Innovative Teachers in Hungarian Schools

The Hungarian educational system has been changed rapidly in the last decade, which has fundamentally transformed the status and position of teachers as well. The study attempts to explore how innovative, knowledge-intensive teachers perceive their own organizational environment based on their opinion regarding three main areas: image of an ideal school, organizational socialization and culture as well as leadership. The research was basically based on qualitative elements: structured interviews, career path narrative and focus group discussions. Besides qualitative analyses, the large-scaled teacher survey was also used. Many of these teachers formulate a concept of a good school in general on the basis of a performance aspect and emphasize the role of school climate. Within this, however, the opinions are highly segmented. There are several factors in school climate (teacher-teacher relationship, teacher-student relationship, teacher-parent relationship, school leadership, common values and norms). Based on the analysis, three socialization patterns were identified, which are distinguished by the level of support, formalization and the role of the newcomer. We've compared the above with organizational culture elements appearing covertly in the responses.