An overview of the behaviour and discipline index

Contextual implications and organizational specifications

Abstract

The task of the education system - in addition to knowledge transfer - is to transfer values and behaviour patterns. By exercising the function of cultural reproduction, the education system is involved in ensuring social integration. In this respect, compared to other social subsystems, the education system is of paramount importance, on the one hand, for acquiring and shaping values and ways of thinking and, on the other hand, for reaching large populations in a development period sensitive to the emergence of problematic behaviours. The norms prevalent in the school, and the adaptation to them, are also connected to the school’s effectiveness.
The aim of the study is to examine empirically the problematic behaviors and the organizational determinants of their pedagogical perceptions. In our analysis, we focused on the behaviour and discipline index formed by a multi-stage mathematical procedure based on the annual data of the National Assessment of Basic Competencies (OKM) about school principals’ perception of various problematic behaviours. In addition, the article also raises issues related to the validity of the discipline index by analyzing the factual basis of the subjective data underlying it and the mechanism of indexation.
Our results show that the examined informal organizational features do not correlate with the size of the discipline index. The expected relationship with organizational features could not be detected even after controlling for the annual fluctuation of the discipline index. Our analyses to examine the validity of the discipline index indicate that while school principals’ perceptions show some relationship with students’ behaviour, it is mainly influenced by other as yet unexplored mechanisms.