School Culture as a Field of Analysis: Review of Research in Kazakhstan and Poland

refer directly to the category of school culture. Although publications in the native language dominate, the number of texts in English is increasing. Conclusions: The results showed considerable differences in the nature of the empirical discourse regarding school culture.


INTRODUCTION
The post-socialist political transformation after 1989 initiated several changes in the political, economic, and social spheres.Changes have also occurred in educational institutions, which have been transformed over the last three decades as a result of changes of the program and organizational nature.School is expected to perform a wide range of new functions to support these rapid developments at the individual, institutional, society, and international levels.The actual scope and depth of changes taking place at school requires the isolation of a comprehensive construct that will allow to capture the features and changes taking place at various, also hidden, levels of school functioning.These criteria are best met by the concept of school culture.Despite different interpretations of the category of school culture, researchers agree that its cognitive value results from a holistic approach to various aspects of everyday school life and is helpful in getting to know and understand the nature of life and education in schools (Nowosad, 2019).Analyzing intra-school processes through the prism of culture is necessary, especially in order to gain an understanding of the processes of introducing successful changes in schools.Cavanagh andDellar (1997, 2003) also promote cultural intervention as an effective means to school improvement (see also Nowosad, 2019).
The unprecedented pressure to improve school performance may mean that there is a greater need than ever to understand the drivers of how change is at the micro level (school as an entity), and the predominance of considerations about school culture indicates a growing recognition of the central role of school culture in change efforts.This issue has been analyzed by researchers from Western countries for a long time (Hargreaves, 1995;Fullan and Hargreaves, 1996;Cavanagh and Dellar, 1997).Meanwhile, this topic is still under development in Eastern countries.
The paper raises important issues about the conceptualization of school culture in two different but somewhat similar non-Western countries: Poland and Kazakhstan.It should also not be forgotten that, apart from the systemic changes that took place in these countries at the same time, these countries have common historical events.The time horizon of Polish-Kazakh contacts is very distant, and always related to the context of Russian (and in a certain Soviet period) history.Above all, however, in recent years a series of major initiatives have been undertaken in Poland as well as in Kazakhstan to reform schools, with the aim of reaching international educational standards.Since the comprehensive reform movement of the 1990s, a significant amount of attention has been placed on school culture.

EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND POLAND
It is believed that in order to stimulate the economic growth of individual countries, a significant development of their education systems is necessary.It will help reduce inequalities of opportunity and strengthen economically democratic societies.Hence, one of the basic features of the education reform is its adaptation to the needs of the economy.This, in turn, rewards education, creates a previously absent opportunity for talented, hardworking, and creative individuals who want to gain knowledge and develop their skills (Denek, 1999).Furthermore, the model known from the socialist system, which played a leading role in the party state, imposing a Marxist-Leninist ideology in all areas of social life, was broken.The changes relate to the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy.
The educational reforms in the 1990s in Kazakhstan and Poland, like those in many post-Soviet and post-socialist countries, could be characterized as a "post-socialist education reform package" (Yakavets, 2017;Silova and Stener-Khamsi, 2008, p. 1).This is a set of policy reforms representing "the adoption of Western educational values and including such »travelling policies« as student-centered learning, curriculum standards, decentralization of educational finance and governance, standardization of student assessment, liberalization of textbook publishing, and many others" (Silova, 2011).
The education system in Kazakhstan was strongly influenced by the Russian and Soviet pedagogical traditions.After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan went through significant changes in political, social and economic life which brought about shifts in value orientations and educational expectations (Yakavets, 2017).In these conditions, the organizational basis for the implementation of the state policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of education were the Law "On Education" (2019) and the State Program for the Development of Education for 2011-2020, which ensured the processes of radical modernization.
In addition, it should be noted the large-scale events in the country that have influenced the education process.Here are some of them: the alphabet of the Kazakh language based on Latin graphics has been approved; the project "New Humanitarian Knowledge.100 New Textbooks" (it initiated the translation into the state Kazakh language and digitization of 100 of the world's best textbooks in the field of socio-economic and humanitarian knowledge); the project "Sacred Geography of Kazakhstan" and the project "Modern Kazakh Culture in the Global World" were implemented.In 2017, the presentation of the Kazakh program "Rukhani zhangyru" took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, which showed the world community various directions of rich Kazakh culture (Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2017).
