Institutional Leaders’ Cultural Intelligence and Organisational Climate in Public Primary Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5564/lavai.v22i34.5213Keywords:
Cultural awareness, Cultural flexibility, Cultural intelligence, School climateAbstract
This study investigated the relationship between institutional leaders’ cultural intelligence (CQ) and organisational climate in public primary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. It examined three CQ indices, intercultural awareness, cultural flexibility, and cultural influence, and their relationships with school climate in a highly diverse urban context like Lagos. The research used a descriptive survey design, sampling 818 teachers from 1,018 public primary schools using a multistage sampling technique. Data were collected through a researcher-developed instrument entitled: Cultural Intelligence and School Climate Questionnaire (CQ-SCQ) and analysed using Pearson Product-Moment Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The study tested three null hypotheses: (1) intercultural awareness has no significant relationship with school climate; (2) cultural flexibility is not significantly correlated with school climate; (3) cultural influence is not significantly related to school climate. Results rejected all three null hypotheses: intercultural awareness (r = 0.55, P < 0.001), cultural flexibility (r = 0.41, P < 0.001), and cultural influence (r = 0.39, P < .001) each showed significant, positive relationships with school climate. The study concluded that school leaders’ cultural intelligence highly contributes to an open and engaged school climate. It also reported a significant relationship between leaders’ cultural flexibility and public primary schools’ climate in Lagos State. Based on the findings, the study recommends periodic CQ training for head-teachers, deliberate cultivation of cultural flexibility, and structured opportunities for leaders to engage across cultural groups to strengthen inclusivity, teacher support, and overall school climate.
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