Teacher teams: A safe place to work on creating and maintaining a positive school climate

Abstract

Creating and sustaining a positive school climate is not done in isolation but requires continuous ongoing work by several people within the school, and one of the most important actors are the teachers. In order to fulfil this very important task, the teachers need to collaborate with colleagues at school in an organized manner. In this study, we aim to explore and analyse teachers’ perspectives on how their teacher team might be linked to their school climate work, and what team characteristics facilitate their work to create and maintain a positive and supportive climate within their school. To understand teachers’ comprehension of their team, we applied a social psychology framework, using social interdependence theory and the concept of psychological safety. Data were collected by means of 14 semi-structured focus group interviews with 73 teachers from two compulsory schools in southeast Sweden. The findings revealed that teachers perceived the team as the most significant support structure when it comes to school climate work. According to them, the team was associated with shared responsibility, support and help, as well as safety and an open climate. By elucidating teachers’ insider perspectives regarding their working conditions aligned to their work with school climate, we conclude that well-functioning teacher teams are experienced as a safe place to work on creating and maintaining a positive school climate.