Formalizing Institutional Identity: A Workable Idea?

Educational institutions have institutional identities that, in most cases, seem to have developed spontaneously. In numerous instances, there seems never to have been a conscious effort to purposely define the identity of the institution at the outset, i.e., to establish an institution with a deliberate process of defining sources of meaning for the institution on the basis of a set of religious, life-conceptual, philosophical or cultural attributes, and values that are given priority over other sources of meaning. For a collective social actor such as an educational institution (cf. Castells 1998, p. 6), there may even be a plurality of identities, the existence of some of which the institution may not be consciously aware of. In most cases, the identity of a particular educational institution, such as a school, college, or university, seems to have developed as a result of the way in which the individuals forming the totality of the institution strove for “success in action” (Blackburn 1996, p. 297).