School organizational culture as an import ant factor of student’s individual development

There are numerous factors contributing to development of an individual. Paper presents the issue of school organizational culture or school climate as a factor important for individual development of students in schools. It gives definition and description of educationally specific organizational culture and tries to show its main characteristics underlying their developmental importance. Author tries to show it in the context of two different theories: Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of individual socio-moral development form the field of developmental psychology and theories of organizational culture known from general management theory. Main aim of the paper is to show elements of organizational culture important from the perspective of development of an individual. Author tries to describe features of school organizational culture ‘ideal’ for the best development of an individual. Such theoretical basis is used to present results of research on school culture of existing schools in Poland. Author presents results of assessment of school culture done by the group of more than 1500 teachers from more than 100 Polish schools of different types. It shows how different school cultures are and how they are different from that ‘ideal type’ of organizational culture from the perspective of developmental needs of individuals. It also tries to recommend directions of school culture transformations needed to support better individual development of students.