ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE AND WORK SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF BEDUIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN ISRAEL

The purpose of this study is to focus on Israeli Beduin school teachers and examine the nature of their satisfaction with the job, perception of organizational climate, and their interaction. The 185 elementary school teachers included in the study are predominantly Israeli Arabs, expected to function within a modern organization and become change agents to the Beduin pupils. Job satisfaction has been measured by twenty‐three items, resulting in two major factors: task issues and interaction with other people. Organizational climate includes fifty‐four items, condensed into two factors: principal‐teachers relations, and negative feelings about the school's atmosphere. The effect of climate on satisfaction was examined in two separate regression models, one where the dependent variable is the task aspect of satisfaction, and the other is the human relations aspect. Climate factors have been found to have a strong and meaningful explanatory power only in the former satisfaction model. The latter has an overall weak explanatory value. Throughout the analyses, the role of principal‐teachers relations appears to be dominant.