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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among collective teacher efficacy (CTE), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and student achievement in Turkey.

Multilevel analysis was conducted to investigate how school-level variables, including collective teacher efficacy, organizational citizenship behavior, and school socioeconomic status, affect student achievement. Data were collected from 674 teachers and 7,173 students embedded in 57 schools.

Results showed significant variation in mean student achievement between schools, with approximately 20% of the variance in mean achievement occurring between-schools. After controlling for school Socioeconomic status (SES), CTE and OCB significantly predicted school mean achievement scores and explained approximately 45% of the between-schools variance in achievement.

The results of the study verified that CTE and OCB are important school-level variables that contribute to the achievement of students. It reemphasizes the significance of these constructs in creating the conditions to foster student achievement even in low-SES schools.

This was the first attempt to examine the relationships between CTE, OCB and student achievement in Turkey. The findings of this study may contribute to the international knowledge base by investigating the relationship between CTE, OCB, and student achievement in a collectivist cultural context.

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) have been studied in both private and public sector organizations in countries around the globe. The purpose of this study is to compare the perceptions of the OCB construct between American and Portuguese public secondary school teachers and test an operational measure of the construct for schools across the two cultures.

Teachers' perceptions of the OCB in their schools were measured using the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale. This operational measure, developed in the USA, was translated for use with Portuguese teachers. Data from samples of US and Portuguese secondary schools were compared. Principal axis factor analyses, reliability coefficients, and other descriptive data were used to verify the factor structures, number of factors, and reliability of the measure across these two cultures.

Both versions of the OCB Scale (American and Portuguese) were reliable and stable; they worked well for both high schools and middle schools in Portugal and in the USA. One factor of organizational citizenship emerged. The operational measure used to measure OCB in public schools in this study is reliable and stable, despite cultural differences.

OCB are important because they influence organizational effectiveness. Despite cultural variations, and dramatic historical differences in their public education systems, this operational measure of OCB was effective. It provides researchers and practitioners a reliable and valid measure to assess the OCB of school organizations.

This was the first attempt to determine the integrity of an operational measure of OCB across cultures. The construct has been studied in schools in different countries using different operational measures, which blurred the definition of the construct and made it difficult to study and compare to other variables of effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among academic optimism, community engagement, and student achievement in urban elementary schools across one district.

Data were collected from all 35 urban elementary schools across one district in Virginia, USA. Correlation, multiple regression, and factor analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

In schools where the faculty are optimistic that their students can succeed despite the obstacle of low socioeconomic status (SES) and where the community is engaged, students are more likely to achieve at higher levels. Findings of this study also supported that community engagement, collective efficacy, trust in clients, and academic press do act as predictors to collectively influence student achievement.

The Goddard measure for collective efficacy was replaced with one developed for more challenging settings such as urban schools.

Academic optimism and community engagement were found to work in ways that improve student achievement. Understanding the social contexts in classrooms and schools allows education leaders to work with faculty in examining current practice, in an effort to improve the educational outcomes for all students, even those who must overcome the obstacles to learning posed by their low SES.

With only one previous study of this construct in an urban elementary setting, the current study sought to test those findings in an effort to continue pushing this research agenda into urban settings.

The contributors of this volume provide new insights and perspectives on discretionary behaviors in educational organizations. Such behaviors have long been recognized as essential to organizational effectiveness. Long ago Barnard (1938) characterized the willingness of individual employees to contribute cooperative efforts to an organization as indispensable. Katz and Kahn (1966) argued that extra-role behaviors are crucial in improving organizational effectiveness and that when individuals only perform prescribed duties, failure is inevitable.

Meeting the demands for increased effectiveness of schools cannot occur without systemic change. But the natural reaction to change is typically tension, resistance, and conflict. This analysis distinguishes between constructive and destructive conflict. First, conflict is conceptualized in terms of cognitive and affective types. Then organizational formalization is considered in terms of enabling or coercive procedures. A typology of change is created by cross‐partitioning the two types of conflict and formalization. The framework is useful in predicting the impact of change: from situations that catalyze and facilitate change to those that frustrate and inhibit it. Finally, the analysis summarizes key factors that administrators should consider as they attempt to use conflict to facilitate rather than inhibit constructive change and as they try to avoid and limit destructive change.

Rational and open system theories offer divergent sets of tactics on how best to deal with factors outside the boundary of the school. This study compared two competing strategies that emerge from these theories: bridging and buffering. The impact of how schools interact with their environments was examined in relation to student achievement.

The competing theories were operationalized into two survey measures that tapped teacher perceptions of their schools’ orientations toward the environment. Using schools as the unit of analysis, two competing perspectives were contrasted together with their relative impact on student achievement on standardized tests.

Multiple regression was used to assess the relative weight of each of these constructs in explaining the variance in student achievement. Bridging strategies explained a greater proportion of the variance than buffering.

Data were limited to teacher perceptions of the strategies employed by their schools to relate to the external environments. Enactments of these strategies are generally conceived and initiated by school administrators. Schools are dependent on their environments for survival. If the community is perceived as a threat, school leaders will attempt to insulate the technical core of teaching by buffering teachers from environmental disturbances. If, however, the community is perceived as a potential resource, school leaders will attempt to build bridges and create a symbiotic interdependence. Findings suggest that the latter is a more productive strategy for school administrators to employ.

To date, little research has been done on these competing strategies that would guide the practice of school leaders in how to best invest their energies in relation to their external environments.

Yahya Altınkurt holds Ph.D. from Anadolu University, Turkey. He is assistant professor at Dumlupınar University Faculty of Education in Kütahya. Dr. Altınkurt's research focuses on strategic planning, organizational justice, organizational citizenship, and leadership in schools. His most recent books include Assessment of Researches of School Administration (2008, Anadolu University Publishing coauthored with E. Ağaoğlu, M. Ceylan, E. Kesim, and T. Madden). Dr. Altınkurt's research has appeared in various journals including Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, Education and Science, Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, International Journal of Human Sciences, Academic Sight.