Date of Graduation

1974

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This study inquired into the value structure of educational institutions operating under a collective bargaining contract. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to analyze comparatively the relationship between professional values and the content of collective bargaining contracts. The research directed itself to the study of the degree to which contract content facilitated professional values and to the variation in this Degree of Facilitation due the factor's contract section, bargaining agent, and institutional level. This threefactor design contains five levels of contract section (contract management, general, governance, academic, and benefits), three levels of institutional level (public schools, junior or community colleges, and colleges and universitities), and three levels of bargaining agent (NEA, AFT, and AAUP). The steps in utilization of this design were to (1) observe vector response, with the respective elements being (a) constraining content, (b) neutral content, and (c) facilitating content, and then transform the vector responses to an interval scale identified as the Degree of Facilitation for each of the four professional values identified by Komhouser (expertise, autonomy, commitment, and responsibility); (2) examine the main effects of contract section, bargaining agent, and institutional level on the Degree of Facilitation; and (3) examine the interaction of the factors on the Degree of Facilitation. A content analysis codebook defining the categories and coding procedures was developed to extract the data from the contracts. The population of the study was limited to those states hcving both public and higher education collective bargaining contracts with either the NEA, the AFT, or the AAUP as of January 1, 1973. A purposive sample of 20 public school contracts, 10 junior college contracts, and 15 college and university contracts were chosen to represent the population. The data collected was analyzed through a three-factor univariant split plot analyses of variance and Least Significant Difference method. Through inductive analysis, the relationships among the findings, the theoretical propositions, and the opinions and judgments expressed in the literature were discussed. The contracts reflected that: 1. Professionalism was implicit in the collective bargaining contract content. Inferences to the professional values of autonomy, responsibility, and commitment inferred in greater numbers than inferences to expertise in the contracts. 2. The NEA's contract clauses displayed a significantly higher professional orientation in commitment and responsibility than the A F rs . However, the AFT maintains an advantage over the NEA and AAUP in ability to get clauses into contracts that reflect inferences to professional values. 3. The dual processes of professionalization and bureaucratization occurred in educational institutions. Autonomy was bureaucratized. Commitment and responsibility showed signs of bureaucratization and professionalization. Expertise was the only professional value which remained entirely under a professional orientation. 4 . Bargaining agents presently do not have enough power to completely countervail bureaucratic authority. The evidence supports teacher unification in order to gain more power. The AFT's ideological association with labor unions influenced the value structure of their clauses and appears to be the only prohibitive aspect to unification. 5. Educational institutions react to the conflict of professionalbureaucratic values by passively adapting through the collective bargaining process. A value system coalition reflected by the contracts, neither professional nor bureaucratic, was described as "compromised professionalism." 6. Through collective bargaining, it is possible to strengthen professionalism. Collective bargaining can enhance the service objectives of professionals by allowing professionals to acquire more expertise to share with society. 7 . Educational administrators must continue their efforts to professionalize themselves in order to maintain administrative sovereignty

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