Transferring Corporate Social Responsibility to the School context: teachers’ perceived responsibility for students' failure.

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has a variety of definitions and, within the academic literature, some confusion about how SCR should be operationalized and measured is present (Godfrey & Hatch, 2006). In general SCR refers to the obligations organizations have toward society (Fisher, 2004). Considering the school as a particular but real formal corporate, this chapter explores the social responsibility related to the school “mission”, that is the accomplishment of school curriculum. The school (i.e. its legal representatives: teachers and headmasters) fulfils its social obligations when students achieve school goals. But what happens when students are not successful at school? Teachers are the most directly responsible for learning, and the social contract assigns responsibility for education to schools (Del Schalock, H. 1998). This chapter identifies the relationship between causal and responsibility ascription in case of failure, stressing the role of effort as “cutting edge” of discussion about accountability for student/pupil learning. Perceived social responsibility for failure in teachers and students is taken into account and results of previous studies concerning teachers perceived responsibility in case of school failure are presented and discussed (Matteucci, 2007; Matteucci & Gosling, 2004). According to Weiner (1995) it is argued that effort attribution and responsibility ascription are mutually related, however teachers are reluctant to accept their responsibility for students’ failure, thus assigning responsibility to the failing students. The issue of responsibility and accountability for student learning will be discussed and implications of the results for teachers’ work will be considered.