The post-Soviet period in the education system of Kazakhstan is characterized by significant reforms: new types of schools have appeared, such as Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS), private elite schools, author's schools, in which knowledge is provided to students according to author's programs.An example of such a school is the gymnasium "Self-knowledge" -School the "National Scientific and Practical, Education and Health Center »Bobek«".New textbooks, new subjects, new forms of education, new forms of assessment of learning outcomes indicate the modernization of education.
Since the 2015/2016 academic year, a reform of the gradual renewal of the content of the school curriculum began, which implied a single program in all subjects for all schools in the country and the introduction of trilingual education.School subjects were mastered in Kazakh, Russian and English.English was taught from the first grade.In general, the study of subjects was carried out in the language of instruction, i.e. in Kazakh schools -in the Kazakh language and, accordingly, in Russian schools -in Russian.However, regardless of the school, the subject "History of Kazakhstan" has been taught in Kazakh, whereas the subject "World History" is in the Russian language.In 2019, the senior classes (10-11) began to study according to the updated program: the subjects of chemistry, physics, biology and information technology began to be studied in English, also regardless of the language of instruction of the school.Another important event (2016-2018) of the reform period is the transition in schools to 12 years of education.
It should be noted that reforms in the school system did not always guarantee success.The country needed trained teachers with knowledge of the English language, who were in short supply.In addition, the teaching profession was not always attractive against the background of other professions, which was associated with low wages, the social status of the teacher, who was loaded with paperwork and constant reports.Similar fears were expressed at that time by the academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan, Yerezhep Alkhairovich Mambetkaziev: "The main problem that should be solved in the first place is the teaching staff.Of course, on paper it all looks spectacular and effective, but there is a problem with teachers.Not only are there few of them, but the competition for the position of a teacher is extremely low.First of all, it is necessary to increase the attractiveness of this profession" (Nazarbayev, 2000).The academician noted that only 3-6% of school graduates enter the university to study the teaching profession every year.Of these, only 13% go consciously and continue to work in schools.According to the statistics of the Ministry, at that time there were more than 350,000 teachers in the country.Of these, 32,000 were required to successfully teach English in high school.At the same time, about 15,000 teachers graduated from universities every year.Of these, 3,500 graduates studied under a special program with in-depth study of the English language (Materials of the International Scientific and Practical Conference, 2020, p. 133).
According to the new requirements, the approach to obtaining knowledge by students has changed significantly: now it is not the amount of reproductive information mastered by the child that is important, but the development of critical thinking -the ability to compare and analyze facts.Criteria-based assessment is an innovative approach to measuring student achievement.This technology made it possible to assess the student's personal achievements, identify his strengths and indicate those aspects that should be worked on.There are no current grades.You can learn about the effectiveness of the child's assimilation of educational material from the indicators of the control test, which completes the study of a particular topic or section.This section's total assessment (STA) has a percentage expression, that is, it shows how many percent the student completed the tasks.The teacher will present all this data in the student's electronic diary, which parents can view online.The sum of all STA for a quarter and the grade for the final test work constitute the final result of the student's knowledge.
The next reform in the schools of Kazakhstan took place in 2019-2020.It is associated with the development of additional education for schoolchildren, the improvement of working conditions for teachers and the quality of school textbooks.In this regard, advanced training courses for experts have been organized in the country, and a base of experts has been formed.Measures have been taken to free teachers from involvement in unusual functions and unforeseen reports, and teachers' salaries have increased.At the moment, a phased transition to 12-year education continues in secondary education.
It can be concluded that the essence of the transformations in the school system in Kazakhstan is dictated by integration into the global educational space and the requirement to increase the competitiveness of education, the development of human capital by ensuring the availability of quality education.
The organization and operation of the education system in Poland is regulated by the Act on the Education System, which has been in force since September 7, 1991.This law has been amended over 70 times.Educational policy is created and conducted centrally, while the administration and running of educational institutions is decentralized, remaining the responsibility of local governments.At the national level, education management is currently the responsibility of the Minister of Science and Education.He is responsible for the implementation and coordination of the state's educational policy and cooperates in this field with voivodes and other education management units.At the regional level, the man-agement functions are performed by the Education Superintendent, who is part of the regional administration, but implements the education policy by the minister of education.The Act of July 24, 1998, establishing a three-tier territorial division of the state defined tasks for communes, powiats and voivodeships regarding the obligation to run and establish schools at different levels.The school principal is the last level of management in a school or other educational institution (Adamowicz and Kmieciński, 2016).The school principal is responsible for managing the school and representing it outside.The role of the principal is seen as crucial to the successful implementation of any reform and improvement efforts.The principal is essentially responsible for shaping school culture (Snowden and Gorton, 1998;Tłuściak-Deliowska et al., 2017).The principal's role as hierarchical manager did not change very much for nearly a century, but it has continued to shift within the past thirty years or so.
