to schools (Spillane 1998). It may diffuse responsibility across different institutions or hierarchies of organisations where policies fail to specify roles in and the logistics of implementation processes, resulting in discrepancies in inter-organisational channels, coordination, control and command systems (O'Toole 1986; Schofield 2001). However, coordination and supportive frameworks provided by local authority- and school leaders can be an important facilitator for teachers’ interaction with colleagues to share knowledge about practice (Cohen et al. 1998; Spillane et al. 2002). These arguments have made it clear that the policy context can influence sense-making processes at an organisational level, which are shaped by social dynamics, organisational culture and segmentation between and within organisations. The next section considers the extent to which these organisational level determinants might influence individuals’ sense-making.