Relationship-Oriented Organizational Culture and Educational Community-Building Competence of Early Childhood Teachers in Korea: The Mediating Role of Teacher Empowerment

• Published in: International Journal of Early Childhood Education Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 1 - 18
• Main Authors: KaiSook Chung, 김미나, 차지량
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국유아교육학회 01.06.2019
• Subjects: 교육학
• ISSN: 1226-9557; 2733-9653
• DOI: 10.18023/ijece.2019.25.1.001

Korea is facing a turbulent situation of educational reform in which distrust and conflict among members of the educational community are rising, but a demand exists to transform the school into an educational community that can realize authentic education based on care, cooperation, communication, and respect among members. This study aimed to investigate the association among the relationship-oriented organizational culture of early childhood education institutions, teachers’ psychological empowerment, and teachers’ competence in building an educational community. We surveyed 346 early childhood teachers in Korea, and found that the relationship-oriented organizational culture better predicted competence in educational community building in combination with psychological empowerment. Further, the influence of psychological empowerment differed depending on specific competences. The findings suggest that, in order to build teachers’ competency in building an educational community, teacher training programs should be geared towards the relationship-oriented organizational culture and the specific competence of the individual. KCI Citation Count: 0