The reforms introduced in the 1990s in Poland provided a certain stabilization of the system, but not all changes are assessed positively.Śliwerski (2020) made a critical analysis of the state of educational policy in Poland during the thirty years of the political transformation in 1989-2019.He even stated that the decentralization of the school system announced by the authorities after 1989 never took place, maintaining the model of top-down education.He emphasizes that the role of pedagogy should, therefore, be to provide society with theoretical tools so that it can better understand the processes that take place in it.

SCHOOL CULTURE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Researchers have long debated whether or not schools have cultures, or if they, in fact, are cultures (Bolman and Deal, 2003;Dernowska and Tłuściak-Deliowska, 2015).However, it is evident that school culture is something that is experienced by all members of school community, including students, their parents, teachers, administrators, as well as other staff members.As indicated by Fullan and Hargreaves (1996), there is an unspoken agreement among the staff members that instills this is "the way we do things and relate to each other around here" (p.37).
The concept of culture was borrowed from anthropology.However, there is no single universally agreed upon definition of school culture, but some of the more commonly accepted definitions include: (1) it consists of the shared beliefs and values that closely knit a community together; (2) it is the lens through which participants view themselves and the reality; (3) it is comprised of unwritten norms, rules, and traditions that permeate everything: the way people act and dress, what they talk about, and how teachers feel about their work and their students (Deal and Peterson, 1999).In the field of educational administration, many scholars adopt Schein's classification of cultural levels.It consists of three layers that differ regarding their visibility within schools and their consciousness among staff.The "deepest", least tangible level of culture consists of basic assumptions (relationship to environment, nature of reality, nature of human nature, nature of human activity and relationships) shared by teachers, which comprise the core of school culture.Because of the taken-for-granted nature of the assumptions, teachers often are no longer aware of the beliefs that underlie the daily interpretation of their duties.The second level in Schein's model consists of values and norms.Values refer to what teachers believe to be good, right or desirable.Although they are not always conscious of the values that guide their behavior, most are able to express their core values.Values (e.g.collaboration) are often "translated" into norms for behavior.In fact, they are unwritten rules according to which people are expected to act.The third level in Schein's classification scheme consists of artifacts and practices.In cultural artifacts (such as symbols, myths, rites, rituals) as well as in behavioral patterns, the basic assumptions, values and behavioral norms of a school are "visualized".Based on this model, Maslowski (2006) identifies three aspects of culture: content (the substance -usually organized into dimensions), homogeneity (the extent to which assumptions, values, and norms are shared by the staff), and strength (the extent to which the culture exerts pressure upon school staff to behave in concert with its dictates).
In the 1990s, the concept of school culture started to appear together with the concept of school climate.Both are used to describe the character of the school, and both are frequently used interchangeably, although it is still a point of discussion whether they are actually the same or not, and how to relate climate with culture (van Houtte and van Maele, 2011).According to Hoy et al. (1991), school climate is typically viewed from a psychological perspective, while school culture is viewed from an anthropological perspective.Tagiuri (1968) highlights that climate is a multidimensional concept consisting of four dimensions: (1) the ecology or physical surroundings, (2) the characteristics of people participating in the organization, (3) the social system, and ( 4 The culture of schools is one of the recurring themes in educational research, and the interest in studying school culture is systematically growing.This is reflected in the growing number of publications on the subject.In general, in the 1980s, it was underlined the importance of school culture and the system of val-© 2023 by: Aleksandra Tłuściak-Deliowska, Urszula Dernowska, Aigerim Kosherbayeva This is an Open Access Article Under the CC BY 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)ues within a school as change-enabling factors (e.g.Fullan, 1982).Simultaneously, another wave of interest in theories of organization and school management was raised in the US.The research projects focused on efficient management (Torrington et al., 1989), on educational leadership, accentuating the educational job of the school, and on the explanation of the relation between school culture and change (Sarason, 1985).At the same time, there was a shift of the researchers' attention from the school as a whole towards individual sub-cultures (teachers, pupils, teaching, decision-making, etc.) or towards partial elements or processes which are perceived as relevant for, manifested through, or influenced by the culture of the school.Currently, the exploration of school culture is more performed at the level of a specific school rather than at the level of certain system of schools (Pol et al., 2005).

