Organizational Climate in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Organizational climate is a concept that may affect individual behaviors, attitudes and well-being in organizational life as well as explain why some organizations are more productive, effective, innovative and successful than others. The concept has been investigated in many disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, and management for years and was first considered in education at the end of the 1960s. Since then it has been researched in the field of education in many studies. In this paper, the organizational climate of early childhood centers is examined according to the opinions of early childhood teachers. The Early Childhood Work Environment Scale was used to obtain the data. Participants were a total of 214 teachers who work in public early childhood centers in an urban school district of Turkey. Teachers reported on their opinions of ten components of organizational climate: Collegiality, professional development, director support, clarity, reward system, decision making, goal consensus, task orientation, physical setting, and innovativeness. Results showed that collegiality is at the highest level among the components and the most negative opinion was expressed for the professional development component of the organizational climate. The findings are discussed in the light of the related literature. Suggestions for educators, researchers and decision makers are provided.