Class councils: Organization, leadership & autonomy

Abstract

The need of knowledge and reflection about the organization, leadership and autonomy of the Class Council (CC) of the current school, from the perspective of the different actors, is assumed as a prerequisite to the development and improvement of its performance. Aware that the CC, can be the center enquire motor of significant changes, we present our study aimed to: Know the work of the CC; Chandler the conditions for the exercise of leadership by the director and/or team coordinator; Contrast the autonomy and functioning of the CC with the exercise of educational teams. The study develops a mixed methodology (questionnaires, interviews and discussion groups), to a sample obtained from the universe of two groups of schools to which parallel was developed benchmarking and focusing the research questions in three main areas: Organization, Leadership, Autonomy. The results confirm the importance of the CC as a key piece in the administrative and pedagogical organization in the Portuguese education system, concluding the difficulty to substitute them by the educational teams. The class of Director’s leadership has a direct influence on the functioning of the CC. The CC has a consensual autonomy, cause and consequence of their operational difficulties.