Teams and Collegiality in Educational Culture

Abstract

In recent decades modern educational organisations have become heavily influenced by new management theories and their new ways of organising staff in teams. This trend started in private organisations with a new organisational agenda but has migrated to public organisations with the introduction of new public management (NPM) in state and municipal institutions. The working conditions for teachers have changed due to the organisational transformations and new demands for the teacher, such as flexibility, self-management and teamwork. In this article, the author suggests that, from her discussions with teachers, and her former work on personal development in work life, there seems to be a conflicting understanding of collaboration which could be grasped by exploring the distinction between the notion of teamwork and the notion of collegiality.