Abstract:
Teacher collaboration is increasingly being identified as a characteristic of successful schools
and essential in achieving various educational goals. This finding has placed more attention
on enhancing teacher collaboration in global education policy. In Japan and New Zealand, the
focus has shifted towards implementing more student-centred learning, which, whether
explicitly stated or not, has put teacher collaboration into the centre of teachers’ professional
development goals. In both contexts, teacher collaboration is expressly perceived as a
solution to achieve these goals; however, specific school climate conditions in which teachers
are expected to collaborate, remain unaddressed by current or existing education policy. In
secondary schools, limited attention has been given to the underlying forces of school climate
that may encourage or hinder the practice of teacher collaboration.
This empirical research aims to examine the influences of school climate and teacher
advice networks upon teacher collaboration in both contexts. Four categories of advice
relations were observed in both whole-school and teacher disciplinary groups at two
secondary schools in two distinct national contexts: Japan and New Zealand. Data collected
utilised multiple quantitative methods to examine teachers’ perceptions of school climate
aspects including supportive school structures, trust, teacher collective efficacy, and
collaborative action. School climate aspects observed within this research framework have
been documented to impact the quality of teacher collaboration. This research contributes a
deeper understanding of professional teacher interactions within teacher social networks,
perceptions of school climate that promote higher quality teacher professional collaboration
and the interplay of these relationships. Results across both school cases found that school
climate aspects influenced teacher collaboration. Specifically, teacher-collegial trust and
teacher-principal trust significantly impacted levels of teacher collaboration in both cases.