RESEARCH AIM
School culture is the subject of research by many scientists in different countries.While in the Western world this type of studies has been carried out for a long time with the use of various research strategies and focused on researching various aspects of this form, there are definitely fewer of them in Eastern countries.The aim is to systematically review Polish and Kazakh empirical research on school culture published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.The subject be the analysis of understanding/defining the category of school culture, methods of its research and a review of more important findings.The article reviews and compares the approaches commonly used to understand and study this concept and phenomena in educational research conducted in the analyzed two countries over the last 30 years.

RESEARCH METHOD AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURE
To find relevant literature, a search strategy consisting of several stages was developed.At the beginning, a search of the following databases was undertaken to identify empirical studies on school culture in Kazakhstan and in Poland: Education Source, Academic Search Ultimate, ERIC, Teacher Reference Center, Web of Science.The timeframe of the search activity was January-April 2022.Search items were the following terms: "school culture", "organizational culture of school", "culture of the school", "school climate", "school characteristics", "educational environment", and "school environment".Search parameters were set to include peer-reviewed journal articles published in English, Kazakh and Polish in the last 30 years.
In the next stage, it was decided to search the publications in the Google Scholar.This Internet search engine contains mainly online scientific articles published by the world's largest publishing houses.Texts concerning Poland and Kazakhstan were searched in parallel.The following search strategy was used.The publication date after 1991 was still the criterion.We searched for works published in English where the words "school culture" or "organizational culture of school" or "culture of the school" or "school environment" appeared anywhere in the article, as well as in the title.4,560 results were obtained for Poland, as far as the expression "school culture" is concerned, and 607 for Kazakhstan.The obtained results were then "manually" checked in terms of the title and then the abstract.Non-empirical texts, reviews or popular science publications were rejected.Based on this strategy, documents that were potentially relevant for further systematic review were identified, selected, and read.
Each study qualified for the review was critically assessed.The evaluation was carried out by two independent teams: Polish and Kazakh.Critical evaluation is often combined with data extraction (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006).At this stage, key details and information from each study qualified for review were extracted and entered directly into the previously prepared table.The last stage was the qualitative analysis and synthesis of the obtained data, searching for patterns and interpretations.Details are provided below.

The state of Kazakh research on school culture
It should be noted that the Internet search engine and Kazakhstani publications cover different aspects of school culture.Ten articles were analyzed, which have scientific value and practical significance in terms of studying the problems of school education in general.However, there is practically no consideration of the very concept of school culture in them.This indicates that the actual problem has not yet become the subject of close and special research by theorists and practitioners.And yet, in the available studies, we will try to highlight the general conceptual picture of the problem.Researchers of school culture pay attention to the behavioral aspect, value orientations of schoolchildren and teachers, their attitude to the environment.Some studies develop a narrow understanding of school culture, which includes an atmosphere of mutual respect between all interested parties, state the value of teaching and learning; achievements, successes and constant cooperation.There are areas of research linking the development of school culture with communication.
Along with the concept of school culture, some researchers use the concept of school information culture, which implies not only computer ownership, but the ability to extract information, structure it, process it and use it in their professional activities.This opinion is shared by Grinshkun and Orynbayeva (2021).The analysis of points of view showed the use of quantitative methods to study information elements of culture that form artifacts of school culture.In some cases, mixed methods are not excluded: quantitative and qualitative.For example, Surovitskaya's (2021) research provides not only quantitative data, but also an interpretive analysis of the mechanisms and pedagogical conditions of social adaptation of younger schoolchildren and the formation of communicative abilities.In fact, the subtext of the problem under consideration implies school culture.Since social adaptation directly depends on the degree of formation of educational skills, which affect not only the effectiveness of teaching students, but also the process of socialization and personal development as a whole.The author offers several types of skills: to build productive cooperation with peers and adults (in pairs, groups, in teams); the ability to work with information (express your thoughts with sufficient completeness and accuracy in oral and written form, listen and read with understanding).
