Equality and Alienation at School: A Workshop with School Managers

Abstract

This study reports the results of a workshop conducted with school administrators in the Şişli district of Istanbul. The workshop was planned based on the results of research conducted with the teachers in the district, the subject of which was the perception of equality and alienation levels of the teachers. 26 school administrators participated in the workshop and the results of the research were evaluated with the school administrators by the focus group interview method. The interviews were conducted in three sessions of 40 minutes, and based on the focus group interview, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 8 school administrators, considering that they would contribute to the research in more depth. Video recordings of the interviews were made, the conversations in the interviews were deciphered and the texts obtained were analyzed by the thematic analysis method. Analysis of the deciphered texts under two main themes and eight subthemes yields the most prominent result which demonstrates that the number of questions of different school subjects in the high-stakes tests causes teachers to perceive inequality and alienation at school. Another important finding is that school administrators do not agree with the view that there are no fair practices in evaluating teachers' achievements. Relying on the findings of the workshop, it is recommended to carry out activities to increase the motivation of branch teachers who have few or no questions in the central exams and to strengthen the communication between administrators and teachers.