MODULE 2.

LESSON 2

TOPIC TO BE DISCUSSED: Key Elements of School as a Social System

SOCIAL SYSTEM

Social System is social organization. It is a organization that possess creativity beyond its component
parts. It is distinguished from its environment by a clearly defined boundary. Social System refers to
Activities and Interaction of groups consisting of members that brought together for a common purpose.
Classroom is a good example of Social System.

Social system theory is important and significant factor directly influencing school effectiveness. It is not
out of place to state that, social system constituent promotes working environments with defined
rewarding structure, supervisory practices, work policies and supportive management structures which
are important features koof effective school. This implies that, clearly defined work role where teachers
are made to understand the goals and expectations of the schools, supported with adequate supervision,
opportunities for participatory decision making, interaction flows that are governed by professionalism
and competence, in addition to healthy teamwork enhances effectiveness of schools, thus, positive and
greater work outcome. Teachers have greater motivation to self-develop in their skills and knowledge,
and are more willing to harmonized or align their individual goals with that of the school and the
community which are expected to greatly benefit the entire school. Hence administrators need to take in
to cognizance the significance of social system in achieving school effectiveness.

So now let us discuss the schools are social systems with the following key elements

 Structure: Roles are expectations of positions that are arranged in a hierarchy

 Similar to those of formal organizations. Bureaucratic expectations rule organizational
behavior. Roles that are derived from those expectations are represented by positions in
a hierarchy. The hierarchy distributes tasks to specialized individuals, and the
Organization is a result of the division of labor (Parsons, 1960).

 Individual: is the key unit in any social systems; regardless of position, people bring with them
individual needs, beliefs, and cognitive understanding of the job
 Individuals and educators’ found in school come from society. It is only natural that their
thinking should influence life in the school. Each individual has a different set of needs
and beliefs that affect behavior. Individual needs and expectations are flexible and
adaptable to formal roles, and thus they provide a room for discretion in behavior.
Individuals interpret their roles according to their behavior.

 Culture: represents the unwritten feeling part of the organization. Its shared values
 Culture is the most visible aspect of the organizational life that distinguishes it from
others. Culture significantly affects behavior through establishing commitment to shared
norms among individuals. Refers to the way of teachers and staff members work
together and the set of their beliefs, values, and assumptionation.

 Politics: informal power relations that develop spontaneously

  Informal power refers to the ability to lead or direct without a proper or official
leadership title, it means in school we also have politics but not the same in our
government. This kind of politics makes individuals or the students involved and that is
why the organization work in unity.

 Technical Core: teaching and learning process is the technical core of school
 Teacher and learning process is statistical core of school. So this means that they are
mean or the heart or the core of the education.

 Environment: everything outside the organization, source of input

 Everything outside the organization is source of input so this means that these could
help improve the organization or the school.

 Outcomes: So this are now the products of organization, e.g educated students
 So these are now the out the outcomes of the education.

 Feedback Coops Internal and External: communication that monitors behavior

 Feedback coops internal and external so internal means the indicator that a certain
element needs to be addressed in order to have a good feedback regarding to the
element of a social system. While the external means that it is what we see from the
outside from the word external it is the product of our school that is evaluated in order
to determine that certain organizational work well.

1. Do you think that above elements of school as a social system is very important? Why?
o These elements are essential because they provide the leading indicators that have
positive effect on student learning.

2. What is the role of each element in school?

o Schools offer assistance to shape a differing populace into one society with a shared
national character and plan future eras for their citizenship parts. Students are
instructed around laws and our political way of life through civic lessons, and they’re
instructed patriotism through ceremonies such as saluting the flag.

3. Are you affected as a pre-service teacher in these key elements of school as asocial system?
How?
o I can say that I am affected as a pre service teacher because these elements it help me
to prepare as a student-teachers to become qualified teacher in the future.