The reform of the education system of the Republic of Kazakhstan has also affected the area of psychological safety of students, psychologically comfortable stay of a student from the very beginning of education to graduation.There was such a definition of the concept as school communities.These are united groups that share common interests and goals.The essence of creating school communities is to provide support, attention and care for their students and encourage the formation of connections between teachers and students.An urgent topic affecting school culture is the creation and maintenance of a favorable psychological climate and psychological environment at school.Today this problem is considered as one of the most important factors of psychological safety of students.Psychological safety of students in the educational environment is a necessary condition for their successful personal and intellectual development.
In a word, the review of Kazakhstani studies suggests that there is a lack of research that deeply studies the problem.This means that researchers are still describing culture through the prism of educational problems.There are studies that resort to the retrospective method and questionnaires are often used here.The main methodological approaches and the results of the analysis are presented in Table 1.
Thus, research on the problem of school culture in Kazakhstan is clearly insufficient, there are no works directly related to this topic.However, the growing trend in the number of publications on school problems, in general, allows us to expect positive changes in this direction.The state of Polish research on school culture Eleven studies were included for review.Key methodological features and findings of the analyzed studies are presented in Table 2. Most of the studies under review associated school culture with a set of basic assumptions, values, norms, and patterns of behavior.In details, however, the approach to school culture seems to be varied and although the authors cite the theoretical foundations of their own research, not all of them clearly present their understanding of school culture.As a result, school culture is differently perceived and studied in various ways.
In the included studies, two basic methodological approaches are used: objectivistic-positivistic and subjectivistic-interpretative.These two approaches differ by epistemological base, and by their data gathering and analyzing methods.For exploring cognitive elements of culture, such as assumptions, values, norms, and attitudes, quantitative methods are most often used.Qualitative methods, in turn, are used for exploring symbolic elements of culture.These elements are everything that can be seen, heard, or touched within an organization (e.g.behavioral practices, rituals, jargon, metaphors, legends, stories).It is also possible to apply a hybrid approach which combines elements of both strategies: quantitative and qualitative.
Looking from this perspective at the information presented in Table 2, one can see a clear dominance of quantitative research.It seems that the choice of quantitative strategy is dictated by the more or less conscious assumption that school culture can be identified, described, and measured by objective categorial inventories independent from it.It means that the research is neutral and the researcher is an objective observer who describes the culture via representational method.School culture is explored from the outside.Questionnaires are the most often used in this type of research.The research lacks depth because the scope of cultural elements is sacrificed for the set of finding precise and replicable measurements of school culture.However, questionnaires allowed for coverage of a large number of people and/or schools (Dobrowolska, 2010;Dorczak, 2011;Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2013;Dobrzyniak, 2015;Strutynska and Karwowski, 2018), as well as speed and ease of information gathering.It is noticeable that the different scales used measure a structure with the same name and are thus assumed to reflect the same construct.However, this assumption may be wrong, because using the same term to describe two different phenomena does not mean that they are the same phenomena.This situation makes it difficult to compare research results from different studies.Moreover, the individual scales that make up the school's culture relate to areas of school reality that may be the subject of separate studies.Solving this difficulty is possible thanks to the use of standardized and proven methodological tools, which were developed on the basis of a specific theory concerning school culture.Such works are clearly missing in Poland.However, the growing tendency in the number of publications dedicated to school culture, which can be seen based on the above list, allows for a positive change in this area to be expected.One of the included studies was qualitative (Konieczny-Pizoń, 2021).School culture was explored not by measurement, but by understanding how children perceive certain elements of the culture of the school whose community they form.Such an approach seems to stem from the assumption that school culture cannot be objectively identified and measured, but only interpreted.That is because the culture does not exist outside of people's minds and must be explored "from within".
In the research subject to the study, one represented a hybrid approach (Jakubowska, 2018).The case study involved researching the culture of one school.In this case both qualitative and quantitative methods were used, and objectivistic and subjectivistic approaches were combined in the project.The advantage of the research was the depth and scope of the study and the extent of the data obtained.Obviously, the conclusions drawn from the analysis of these data are not generalized.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The culture of the school draws attention to the particular aspects of school life and brings out the meaning of "who we are" and "how we do things here".Despite different interpretations of the very category of school culture, there is a consensus among researchers that its cognitive value results from a holistic approach to various aspects of school everyday life and is, therefore, helpful in learning and understanding the nature of school life and institutionalized education.
