| Abstract: |
Concerned with the conflicting goals, purposes, and roles that characterize schools, this paper examines the relationships among educators, the wider educational community, and society in general as these relationships affect schools' organizational functioning. The focus is a theoretical model that attempts to explain how the microbehaviors of individuals and small groups produce the macrolevel structures and functions representing schooling as an institution. The theoretical problem is how to depict a model that: (1) accounts for individual acts, decisions, and practices while accommodating schooling to societal changes; and (2) adequately captures the tensions underlying all of social life. The paper is organized into four parts. The first discusses the dynamic tensions inherent in the wider society. The second part describes the work of M. B. Miles (1981) on mapping the common properties of schools in terms of the nine organizational dilemmas common to all schools. Part 3, accompanied by several figures, extends Miles' analysis of these dilemmas to include a decision band theory of school effectiveness. The final part discusses the model's implications for numerous issues, including environmental change, methodological issues relevant to empirical testing, and educational utility. (26 references) (MLH) |