Although publications from the last 30 years were analyzed, therefore from the times after the post-socialist political transformation after 1989, which affected both analyzed countries, there were not many publications that met the imposed analytical criteria.The results showed considerable differences in the nature of the empirical discourse regarding school culture.The higher level of advancement of research on school culture is visible in the publications of Polish researchers.These articles are also increasingly published in English, and, therefore, begin to function internationally.In addition, similarities, and differences in the approach to the subject of research were noticed.
The aim of the present review was to promote understanding of the ways in which researchers' views on school culture have been represented both in quantitative and qualitative research.On the basis of the review of research, it can be concluded that scientific approaches to this issue are characterized by a kind of heterogeneity.Some researchers treat the culture of the school as a reflection of certain aspects of the organization.Thus, culture is considered as a certain variable performing specific functions in relation to the organization (instrumental approach).Others, in turn, are inclined to identify culture with a "system of meanings" that are the result of social interactions between members of the school community (interpretative approach).
Taking into account Kazakh publications, it should be noted that the dominant approach is the quantitative one, which means using questionnaires covering various aspects of school functioning.However, there are no studies that address school culture issue directly.
Among the presented Polish studies, quantitative studies dominate too.The basic premise of this research is the belief that culture, as such, can be objectively captured, described and measured from the outside, in a kind of neutral way.Quantitative strategies are used when trying to determine the behavior of people inside the organization.Thus, the basic assumptions, values, norms and attitudes that determine the behavior of the members of the organization are studied, show how they understand the reality around them.
Undoubtedly, quantitative research quickly delivers results, research methodology favors the commercialization of results, carries the possibility of comparison, generalization, transfer of conclusions to other schools, provides practical suggestions for a possible change in school culture.However, this research is characterized by a kind of rigidity, because a certain categorization framework is imposed on culture -everything that these frames do not cover simply escapes.Hence the risk of a superficial view of the school's culture, ignoring its dynamics and the historical background of development.Thus, there is an impression that culture is something constant, unchanging, static, and this is not the case.Reflections, based on the findings resulting from the analysis of the state of school culture research in Poland over the last three decades, lead to the conclusion that at that time few studies were carried out aimed at deep understanding, cognition, penetration into the deeper layers of culture, focused on a larger number of elements of organizational culture, including both the history and context of the development of school culture.
Culture in each individual school affects the development of each child and, in general, society.It is necessary to strive to ensure that the type of culture is of the highest level, so that students and teachers are interested in developing in this direction, since culture unites students, teachers and parents within the school.Therefore, the study of this topic is important and valuable.
On the one hand, research on this phenomenon will allow not only to organize the conceptual foreground, but also to deepen the understanding of the functions that culture performs in the school organization.On the other hand, focusing on the culture of the school and becoming aware of the numerous functions it performs in the organization (e.g.equipping members of the school community with shared patterns of commitment to norms and values; drawing a boundary, so members and non-members may be identified; functioning as a control system, that tells what to do and what not to do) allows us to conclude that the quality of the school is determined not only by its changes at the systemic level, but also at bottom-up level.

STUDY LIMITATIONS
This study is limited in several ways.First, the present study did not determine the degree of homogeneity of the studies included in an analysis.For further research, it is vital to explore possible publication bias.To present a picture of the included studies, a funnel plot of the standard error on the vertical axis and the converted Fisher Z effect size on the horizontal axis could be computed and examined.Second, as this study was focused on the studies conducted in Kazakhstan and Poland, the relevance of the findings may be limited to this particular context.Third, the present study took school culture as one entity.Thus, future studies may investigate its dimensions more separately in order to better understand how this phenomenon is perceived by researchers in the analyzed two countries over the last 30 years.
© 2023 by: Aleksandra Tłuściak-Deliowska, Urszula ) the culture: the whole of beliefs, values, and meanings.It is clear that from this point of view, climate encompasses culture.Similarly, van Houtte (2005) describes school culture as a component of climate, whereas Schoen and Teddlie (2008) assert that climate is better understood as a level of school culture.Their integrated model of culture describes school culture as being comprised of four different dimensions: (I) Professional Orientation, (II) Organizational Structure, (III) Quality of the Learning Environment, and (IV) Student-Centered Focus.Schoen and Teddlie express the overlapping and complementary nature of the dimensions (pp.139-147).

Table 1 .
Studies of school culture in Kazakhstan, which were included in the analysis